Tag Archives for russia.
A Flydubai flight from Dubai to Moscow was delayed on the ground after a drunk Russian passenger boarded already agitated, demanded more alcohol, and then tried to turn the drama into flirtation with the man seated next to her. When crew refused to serve her and asked her to calm down, she turned on them instead, yelling in the aisle until airport police boarded, escorted her off the aircraft, and ground staff had to go digging through the hold to pull her bags.
The FAA has issued a warning for all operators to avoid Venezuelan airspace, even as international airlines cancel service. The timing aligns with reporting that Washington is pushing Ukraine toward a settlement tilted toward Russia in exchange for Moscow’s acquiescence on removing Nicolás Maduro.
Russia’s rocket firings inside U.S.-controlled Pacific airspace forced transpacific flights, including FedEx and UPS cargo jets, to detour hundreds of miles off course.
Airlines in some parts of the world are banning passengers from flying with pagers and walkie talkies after Israel took out much of Hezbollah’s command structure by supplying booby trapped devices. Soon in the U.S., though, we may no longer be able to travel with personal massagers – or other personal electronic devices.
Reportedly flight safety incidents more than doubled between 2022 and 2023 as parts inventories ran low.
Now it seems that one way Russian airlines have kept flying – acquiring the spare parts they’ve needed – is having passengers check the parts in their luggage.
Pro-Hamas demonstrators stormed Makhachkala Uytash Airport in Dagestan, responding to “rumors..that an Israeli aircraft was preparing to land.” Their mission: “Kill Israelis and Jews.” Meanwhile, they stormed a hotel going room to room in search of Israelis.
Emirates flight 176 from St. Petersburg, Russia to Dubai caught fire while still on the ground prior to departure. It’s being reported that the fire was in an engine of the Boeing 777, and that passengers were evacuated. The flight currently shows a 3 a.m. estimated departure time, four hours late, but that seems.. optimistic?
Judging from video of the incident I’d have to speculate that it’s not one of the plane’s engines but its auxiliary power unit.
The President of Belarus flew over Russian airspace – but his plane’s transponder was turned off until he had cleared it. Belarus is a vassal state of Putin’s regime. And Putin is facing a coup led by the boss of the Wagner mercenary group, Yevgeny Prigozhin.
With Prigozhin’s forces targeting military aircraft, VIP aircraft movements taking steps not to be tracked seems… wise.
Cathay Pacific has started routing flights over Russian airspace again, after pausing the practice as a result of Western sanctions which followed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Their New York – Hong Kong flight takes a ‘polar route’ which touches the eastern part of Russia, because it’s faster and they don’t have to weight restrict flights as they do taking a longer route.
After “Des Moines…?” my immediate thought was to work through whether this was a display of their real capabilities, or a warning shot? But this doesn’t signal they are capable of more. A DDoS attack against a public-facing website is something any modestly savvy teenager could launch. It doesn’t serve as a message that ‘we can reach your systems, and next time will be worse.’
Instead it’s more moderately annoying for the individual airports involved at best, the kind of attack someone would launch who wanted to say that an attack was made without actually doing one.
Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel -- a topic he has covered since 2002.
Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »
