Like any major news story or world event, the turmoil thundering across the Maghreb and Arabia has seen some interesting stories with an aviation slant come to light. The kinds of stories people wouldn’t ordinarily know or care about.
Tunisia
During the recent uprising, a remarkable story unfolded. A pilot by the name of Mohamed Ben Keylani refused to takeoff with members of then President Ben Ali’s family on board. While that may have been foolish and might have cost him his life, this action shows the guts of some of the men and women that sit up front. He has gone on to become something of a hero in Tunisia.
Ben Ali's Personal A340-500. Photo by Terence Li.
Following the fall of Ben Ali, Tunisia’s government put up for sale an Airbus A340-500 destined to become his VIP transport. While I’m not against heads of state (legitimate or otherwise) having executive aircraft, there is a line. Ben Ali already had a BBJ capable of flying from Seattle to Jeddah. That 6548nm range could put him almost anywhere on earth in a single hop from Tunis.
6548nm range from Tunis
List prices of these aircraft sit at $261M for the A340-500 and $50M for the BBJ. While manufacturers tend to discount heavily, it should be noted that these are “green bean” prices – no livery, no interior, nothing. Spending $311M dollar on toys while your citizens earn on average $3,851 a year is simply unconscionable. Then again, when you’re showing up to meetings of the Arab League it’s important to not look out of place.
Egypt
Numerous world governments learned from how they (and others) mishandled evacuations in Tunisia and just weeks later staged a significantly better pullout from Egypt. This may seem like a non-story but when you consider how cumbersome and un-agile governments tend to be it’s a pretty rapid turnaround.
As things started to come to a head in Egypt the writing was on the wall even before Mubarak’s resignation. Al-Jazeera carried reports of wealthy Egyptians fleeing en masse on private jets.
Egypt Air is looking to lease out some 777's. Photo by SparkyMark
Following the mayhem and the demise of Mubarak it appears that things at Egypt Air are not too rosy. Despite massive fleet renewal and updates to hard and soft product it appears that the dip in tourism – amongst other factors – is forcing Egypt Air’s to lease out 25 of their aircraft to keep the books ticking over.
Libya
In another unexpected turn of events two high-ranking Libyan air force pilots fled to Malta in their French-made Mirage F-1′s. They told Maltese officials that they fled the country rather than execute their orders – to bomb civilian protesters.
Yesterday another interesting episode occurred; a civilian ATR-42 believed to be carrying Gaddafi’s daughter was denied landing in Malta. I realize that this represents but a small bump in her road to fleeing Libya but the statement was important.
Perhaps the biggest, but as yet unsubstantiated, story came from the lips of Libya’s Justice Minister, Mustafa Mohamed Abud Al Jeleil, who on Wednesday told a Swedish newspaper that the 1988 Pan Am bombing over Lockerbie that killed 270 was ordered by Gaddafi himself. “I have evidence that Gaddafi ordered the Lockerbie bombing,” Al-Jeleil said to Expressen. “To hide this, he did everything in his power to get Megrahi back from Scotland.”
Over in Bahrain and Yemen there has not been much in the way of aviation related stories but neither of those two nations has yet had its day in the sun – figuratively of course.
The above tidbits definitely serve to illustrate points in other (bigger) stories and to me validate my belief that every major news outlet should have an aviation correspondent. In the same way that following money and paper trails unveils things, so does following contrails.
