Air Canada In the Dirt-What Happened at NRT

I know this is a little bit late but I wanted to let coverage of the incident disseminate, and fact-finding commence…sadly, there wasn’t really much that was covered about this incident. On July 30, 2018, an Air Canada Boeing 787 Dreamliner operating as AC-5 landed on the B-runway (16 L) at Narita Airport (NRT) without incident. The tower controller instructed the crew to exit via taxiway B7 (at the end of 16L before the threshold of 34R), and then switch to ground controller upon entering the K taxiway. There is a taxiway under construction just before the B7 taxiway as...Read more

Rising Gas Prices – How to Avoid Getting Stiffed on Holiday Flights

Fuel Prices have shot up this summer, and are projected to only get higher as the year goes on. As expected, airlines have had to raise prices due to the higher expenditures associated with a rise in fuel prices. I did a search of 4 airlines for my annual Christmas flights between TYO (the code denoting the airports in the Tokyo metro area) and CVG, and found the price of flights ranged between US$1,100 and $1,800…that’s between 1.7 and 3 times the price of the flights I paid last year for Christmas. I’m afraid this is probably as cheap as...Read more

Korean Air’s NutGate Incident Revisited

Korean Air is one of the best known airlines on the planet. Its safety record is impeccable, the service is highly reviewed, and those bright blue planes are quite the treat to plane spot. However, KAL is not so well liked at home, at times. Not for their service, but for who runs them. The parent company of KAL is the Hanjin Group, known in Korea as an archetypal “Chaebol.” I’m not so well-versed in the inner-workings of Korean Economy, but from everything I’ve read, it sounds a lot like the Zaibatsu or Keiretsu of Japanese fame, entities I’m well-educated...Read more

When to Arrive: Morning Arrivals vs Evening Arrivals

One key aspect of planning a flight itinerary, especially for business trips, is scheduling, and often times this is overlooked in favor of price. However, if you’re trying to make a good impression to your hosts in a faraway land, making sure you’re not exhausted or that you’re not looking like you’ve skipped 3 days of showers is absolutely key. One way to do avoid the flying zombie look is scheduling your itineraries around your preferred landing time in your final destination. This scheduling is a lot easier when flying domestic, be it in the USA or in Japan. If...Read more

What To Do When Mech Issues Cause You To Miss A Flight or Connection

When flying with a tight layover at a connecting airport, there’s always a dread of the plane landing late and you not making your connection. Sometimes, the connecting gate will hold the flight if there’s a lot of passengers from a delayed connecting flight arriving, but in some cases, it’s too much of a delay, and the connecting flight leaves for its journey with a sizable amount of passengers missing, leaving the stranded passengers wondering what to do next, usually at their first airport. This is exactly what happened to me in May when I flew back to Japan, as...Read more

ARMCHAIR NTSB: Squawk Codes Gone Wrong
