Bhoja Airlines crashes near Islamabad, The fateful Boeing 737 with 121 passengers and six crew members on board, which flew from Karachi at 5:00 PM was supposed to land in Islamabad at 6:50 PM, crashed just before touchdown. Rescuers say the plane’s wreck was ablaze when they arrived at the site with mangled dead bodies, severed body parts, burnt luggage, and small parts of the fuselage strewn over all over the place in roughly one square kilometer area. According to sources in Civil Aviation Authority, the flight was given clearance to land but it lost contact with the control tower at 6:40 PM. read more

Striking Air India Strike Pilots Unlikely, The 71 pilots who have been fired by Air India for illegally striking against the airline are unlikely to be reinstated, according to India’s Civil aviation minister Ajit Singh. The official said the pilots would have to present very compelling evidence as to why they went on strike during a high-volume travel season and against the order of the Delhi high court. read more

Air Bagan Airlines may be Myanmar’s fastest growing airline even having international ambitions but we had the experience they are not really that well organized internally. We booked a number of domestic flights with them and tickets were written out with OK status on February the 12th when we picked them up in their downtown Yangon office. After arrival in HEH we contacted Air Bagan in Taunggyi who told us no flights were cancelled. We asked them to verify this again and later that night Air Bagan called us we didn’t have to worry and the AKY-RGN flight would certainly fly. read more

Flew Air Austral Airlines return Sydney to Mauritius. Male flight attendants on the flight to RUN – nice however food provided is limited and alcohol only during meal times. Water is in short supply and passengers at the back of the plane were forgotten about almost all the time and rationing of water became an issue towards the end of the journey. Passengers were made to stay overnight in RUN – hotel stay provided to some passengers were terrible, no assistance from the airline or hotel and dinner not provided (incur at passenger’s expense). read more

Travelled from Glasgow to Sanford on a Travel City Direct 747 operated by Air Atlanta Europe Airlines. Paid for a double upgrade to Sunshine First Upper deck (or something like that). If this was two upgrades I shudder to think what economy was like. Leg room average at best. Meal – average to poor, entertainment – poor (no seat back TVs). Staff ok, but could be clearly heard complaining about their pay and conditions. The plane appeared old and tatty. For what we paid for upgrades we could have gone on a proper aircraft. I’ve travelled Travel City many times and consider tham good value for money when I’ve flown Air 200, Thomas Cook, Airtours/MyTravel, however that ‘TravelCityDirect jumbo gets built up to be a lot more than it is. Upgrades definitely not worth the money. read more