Comments on: What the War in Ukraine Means for Air Travel

By: Clark

Clark — Sat, 07 Jan 2023 04:39:22 +0000

But my favorite Aeroflot story was flying from Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan to Almaty, Kazakhstan just after the Soviet Union had dissolved. Because no one knew which republic would be able to keep which aircraft, flight operations were even more chaotic than usual, and people had been waiting at the airport for three days for this flight to depart. My three American colleagues and I roll up and pay US dollar cash for our tickets, so of course four poor local bastards get bumped. They load us on the Tu-134 first, and I look out the window and see the four guys gesticulating with a stewardess for a few minutes on the tarmac outside the plane. Eventually she nods in agreement and they climb into the baggage hold! We take off for the 90-minute flight, and sure enough, we land in Almaty and out pop these four dudes from the baggage compartment, apparently no worse for the wear.

So think about that next time you’re jammed in the last-row middle seat of a 737!

By: Clark

Clark — Sat, 07 Jan 2023 04:31:04 +0000

I spent a lot of time in the USSR/Russia earlier in my career, from 1989 through the early 2000s, and a lot of that time was spent flying to cities like Sverdlovsk (now Ekaterinburg), Krasnoyarsk, Irkutsk, Almaty, and Tashkent. So I have lots of good stories of flying Aeroflot. Routinely we’d land at some Siberian airport and taxi past the wreckage of previous crashes, which they wouldn’t bother to clean up. That was reassuring. Delays of 6 or 8 hours past departure time were routine; that’s when I learned to travel with cartons of granola bars.

Once a colleague and I, staring at an all-day flight delay at Moscow’s dreary Domodyedovo Airport in the middle of winter, decided to walk out on the runway hard stand so he could snap a photo of me “boarding” the rolling stairs to the burned-out hulk of a Tupelov-154 that was still sitting in the terminal area after months (some idiot lit a cigarette while refueling, no one was hurt). Needless to say, airport security was not amused, but I had a great Christmas card photo that year!

(cont.)

By: Bruce

Bruce — Mon, 04 Apr 2022 00:56:54 +0000

Thanks, Rod.

Yes, I was thinking it must be something to do with jetstreams. But you’d need one that was both very powerful and very consistent to justify such a huge increase in distance.

By: Rod

Rod — Wed, 30 Mar 2022 22:08:22 +0000

Bruce: “Or did Canada join the war and I missed it?”
At all events, Canada will do whatever Washington tells it to do.

“Or is it something else?”
I’m no expert, but consider the jet-streams (polar & subtropical), which move west to east. Not sure exactly how they fit in Here but it’s often worth going out of your way (lengthening your route) westbound in order to avoid fighting strong headwinds.
Flying eastbound is the reverse: strong upper-level winds speed you along.
So perhaps that has something to do with all this.

By: Bruce

Bruce — Wed, 30 Mar 2022 02:41:57 +0000

There’s lots of press today about Cathay Pacific planning to run the longest scheduled passenger flight route. Until now, its Hong Kong to New York route has gone over Russian airspace, but now they’re going to avoid it. See https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/mar/30/cathay-pacific-plans-worlds-longest-passenger-flight-avoiding-russia, or https://www.traveller.com.au/cathay-pacifics-new-york–hong-kong-service-is-the-worlds-new-longest-flight-h22ri9.

I don’t get it.

The reports say that, to avoid Russia, they’ll fly over the Atlantic, Southern Europe and Central Asia for a route of 16,618km, surpassing Singapore Airlines’ 15,349km route from Singapore to New York.

I’ve drawn up rough routes on gcmap.com, and that 16,618km route looks reasonable – I’m getting 16,313km if I draw HKG-NQZ-IST-JFK.

But if they go the other way, it’s a lot shorter. If I draw HKG-HND-ANC-JFK, I still avoid Russian airspace and it’s only 13,930km.

The normal direct route over Russia is 12,990km, so the Tokyo-Anchorage route is less than 1000km longer.

Am I missing something here? Is there a reason that they’d go the long way round? Is it a result of wind or other weather? Or did Canada join the war and I missed it? Or is it something else?

By: Gottettaz

Gottettaz — Wed, 30 Mar 2022 02:39:49 +0000

From Agence France-Presse (30 March 2022):
Cathay Pacific is planning the world’s longest passenger flight by rerouting its New York to Hong Kong service over the Atlantic instead of the Pacific, the airline has said, in a new path that steers clear of Russia.
The flight path will cover just under 9,000 nautical miles (16,668km, or 10,357 miles).
On Tuesday evening, Cathay listed on its website a New York-to-Hong Kong flight for 3 April – a non-stop journey it said would stay in the air for 17 hours and 50 minutes.
It will surpass a Singapore Airlines flight travelling from the south-east Asian city-state to New York, which flies a shorter distance in a longer time – about 15,343km (9,534 miles) in 18 hours.

By: Rod

Rod — Thu, 24 Mar 2022 17:46:35 +0000

Soviet transports were often denigrated in the West for being fuel-inefficient & noisy (though if you ever heard the BAC111, you knew that people who live in glass houses…).

Speaking of glass houses, I once flew on a Tupolev 134. It had a a ‘glass’ nose, like many of the earlier Soviet transports. Siberia not only had far-flung airports with short, rough runways. It also had precious few navaids, so a navigator with a perch offering a good view was indispensable.

By: Cameron Lindsay

Cameron Lindsay — Thu, 24 Mar 2022 00:39:30 +0000

You forgot to mention Iran Air flight 655 shot down by the US in 1988 in your list of downed airliners.

By: Greybeard

Greybeard — Wed, 23 Mar 2022 18:24:45 +0000

Loved your description of the Aeroflot in-flight service. I once read of an Aeroflot flight where the service comprised taking a box of oranges and dumping it while still climbing, so they rolled down the aisle. I guess that’s class-based service–the further forward you sat, the better your chances of getting an orange! I found it hard to believe even then, mostly because of the risk of a broken ankle by an FA due to a stray, but otherwise it seems perfectly plausible.

By: Max Hartshorne

Max Hartshorne — Wed, 23 Mar 2022 16:41:39 +0000

I read somewhere that it would cost $3B to replace that huge plane. Can that possibly be accurate Patrick? How many of these monsters are currently in use in Russia?