Aviation

There was a millennium bug joke - an airline captain told his passengers that one of the aircraft's engines had cut out because of the millennium bug but it was OK because the other one was still working. Then his co-pilot told him that the clock on that one was a minute slow.

Of course, no airlines fell from the sky at midnight on 31 December 1999 and even the dozens of chips in some of the USA's nuclear missiles that were causing concern turned out to be just fine.

So, that's that then, you might think. But no.

As countries around the world close their borders for international travel from badly affected countries, are airport transits a threat?

It's being claimed as a victory for climate change activists but it's far, far more than that.

As the novel coronavirus bug bites, everywhere from restaurants to shops to hotels are suffering from a downturn in business.

But, as these photos show, the one place one would expect to see concentrations of travellers are deserted, too.

The Malaysian Aviation Commission (MAVCOM) announced this afternoon that new entrant into the flights market, ScandaSky, must cease marketing its services and stop marketing itself as an airline.

The Malaysian Aviation Commission (MAVCOM) announced this afternoon that new entrant into the flights market, ScandaSky, must cease marketing its services and stop marketing itself as an airline.

It was announced yesterday that IndiGo, a large budget carrier in India is expanding its fleet with an additional 300 Airbus A320 Neos with a headline price of USD33,000 million. IndiGo has, unlike several of its competitors, not gone out of business. But it is under the cosh precisely because it flies A320 Neos.

AirAsia is a superb airline. Its aircraft are well maintained and clean, its crew are great. Yes, its ability to be anywhere near its scheduled departure and arrival times are the stuff of legend - for their persistent failures. It has an ultra-slick website that whizzes through the pages. but it's the website that is the real reason that one has to think twice about booking a flight. That's because so much of it, outside the core part of finding flights, doesn't work. Cheap fares are one thing - but not when buying them is so frustrating. But a failure today takes the biscuit. UPDATED AT END

It's one of those interesting differences between English and American. The American charge of "interfering with flight crew" does not involve, as it would in English, a sexual act. But given that there was an assault, the American charge is clear.

Let's accept for a moment that, good as it is, data from commercial flight-tracking services is not 100% authoritative. But it is certainly extremely persuasive. The data that was made available immediately after the crash of Ethiopian Airways flight 302 showed a remarkable similarity to similar data published after the crash of Lion Air JT610. As more and more countries banned B787 MAX, the FAA supported Boeing. Boeing said "we stand by our aircraft." Then even more compelling evidence of similarity between the crashes emerged.

In July last year, we said Malaysia needs to review Malaysia Airlines - Boeing deal because of political issues. Now, there's another reason to look at it.

Special offers available for Black Friday via the link below have an interesting effect: if you fly from London or Manchester, a flight to SIN costs GBP490 but a flight to other destinations via SIN can cost less. The offers are across all classes.

News is breaking as we write of the loss of flight JT610, a Boeing 737 Max 8, the Seattle company's latest variant of its most popular aircraft. The aircraft operated by Lion Air, which has one of the newest fleets of aircraft in the industry, left Jakarta a short while ago and disappeared over the sea en route to Pangkal Pinang in the Bangka Belitung Islands.

Bahrain International Airport has a latest check-in time after which check-desks will be closed.

Just as AirAsia announced the "suspension" of its Tokyo Narita (NRT) to Jakarta (CGK) flights, Japan Airlines and Garuda Indonesia have said that they are to increase co-operation to improve connections between the two Asian countries.