From the Phuket Gazette.

BANGKOK: Phuket Air is to axe direct flights between Bangkok and London, citing the impending low season, and will be replacing the route with a new service between Bangkok and Amsterdam.

K. Krona conceded that Phuket Air has suffered because of the tsunami, but she said it was too early to say how the company would react to the diesel price hike.

And I thought jet planes ran on Jet Fuel ( kerosine ).

Phuket Air is currently facing serious image difficulties following an incident during refueling stop at Sharjah, in the UAE, on Sunday. Passengers aboard a Phuket Air Boeing 747 en route to London forced the takeoff to be aborted after allegedly seeing fuel pouring from a wing tank.

The airline has denied that there was anything wrong with the first aircraft, blaming passengers for “panicking”.

Many UK newspapers and media sources quoted Gordon MacFarland, Phuket Air’s UK sales manager, as saying that the fuel flowing from the wing has been caused by overfilling of the fuel tanks during the stop, and was not dangerous.

“Are passengers really qualified to know what’s going on? These passengers had come from a tsunami-hit area and were probably nervous,” he was quoted as saying. Many of the passengers had been in Phuket.

What a dork !

This guy Gordon is going to lose his job anyway after the London route stops.

So he is unwittingly telling the truth - that no other PR man would dare blurt out.

People holidaying in Phuket are becoming hyper-sensitized to the potential of catastrophe.

A 6th sense for Phuket tourists, its almost atavistic.

Who owns Phuket Air ?

Who owns Phuket Air ?

Vikrom Aisiri is the Chairman, but they are very good at hiding who owns it. But then again their own website is a year out of date too so their communications staff may not be all that on the ball.

Is it listed on the SET?

Maybe someone could try a query in Thai script?

cv

http://www.pprune.org/forums/showthread.ph...ir&pagenumber=1

anyone about to fly with or about to buy a ticket with phuket air should read the threads linked to above about the airline.

its a forum for pilots and aircrew.

some telling comments.

read all 4 pages.

sorry , cant get the link to work. [fixed it - RDN]

go to www.pprune.org/forums

then flight deck forums , then rumours and news , then look down the threads until phuket air comes up.

This post has been edited by taxexile: Today, 2005-04-07 12:02:53

  And I thought jet planes ran on Jet Fuel ( kerosine ).

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

FYI: Diesel, Jet A, Kerosene and heating oil are pretty much the same except for the way they are handled.

Up in rural Alaska they are all stored in the same tank.

Spilt fuel is not usually a dangerous situation. Though aborting flights due to hydraulic failures and shutting down engines aircraft in flight or operating an aircraft w/o TCAS (traffic alert collision avoidance system) might raise an knowing eyebrow or two! My guess is that the company might have some maintenance issues with operating older aircraft like a 747-300. I doubt very many are still being used as passenger haulers.