[DisgustedofSwieqi]

“I might go freestyle and take the, until now, unconsidered option of BMI. Their timings are better than BA and Egypt Air, it must be said.”

For a 5ish hour day flight, also very comfortable seats.

[DisgustedofSwieqi]

HNY Lugano

I think Star were interested to get Cairo as a hub, since it is a pretty well connected airport, for example JNB Is only a 7.5 hour flight and the middle east/subcontintent are also relatively close.

[VintageKrug]

Well worth saving £20 and taking bmi for £927 return in their mid haul configuration vs., a fully flat bed on the Upper Deck of a 747 for £947.

At least you will arrive alive, unless of course your bmi flight is actually an EgyptAir codeshare with bmi, where a certain (and sober!) death awaits! 😉

[BABenji]

The BA sub£1000 fare is only available if one stays the saturday night. Egypt is not a place I am prepared to lose a weekend for! BMI offers me a fare without the weekend restriction for roughly the same price.

Couple that with arrival at close to midnight with BA, it will be well past 02.00 by the time you arrive at your hotel, and consider that on the return almost an entire day is lost travelling, as well as having to stay an extra night for the pleasure.

Time is a precious commodity.

[VintageKrug]

But bmi does require a three day minumum stay:

http://www.flybmi.com/bmi/en-gb/special-offers/flight-offers/find-the-lowest-fares-terms-and-conditions.aspx?gTC=2&fTC=15

I have been on their midhaul A321s, and if indeed you actually get a bmi plane, they are comfortable (though I’m not sure I would want to spend more than two hours on board).

bmi crews are always superbly helpful, if indeed the airline still exists when you plan to travel.

[DisgustedofSwieqi]

“I have been on their midhaul A321s, and if indeed you actually get a bmi plane, they are comfortable (though I’m not sure I would want to spend more than two hours on board).”

The bmi mid haul seat served with distinction as the Club World seat, until Project Dusk introduced the original NCW configuration.

The longest flight I ever took on one was a LAX, so I think I might just survive a LHR CAI on one.

[BABenji]

I just double checked and did a sample itinerary:

Depart LHR Monday 7th March on BD771

Depart CAI Wednesday 9th March on BD772

Business Sale fare: £927
Business fare: £1011
Business Full Flex: £1711

The flight arrives into Cairo at 16.00 meaning I can make it to Alexandria that evening on the train. Meeting the next day with overspill into Wednesday morning if neccesary, and then travel back to Cairo at lunchtime to make the flight on Wednesday night.

Land at LHR at 20.50, meaning I get to see the lovely Mrs BABenji a full 20odd hours before I would otherwise do if I fly with BA. Everyone’s a winner….apart from BA and my Exec Club account balance.

I’ve flown BMI midhaul product to Amman before and it’s comfortable enough for those distances.

The trip could be anytime between now and the third quarter of this year, so who knows what Lufthansa may unleash on us between then and now.

[VintageKrug]

One collar, two sleeves.

[BABenji]

Necessary! Damn it! 🙂

[LuganoPirate]

Thanks Disgusted and a HNY 2U2.

I can see your point, and to reinforce it, Egyptair have a major advertising campaign going on in S. Africa encouraging people to fly to Europe via Cairo.

I cannot believe (and maybe I’m wrong) that Star Alliance would put the safety of their passengers below that of commercial interests, but again in fairness, Egyptair has had, according to airsafe.com, less accidents than Air France. So it is probably a matter of perception.

Finally, BABenji, Cairo is a fascinating city full of history, excellent food and museums, and well worth a weekend stay even if only once in your life. Friendly people, some top 5* hotels at 3* prices, and some amazing belly dancing to watch in the evening.

[DisgustedofSwieqi]

Lugano

Airline safety is very difficult to judge for a layman, which is why I don’t have an opinon on most airlines.

As accidents are often the result of ‘chains’ of smaller events and also human error and it is difficult to assess the safety culture of an airline from the outside, then even looking at crash statistics can be misleading.

For example, BA has suffered two major crashes since formation, a middair over Jugoslavia, caused by an ATC error and BA38.

In roughly the same period, Air Malta has not had a single crash.

One could conclude that Air Malta is a far safer airline than BA, if you work out the crashes per pax kilometre, but it would be a meaningless statistic, in my opinion. BA was completely blameless in the middair and BA38 was a rare occurence, which was not understood at that point, so could not be avoided.

On the other hand, Air Malta once landed a 737 on the taxiway at LGW, fortunately with no harm done, but that could have been one hell of a bang. (This happens a lot more than one realises, with airlines from all corners of the globe.)

However, it would have been Air Malta’s fault.

I fly with both airlines very regularly and feel comfortable with both, one simply has to trust that the ‘system’ of oversight functions effectively. Sometimes it does not.

Chalk’s Airways had a clean history until the wing separated from one fo their Grumman flying boats, then the report was damning http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSN3028019120070530

A leading UK airline despatched a 737 without oil seals and it had to make an emergency descent into Luton. http://www.skybrary.aero/index.php/B734,_en-route,_Daventry_UK,_1995_%28AW_LOC_HF%29

So, very difficult to say how safe one airline is against another, unless you have a lot of insight.

