Foal Eagle protests divert air traffic around North Korea

by Tom Johansmeyer on

Korean Air and Asiana Airlines are followed by Air Canada and Singapore Airlines in routing flights around North Korean airspace. The change comes as a result of North Korean warnings that it “cannot guarantee the safety of South Korean passenger jets” if the United States and South Korea move forward with annual joint military maneuvers. This annual event yields an annual complaint.

The exercise, called Operation Foal Eagle, is one of three remaining joint exercises left on the Korean peninsula. North Korea is notified every year of the operation, which tends to involve a large number of U.S. military personnel stationed in South Korea. This year, participation is expected to reach 26,000. The countries involved have engaged in high-level talks on the matter.

The communist regime did not indicate the specific problems that would befall South Korean flights that came to close to their neighbor’s airspace, though two flights were downed in the 1980s: one by a Soviet-made fighter jet (1983) and one by bomb-toting North Korean agents (1987).

Of course, North Korea may have issued the warning because it has its own plans for that airspace, with MSNBC reporting that “Kim [Jong Il, North Korea’s leader] hinted the threat could be a way to clear airspace before a possible missile launch.”

[Photo via Gawker]

Age old question of chicken or beef ends up in Court of Appeals

by Scott Carmichael on

Chicken or beef? It’s the question almost everyone on an International flight will end up hearing at one point (unless of course you are flying up front, where you’ll probably get more choices).

Millions of people answer this question every year, and are presented with a meal that is somehow meant to represent their choice.

On an American Airlines flight from Zurich to New York several years ago, passenger Pierre Delis was only offered one choice – beef or beef?

The normal reaction to the lack of chicken would be to roll your eyes, perhaps even mention to the poor flight attendant what a horrible airline she is working for.

Not so with Mr. Delis. His lack of a chicken option escalated into a verbal battle, and ended with the flight attendant getting a punch in her stomach.

Now, punching a flight attendant is never a good idea, but to do so when the plane is airborne is turns the whole thing into a nasty mess. Mr. Delis was arrested and convicted of “simple assault”. He was sentenced to “time served” and was told to pay a $10 court fee (I’d say he got off really easy).

Not content with having a criminal record, Mr. Delis has been battling the ruling for years, and his case finally came to an end this week when the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan unanimously ruled that his conviction should stand. His argument that he never intended to injure the flight attendant was not sufficient to change the mind of the Court.

Cathay Pacific worker disciplined; woman says airport tantrum video has embarrassed her

by Jeffrey White on


We posted this ridiculous video a few weeks back, and it’s generated quite a lot of reaction from Gadling readers.

There are some who say the woman should be ashamed about the way she is behaving in this video, having just missed her flight from Hong Kong International to San Francisco. Other, more compassionate souls among us urge the benefit of the doubt, given that we don’t know really why she is so upset about missing the flight — she might, after all, be heading to a funeral or wedding.

(English translations of the video, however, pretty much refute this, given that in her fits of hysteria she mentions nothing of a dead relative or anything).

Anyway, here’s an update: Cathay Pacific has disciplined the gate worker who shot this video on his mobile phone. While he recorded it, apparently a third party posted it on YouTube.

To date, the video has drawn nearly 5 million views and has generated 18,000 comments (though, sadly, not all on Gadling).

Cathay has also apologized to the woman and offered to give her a free upgrade the next time she flies. The as still unidentified woman met with Cathay customer relations officials for four hours last week, but is not suing the airline. She just wanted to tell them how much embarrassment the video has caused her.

I’ve got one suggestion for her to avoid such embarrassment next time….but I’ll keep it to myself.

Good news! Ryanair will NOT make you use coins to enter their bathrooms

by Scott Carmichael on

We’d forgive you if you accused us of being pro/anti Ryanair (depending on what you read).

In the past week we broke the news that the Ryanair CEO was considering introducing coin operated bathrooms on his flights.

Then we reported on remarks of a Ryanair spokesperson who claimed the esteemed Ryanair CEO was just screwing with us. Thankfully the official reply is out – Ryanair will NOT be introducing coin operated bathrooms on their flights.

They will be credit card operated.

That’s right, According to Ryanair, they have actually asked Boeing engineers to design a credit card operated lock that can be installed on the bathroom doors. That pretty much removes all concerns about not having enough change, or any worries about currency issues.

According to Ryanair, if 20% of their passengers use the bathroom on each flight, and they all pay 1 Pound for the right to pee or poo, they’ll earn an additional 15 Million Pounds a year (21 Million Dollars).

As usual, there is something smelly about this plan – the extra income does not take into account the cost of installing the actual credit card operated doors, or the extra manpower required to transfer all these transactions to some kind of computer at the end of the day.

Nor do they seem to worry about the possibility that the equipment will break down, and sooner or later someone will break it when they can’t get the damn thing to accept their hotel loyalty card as a valid method of payment.

We are already on our third installment of this silly idea, but I can’t help feel we are being involved in a funny hoax by the airline. Either way, Mr O’Leary and his airline are clearly masterminds at creating free PR – almost getting themselves on the same level as that other brilliant airline PR guy, Richard Branson.

I just hope Ryanair understands what they are getting themselves in to – many of our commenters already said they’d rather take a dump in the vomit bag than pay the airline.

Update: O’Leary has finally admitted that the whole thing was indeed a cheap PR stunt.

Cause for Turkish Airlines flight known: Dutch Safety Board issues warning

by Jamie Rhein on

Last Wednesday, a Turkish Airlines flight crashed in a field just 1 kilometer short of the runway at Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam. The report as to what caused the accident has been released. After reading through it myself, and thanks to the paired down version of Gadling’s own Kent Wien, pilot and writer of Cockpit Chronicles, here are the details.

According to the report, there was a malfunction of one of the radio altimeters, the device that displays the distance of the airplane from the ground. The left altimeter, instead of reading the Boeing 737’s actual height at 1950 feet when the plane was descending, it read 8 feet.

At the point of the glitch, the auto-throttles went to idle because the reading said the plane was just above the runway thus about to land. This caused the plane to slow down more than it should have. The pilots didn’t have enough time to recover the speed needed to pull the plane out of a stall to a higher altitude in order to achieve a safe landing.

Along with determining the malfunction in the radio altimeter, the investigation also found out what happened to the plane upon impact. The tail of the plane hit first, then the undercarriage. When the plane hit the ground it was going at 150 kph. A normal landing speed is 260. Because the ground was soft, the plane had a “rapid halt” within 150 meters.

During landing, the tail broke off and the plane ruptured at the business class section which is where most of the fatalities and injuries occurred. Eighty passengers in all were injured and nine people died (4 crew, including the pilots and five passengers). The area of the plane around the wings was the most intact.

There are still investigations being made surrounding the altimeter’s malfunction and the Dutch Safety Board has issued a warning to Boeing.

For the report, click here. Prior to these findings, one theory about the cause of the crash was wake turbulence caused by a larger plane landing right before this plane’s attempt. (See article.)