Flying With Fish The Blog for Those Who Fly & Those Who Want to Fly Smarter

Bahrain’s national flag carrier, Gulf Air, has been in financial trouble for years, while its much smaller national counterpart Bahrain Air has been struggling since it launched in February 2008.  Both airlines struggle against larger, more powerful, mainline airlines and low cost carriers, battling with the Bahraini Government for bail outs, despite Gulf Air pledging [...]

Yesterday, on the 11th of December, Delta Air Lines officially announced that it was purchasing a 49% stake in British flag carrier Virgin Atlantic, from Singapore Airlines, for US$360,000,000 and forming a trans-Atlantic joint venture.  Under the terms of the deal Sir Richard Branson, the founder of Virgin, will retain his 51% majority stake in [...]

The Middle East’s airline industry is growing at an unbelievable pace; the airlines in The Gulf States are among the fastest growing airlines in the world and the largest in the world. The UAE, Qatar and Saudi Arabia are pouring money into their airlines building global presences, Bahrain’s national airline while in significant distress is [...]

(For Disclosure: American Airlines Granted Me Access To The Flights & Facilities Of My Choosing Beyond What ‘The General Public’ Would Be Allowed Or Offered. AA & Its Parent Company AMR Have No Input Into What I Am Writing) It is easy to look back into an airline’s history, or any company’s history, and pick [...]

For the past four days I have been living inside the American Airlines network, flying from Hartford to Dallas, to Los Angeles, to New York’s JFK to Chicago, now headed home … a day early … with one goal, to find out how the airline operates from the inside out, focusing on the company’s sustainability. [...]

American Airlines was founded in 1934 and has long been America’s premier flagship airline. … or so Page 3, Section I, item 5 says in AMR’s bankruptcy filing that was submitted to U.S. Bankruptcy Court, in the Southern District of New York this morning.   In fact American Airlines was founded in 1930 as American [...]

For more than a year there has been speculation and doubt regarding Air Zimbabwe’s claims that the airline has acquired two Airbus A340 long haul aircraft.   As Air Zimbabwe continued to discuss the acquisition of the Airbus A340 aircraft over the past year, there were cracks in the story, such as the variant of [...]

After a three-and-a-half year serious, but not committed, relationship Air India was left at the alter by Star Alliance on the 1st of August 2011.  Now as Air India tries to hold its chin up and assure everyone that they are OK, SkyTeam has reportedly stepped into try and swoop the airline off its feet. [...]

Iran’s national flag carrier Iran Air has masterfully skirted U.S. economic sanctions since they were first implemented in 1979.   Since 1979, when the United States implemented its first economic sanctions against Iran, in response to the Iranian Revolution overthrowing the Shah of Iran, Iran Air has operated significant American made Boeing fleet. Currently Iran [...]

March 31st 2002 was an unusual day; Switzerland lost its 71-year-old national flag carrier and at the same time gained a new national flag carrier. Swissair was established on the 26th of March 1931 with the merger of Balair and Ad Astra Aero. While the airline had a rocky start, only flying during the summer [...]