[VintageKrug]

Gatwick’s main taxiway is easily confused; it is, technically, a second runway:

http://www.avsim.com/pages/0706/Gatwick/EGKKIntro.jpg

[DisgustedofSwieqi]

VK

The Air Malta crew did not land on either of the two (mutually exclusive) runways, but rather on the taxiway Juliet, shown on the current aerodrome chart using this URL

http://www.ead.eurocontrol.int/eadbasic/pamslight-20C1DD9F3B9A28A0588112859BCAF3DD/7FE5QZZF3FXUS/EN/Charts/AD/AIRAC/EG_AD_2_EGKK_2-1_en_2010-11-18.pdf

The AAIB report is at this URL – note that a BAC 1-11 (operator not stated, but IIRC it was Dan Air) did the same thing 5 years before.

http://www.aaib.gov.uk/cms_resources.cfm?file=/3-1994%209H-ABA.pdf

Air Malta ‘got away’ with this incident (as did Dan Air, whose incident was even more alarming, as they landed in the opposite direction to a taxiing 737.)

In the past 10 years, there have been two very serious accidents involving take offs from the wrong runway

2006 – Comair – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comair_Flight_191

2000 – Singapore Airlines – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singapore_Airlines_Flight_006

BA took off from the wrong runway in the Carribean

http://www.flightglobal.com/articles/2010/09/02/346898/ba-passengers-tried-to-halt-777-take-off-after-taxiing.html

They got away with it. Do I think BA is an unsafe airline? Precisely the reverse, but these things do happen.

For a bit of balance, here are some more

Delta – http://blog.seattlepi.com/worldairlinenews/archives/182714.asp

Finnair – http://www.flightglobal.com/articles/2010/12/01/350396/hong-kong-controller-halts-finnair-a340-taxiway-take-off.html

Continental – http://archives.californiaaviation.org/airport/msg38892.html

AMerican – http://www.airliners.net/aviation-forums/general_aviation/read.main/1054940/

So with regard to Egyptair, it is a perfectly safe airline until the crash, as are all the others 😉

If an airline safety auditor told me Egyptair was unsafe, then I would take than on board, but as passengers I believe that it is very difficult for us to make meaningful judgments, as we simply do not have enough knowledge.

And the statistics are potentially misleading.

[KSHaggag]

Hello BABenji !

May I just send you my humble opinion here in an attempt to be of help in your query if ever …

You have highlighted that you needed to fly to Alexandria this time ,not to Cairo …With all respect to all the Gentlemen s feedback on BA and Egypt Air in terms of safety ,reliability ,punctuality ,value for money ,etc….let me just here add a small comment before suggesting a solution to fly to Alexandria ….Egypt Air has recently undergone a huge transformation on all aspects of the business and therefore is now a major player in the region ,using its Cairo new T3 as a major hub for flights between Europe and Africa ,Asia ,Middle East ,etc ….speaking of standards on board ,let me just add that I have personally always had a very positive experience with them in Business as well as in Economy Class on long as well as on short haul flights ..the crew members have always been courteous ,professional and hospitable ..the food was always good and the punctuality among the best …..I am not saying it is a fantastic carrier ..I judge it as a good alternative especially that it has a relatively young fleet of B737-800s and B777-300ERs ..On the LHR leg specifically ,they are always deploying their newest aircraft of B777-300ERs and A333s with the latest tech and good flat seats in Business ….value for money is among the best in various markets ….

As for you ,my dear BABenji ,let me highlight that now the ONLY European carrier linking Alexandria ( Borg El Arab new terminal recently launched …40 kms out of Alex ) ,with Europe ( Istanbul ) is Turkish Airlines ..they do have 4 weekly services from/to Alex Borg El Arab airport with immediate connex to/from LHR …TK is NOT in my opinion a sophisticated carrier and the standard of service you receive in business class on LHR/IST and IST/HBE is a short haul standard ,CE business class short haul ,UNLESS you opt to catch the LHRIST service at 11.40 am operated by a long haul A332 however the connex in IST will be rather long ( up to you ) …on the way back HBE/IST/LHR ,you have chances of catching the big a/c A332 IST/LHR ….timings are NOT the best however optimal connex in IST and u skip Cairo …you arrive in Alex at around 2am and u leave on a very early morning at around 3.40 am ,reaching LHR by late morning ….Prices can be attractive ….better ck their website ….

Good luck !

[LuganoPirate]

Regarding your earlier post, I do not disagree with you Disgusted. In fact I used to fly myself and was an aircraft owner (albeit small ones) so I do have a very good handle on aircraft safety etc. Having not had one incident in 5 years, apart from a close call leaving LGW when ATC put us in the path of an inbound 747, I suppose I could say my company was the safest one in the world! Indeed statistics and percentages can be moulded to support most arguments.

I actually think Egyptair is probably as safe as many other major carriers but as I said before, I think it is often just a matter of perception and that, as irrational as it may seem, is the reason I will not fly them – yet. Though looking at KSHaggag’s post maybe that day will come sooner rather than later, and I will try them to S. Africa via Cairo.

Regarding your last post, I think many incidents go unreported and the layman knows little about them (thankfully) unless you read some of the air crew posts in various aviation forums. I recommend http://www.airliners.net for some great discussions and photos.

Two which spring to mind, was a KLM flight to CDG in the mid ’80’s that accidently landed at Le Bourget. An apparent uncommon happening! And a fully loaded KLM 747 taking off from the taxiway at AMS in bad weather – and that by a Dutch crew who should know Schipol better than many other airline crew.

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