I was talking to a group of Yemenis earlier about flying and they were very interested to know which airline I use and in particular if I had used Yemenia the Yemen national flag carrier. A Yemenia plane crashed last month in the Indian Ocean killing everyone on board except (as is often the case) one child. They said that Yemenia was notorious for not servicing it’s aircraft and apparently the EU had banned this particular aircraft from entering it’s airspace.
They told me that a number of people now fly to another gulf state with any other airline and then drive to the Yemen. Given the distance and the state of driving in the peninsula I would have thought that this would have greatly increased the risk.
Earlier in the year I was talking to a police officer in Saudi Arabia who gave me the fatal traffic figures, which were eye-watering. He then quipped ‘imagine how bad the figures would be if we allowed people to have alcohol as well!’.
I do use Yemenia now and then and have found their service to be fine. A bit basic but it flew okay - well apart from once earlier in the year where we had to make an unscheduled pit stop to fix something. Still going by the figures it is far safer than driving especially here!
