Sounds like a really good price, actually. Albeit a dubious airline.
That's a really good price for something transatlantic.
The market has spoken and it asks for a small discount to compensate for the odds of being deliberately killed by Putin.
I joined the Mile High Club on Air Croatia.
"Air Croatia -- Your Eastern European Prostitute In The Air"
Ukrainian Airlines will sell that round trip to you more typically for about $600. The cheapest flights on a carrier you've heard of start around $1000.
They can offer such low prices by acting as a money-laundering front for Ukrainian Oligarchs, and they pass on the savings to you.
More seriously, I would guess that, unlike most responsible airlines, Air Ukraine does not hedge on the futures market against high fuel prices. Which is really good for them right now, because spot prices for fuel have dramatically fallen, and they can buy cheap fuel at a time when their more reputable competition is still locked into longer-term contracts for fuel at a higher cost.
Also, they don't waste money on things like airplane maintenance.
10: Not that that's made flights on AA/US cheaper, and they don't hedge either.
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OT but vaguely travel related
I have been offered a fantastically extravagant present by y HK based son - a week's trout fishing in New Zealand. Does anyone have any relevant experience? I asked a friend who'd fished a lot there, and he talked without drawing breath for 20 minutes, leaving me bewildered as to where I should actually go. I have ogled all sorts of web sites. But there are a couple of people here who fish, and at least one from that part of the world, so I thought I might presume to ask.
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This photo gallery of surviving cargo cults (one worships a mysterious American called "John Frum," another worships Prince Phillip) is pretty amazing. From the same guy who did the Nauru photo gallery I posted in the other thread.
On topic - london to beijing for £358 return. I don't *think* the route goes over the war zone ... I have seen higher prices quoted to get from Ely to Manchester by train.
14: New Zealand is very nice. They appreciate it if you remember that Sir Edmund Hilary and Russell Crowe are Kiwis, not Aussies.
14: Sorry, the New Zealand trout discussion was back in January.
2 els in Hillary. Just like the politician's first name, although she was named before his fame and disclaiming any connection is the sort of nonsense she has to put up with all the time.
She was born in the Edgewater Hospital, a couple of miles from here, which has stood vacant for years but can't be torn down because of ongoing litigation.
I've heard fishing in the Waikato upstream of Lake Taupo is excellent.
She was born in the Edgewater Hospital, a couple of miles from here, which has stood vacant for years but can't be torn down because of ongoing litigation.
A fight between those who want to preserve it as a historic site and those who want to burn it with fire, dump the ashes down a volcano, and salt the earth?
I have a friend (the friend writing the PhD, in fact) who's really into back country South Island fishing - I think it depends a little bit on how willing you are to tramp around the back blocks.
15: that guy's stuff is amazing. I like the Nauru pics better, but these are great too.
17
That is...really cheap. From what I've heard flights from major European capitals tend to be similar to prices from major US cities. It could be because it's a month after Chinese New Year holidays and peak travel lull. Or it's a new airline/route offering promotional fares. Or maybe they're betting on war in Russia. Actually, is it Air Malaysia? I got a RT ticket not on MA Chicago/Beijing 3 weeks in advance for about $900 by buying right after the MA 370 disappearance, and that was the cheapest I'd seen since SARS (when I got a RT ticket for about $700).
I took 16,000 steps yesterday plus another 800 in the parts of today that have already happened. Thanks new phone.
This, plus that the last 7,000 steps involved a bar, is probably why my legs are rock hard but my bmi is high.
I couldn't help seeing those Nauru pictures as snapshots of most of the whole world from the near future.
This, plus that the last 7,000 steps involved a bar, is probably why my legs are rock hard but my bmi is high.
Ooo, one of those treadmill bars! I've been curious about those.
I have an acquaintance who is a travel writer and even factoring out the airplane thing, it sounds hellish to me. And this is someone who writes for a fancy magazine and stays in really deluxe places. Still. Hellish.
The problem with travel is that you might have to go to a bar where nobody knows you.
