Gulliver

A FELLOW Gulliver, cheery chap that he is, kicked off the new year explaining why 2017 might be even worse for business travellers than the year we have just put behind us. The reasons are largely geopolitical: the fallout from Brexit, the uncertainty surrounding soon-to-be-President Donald Trump, the likely rise in oil prices, the Chinese economic slowdown and the threat of terror. But there’s one trend that could have a pleasant effect on travel, making flying more comfortable despite efforts by airlines to pack passengers in tighter and charge for the most basic amenities. No doubt you’ve beaten me to it: carbon-reinforced plastic composites.

THE YEAR 2016 was not a great one for business travellers. In Britain, the Brexit referendum and related collapse in the value of the pound made travelling abroad costly; transport strikes meant getting around was an ordeal for those who stayed put. In continental Europe, terror attacks targeted airports and tourist spots, while striking workers blockaded sea ports, grounded airlines and nobbled the air-traffic control system. America, meanwhile, had to deal with mammoth security lines at airports and Asian travellers had to contend with a slowdown in China, the world’s biggest business-travel market.

Sadly, 2017 does not look like it is going to be any better.

NEWS that a domestic flight operated by Afriqiyah Airways, a state-owned Libyan airline, has been hijacked and flown to Europe should shock and appal an industry that has, since 9/11, spared no expense to end the scourge of such horrors. Events are still unfolding, but it is clear that two men claiming to have grenades forced the aircraft, an Airbus A320, to bypass its intended destination of Tripoli and fly on to Malta, the tiny Mediterranean island nation situated between Libya and Italy. Few details have emerged about the motives or demands of the hijackers. But, at the time of writing, all passengers and some crew had been released, signalling a peaceful end to the crisis.

DELTA AIR LINES found itself at the centre of a social-media storm when Adam Saleh, a YouTube personality who posts about life as a Muslim American, was removed from one of its flights for—apparently—no greater crime than speaking Arabic. Mr Saleh is not the first passenger of Middle Eastern descent to allege discriminatory treatment by airline staff and passengers. But, true to his profession, he may be the first to have recorded an encounter in real time (see link). At the time of writing, nine hours after disembarkation, his video had been retweeted an incredible 556,000 times on Twitter.

EVERY December, more than 1,000 female high school students, some as young as 15, take part in a “bikini competition” held in the eastern Chinese city of Qingdao. The event, hosted by Oriental Beauty, a modelling agency, provides a platform for aspiring flight attendants to show off their bikini bodies to eager recruiters from the Chinese airline industry. Those deemed the most attractive are invited to join a fast-track flight attendant trainee scheme, which can open the door to a dream job at one of China’s big airlines.

Many Chinese and other Asian airlines shamelessly exploit female sexuality.

WHEN the England cricket team travelled to play Australia in the first ever Test match in 1887, the journey down under took around 50 days by steamship. (The Aussies won, as they have mostly continued to do over the subsequent 129 years.) When the team flies out to compete in the latest installment of the Ashes next year, the journey time will be much reduced. If they fly from London to Perth on Qantas, they could conceivably do it in under 17 hours, nonstop.

The Australian flag carrier announced over the weekend that it is to launch a direct service from Western Australia to London.

A RARE tragedy came to pass on December 7th: a fatal crash at a European airport. As it came into land at a foggy Basel airport in France, a light aircraft narrowly missed a British Airways jet on the runway. The smaller plane burst into flames; two people were reportedly killed.

Such occurrences are thankfully few and far between. Flying is about as safe a form of transport as there is. A commercial flight takes off somewhere in the world, on average, every second. That is some 37m journeys a year. Yet according to IATA, the main airline-industry body, last year not a single passenger on a commercial jet died in an accident.