A disciplinary commission in Chicago has upheld a censure decision against a lawyer who just last week came under its scrutiny for her behavior  related to Malaysia Flight 370. Monica Ribbeck Kelly, who made worldwide headlines when she filed the first case against Boeing and Malaysia Airlines following the mysterious disappearance of the flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing in March, has been battling the ethics board of the Illinois Supreme Court since 2011 when she mishandled her representation of the victim of another crash. In the earlier case, Kelly continued to file papers on behalf of Mustafa Gumus, who was injured when Turkish Flight… Read More…

Everywhere you go there are Malaysian airliners, on the makeshift sympathy signs dotting the town, on a magnificent mosaic hidden in a highway underpass, on the back of (some) 20 ringgit notes. I’ve already written how the tragic mystery of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 has engaged the people who live here. Now that I’ve finished reading the history of the Royal Selangor Flying Club, I understand that a little better. The airline and the club grew up together and can even be considered products of the same parents. But as aviation soars, especially in this part of the world, the once formidable 85 year old… Read More…

As if we were waiting in the passenger boarding area for news of a delayed flight, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey is providing just the merest trickle of information about the airport hotel it has long promised to bring to John F. Kennedy International Airport. It is astonishing to me that the 19th busiest airport in the world does not have even one hotel on premises. Not the new one promised, not the replacement for the old Ramada at JFK that closed in 2009. Nice view from my room at the Hilton Charles de Gaulle Compare this to Paris, where I… Read More…

The bike path approach to Bergamo’s Orio de Serio Airport I’ve written before about airports that are dear to me because I can get to them by bike. There were some notable omissions from that post; forgive me I didn’t know about Calgary International Airport. Now I do and for that, I can thank Sid Barber, a reader of my blog who upon learning that I would be in Calgary for interviews and a tour of the scrappy upstart, WestJet, invited me to visit his airline, Canadian North.  There are a lot of stories at that airline, which specializes in those not-so-easy flights into territory… Read More…

UPDATED WITH VIDEO FROM AA FLIGHT 1740 The latest airplane accident at New York’s LaGuardia Airport shows once again how much progress has been made in making airplanes safe even when things go wrong. Just eight of the 150 passengers and crew members on board were reported injured. Around dinnertime this evening, Southwest Airlines Flight 345 from Nashville to New York landed either without nose gear or with the pilots uncertain that they actually had nose gear locked into place. At this time, its not clear which. But this video uploaded by Bobby Abtahi from a window at the airport shows the 13-year old plane tail high… Read More…

The Air Line Pilots Association is making a big deal over the National Transportation Safety Board’s release of information from the initial stages of the investigation into the crash of Asiana Flight 214. They’re right and they’re wrong. The statements made over the past 4 days by board chairman Deborah Hersman, have unleashed a torrent of speculation and premature judgments. On the other hand, as I reported in the blog of the Airline PassengerExperience Association, a number of thoughtful, safety-aware and circumspect pilots have contacted me with their thoughts about this odd accident in which Asiana crew was flying too slow and too low and… Read More…

Boeing brings the 787 to Ethiopia in 2011 I have a double major in aviation and journalism – I bring it up to make this point: Several things are happening with the Dreamliner. Some are serious and some are ordinary, new-airplane glitches, dare-I-say, teething problems.  The causes of the recent 787 flight cancellations in Japan may fall in the latter category but grand or minor, the Jaws syndrome means that each nip of the teeth will gnaw on the still-rehabilitating reputation of the Boeing 787. Jaws Syndrome is the tendency of the media to latch on to news on a particularly hot subject, giving the… Read More…

Saturday afternoon I flew from OR Tambo International Airport in Johannesburg to Cape Town on South African Airways Flight 347, to attend the International Air Transport Association Annual General Meeting. I was pretty sure it would be an on-time flight since Monwabisi Kalawa, the airline’s new chief executive was on the plane. Of course he was in business class and I was back, way back in seat 27F.   What I did not know was what a great vantage point that seat would give me for all the goings-on before, during and after we landed in Cape Town. Here are some of the highlights with photos to… Read More…

As much as I like to fly, the prospect of being on a 12 hour flight during the daytime (when I probably won’t sleep much) makes me a little apprehensive. I have ants-in-the-pants-syndrome; it is very difficult for me to remain seated for extended periods of time. So Wednesday morning, before I boarded Ethiopian Flight 501 from Dulles International to Addis Ababa, I decided to tire myself out with a good, long strenuous power walk. I have the perfect playlist for this, assembled by my music-loving sister Lee. Setting out from the Dulles Airport Marriott, I was thrilled to discover I could go all the… Read More…

Disney may not have intended to instigate domestic strife with the release of the trailer for its new animated feature, Planes, but I can tell that the sparks are going to fly around my house.  There they are, all those pretty little airplanes, soaring in time with the swelling chords of the music while cars and trucks with their anthropomorphized windshield-framed eyes remain solidly earth-bound. My son, Sam, writes about (ho hum) cars.  My husband Jim and middle son Sam, are auto writers, gear heads through and through. As I have complained in a previous post, neither one of them can hold a conversation outdoors without stopping mid sentence to… Read More…