Just booked a return flight to Ireland for this summer (late June to mid-July). I paid more than $493, but I think I got a pretty good deal.
I am a nervous flier at best. I carefully scan the faces of the flight attendants throughout the flight, looking for signs of suppressed panic. I say the rosary upon take-off and landing, but I say the beads silently, so as not to alarm the other passengers (I'm considerate that way). I try to believe that flying is much less dangerous than driving, but in truth, I don't really believe it (I have some questions about the statistical models upon which such easy-breezy assertions are made).
And now I am supposed to worry about the possible suicidal impulses of German pilots? Probably I should just stay home.
Maybe they have the latest on which parts of former soviet airspace are best avoided due to rebels & surface to air missiles?
I once got a great deal from Singapore to JFK on Royal Jordanian Airlines, but then we got lost on approach and almost landed on top of another plane at JFK. More than a little scary approaching runway perpendicular in a 747. More so when we aborted.
But Tbilisi in the Spring! I was there in the 80s and loved it. After a semester of soviet Russian food the fresh fruits & veggies were a revelation. There's been a lot of sad history in Stalin's homeland since, though.
To the OP, I'm quite sure they've quietly re-routed those sort of flights over Romania and the Black Sea some time ago. My only concern would be to look up who did the ground maintenance for Ukranian Airlines. If it's Lufthansa, KLM or BA, as is quite likely, then I'd have their hand off for that price.
Not too clear what's going on w/34 last -- are we buying and maybe eating Ukranian hands now? If so, not saying I don't want a hand, not saying I do.
"Have someone's hand off" in Brit English means "Would take a proffered deal with indecent hast." I didn't realise it wasn't also Californian usage.
British English is dead to me now that the flower of England, Jeremy Clarkson, is no more.
In a just world, Jeremy Clarkson would have been beaten to death by a gang of producers.
The great-circle route really would take you right over your friendly local BUK-M1 site: http://www.gcmap.com/mapui?P=JFK-UGTB
I try to believe that flying is much less dangerous than driving, but in truth, I don't really believe it (I have some questions about the statistical models upon which such easy-breezy assertions are made)
I don't mean to be crass, but how any people (family members even) do you know who have died in car crashes? And airliner crashes? I'd be amazed if you didn't know several of the former and any of the latter. It's much, much, much safer.
36: LSNED. Is that in the notional sense of shaking their hand so hard it comes off?
I've heard British people say "bite your hand off" for "aggressively accept an offer". So "take your hand off" would then be a more abstract form of that.
In a just world, Jeremy Clarkson would have been beaten to death by a gang of producers.
This is the BBC's next reality show. The second season will see Simon Cowell thrown to the lions.
This is the BBC's next reality show. The second season will see Simon Cowell thrown to the lions.
I'm fairly sure both of these are actual TVGoHome bits.
NW at 14 above:
"I have ogled all sorts of web sites"
Me too, but I don't think I've ever announced that to anyone, esp. not in a comment thread.
That was me above. I guess I'm wary about even admitting that "I have ogled all sorts of web sites."
30: ogged, smearcase, et al.: what is wrong with you? travel writing would be the best! I'm phobic about plane flights and I would still want to do that. I had a scary fucking flight to bali recently where we got rebuffed in our attempts to reach cruising altitude by a huge storm and had to duck out beneath and were low as fuck 15 minutes out of changi airport. I have to overcome my fear, but then get to enjoy the rush I also get when defying my fear of heights by climbing something high.
48: I have oggled lots of websites.
"Shove your hand up my butt"
What was that Netherlands gibberish video from a few years ago? All I can remember is that the opening line to the chorus had the same cadence as "Shove your hand up my butt". It was super funny?
Also, the OP title keeps sparking "...There's a Golden Band" to me. "That reminds me of someone who wouldn't understand..."
50 con't: there was definitely a video, but maybe the scanning that I'm thinking of is "Throw the Jew Down the Well!" Hmm.