Category: Travel

Jazeera Airways put up pictures taken at the aiport yesterday because of their “Fly to Beirut for FREE” campaign. Chairman and CEO Marwan Boodai was actually at the airport himself handing out the free tickets. [Pictures]

Note: They now started a 75% off campaign.

I just got the following SMS from Jazeera Airways:

Be at the Jazeera Airways ticket desk at the Kuwait Airport tomorrow at 4PM wearing a “I Love Lebanon” t-shirt and you will be flown to Beirut immediatly one-way. Only 163 seats available.

My favorite publisher is Phaidon, their books are of extremely high standard and their design and typography is unmatched. I just found out they are publishing the Wallpaper* City Guides and I really want to have the full collection. Sadly the first guide I want is for Montreal but that comes out October 2007 so the first city guide I will have to get is Amsterdam. One guide sells for $8.95 but you can buy the first set of 20 for $143 which isn’t bad at all. [Link]

You can start booking your tickets to Beirut on Jazeera Airways. Not all days are available yet and the days that are available are filling up fast. [Link]

While looking for an image of Kuwait Airways for the post below I found this cool site that has pictures of sugar packets from a whole bunch of airlines around the world. [Link]

Here is also a link to a gallery I found before with pictures of spoons from various airlines around the world. [Link]

I was just checking the blog story from KUWAIT and he has a Kuwait Airways advert which says they won Best Airlines in the Middle East and South Africa. That didn’t sound right, I figured maybe since the headline of the ad says “Our last victory” it could be a victory from the 80’s or something. So, I went and checked the Kuwait Airways website and guess what, I found a press release from late May stating they won Best Airlines in the Middle East and North Africa! How did that happen? They must have been the only airline that participated. Also notice their ad says South Africa but their website says North Africa.

Kuwait Airways ad on story from Kuwait [Link]
Press release on Kuwait Airways website [Link]

My brother is online now from Turkey. He left Lebanon yesterday with the Canadian Embassy on a crappy ferry boat and today, 20 hours later he arrived to Turkey. They had to sleep on the floor on the ferry and it was a fucked trip. He is now at a highschool stadium where surprisingly they have WIFI. This is what he had to say about the evacuation so far:

20 hours on a fucking ferry boat
it fucking sucks
seriously
it’s so bad
i will show you pictures when i get to kuwait
you will think i was on an african refugee boat
they’re so unorganized
those who aren’t going to canada, have to wait for the rest of the people to go to the airport to pick up luggage
then we have to find our way to Istanbul
i hate canada

update: my brother was very tired and exhausted when he wrote that.

My younger brother who is in Lebanon at the moment is going to be evacuated by the Canadian embassy in the next few days. According to him they will be evacuated by ship to Larnaca (Cyprus) and from there he will take a flight back to Kuwait. He is very excited about getting on the ship..

In regards to the post below, Nat was able to get a ticket to Kuwait because she used her Beirut to Kuwait ticket. Her original Jazeera Airways flight which was supposed to take off from Beirut on Sunday took off from Damascus instead. I was worried Jazeera would cancel her ticket “by mistake” but they didn’t and honored her ticket and even her seat number.

I have already mentioned a whole bunch of times on this blog how great Jazeera Airways is and their recent actions in regard to the war in Lebanon has been extraordinary.

So yesterday was my day off. I didn’t go in to work or do any posting, instead I decided to stay home with Nat who was still exhausted from her evacuation. Thanks to everyone who left comments welcoming her, she will most probably post about her experience today. One thing I realized is that leaving Lebanon isn’t a problem, its the Syrian airport that is.

According to a Kuwaiti lady Nat spoke to at the Damascus airport, it seems some Kuwaitis are really pissed off at the Kuwait embassy. According to that lady, the Kuwaiti embassy dropped them off at the airport with the promise they would be able to find a plane back to Kuwait but she had been in the airport for 2 day and she still is on the waiting list. There are also no representatives from the Kuwaiti embassy at the airport either, they were just dropped off and left alone. Hopefully the lady is back in Kuwait now and that there are no more people stuck like that at the airport.

update: just spoke to a friend who arrived yesterday from Damascus. She told me that she was able to get on an earlier Jazeera flight because they has 16 seats free so I guess there shouldn’t be any more Kuwaitis stuck waiting for a vacant seat.

As I mentioned earlier today Nat arrived at the Damascus airport around 1:40PM. Her flight takes off at 9PM so she wasn’t able to check in until after 7PM. I spoke to her on the phone and she told me the airport is a disaster. Its understaffed, overcrowded and it seems like there is no AC even. She told me a lot of Gulf nationals were panicking and having nervous breakdowns and that the situation at the airport is unbearable.

She called me up at around 1AM telling me one of the cab drivers she was talking to earlier in the day called her and told her that drivers found a diversion around one of the roads they bombed yesterday. He told her if she wants he could take her to Syria for $500. I told her it was her decission to make and that I was half asleep and wanted to go back to sleep. She told me she was going to do it and the driver was going to come pick her up at 11AM, he is coming from Syria to pick her up.

So a few minutes ago I message her asking her what she is doing and if she is packed yet since it was nearly 10AM and I know she leaves things till the last minute. She messages me telling me she is at the Syrian border which pissed me off. I called her up and told her this is no time to joke around but she tells me she IS at the Syrian border. Turns out the driver picked her up at 8AM and when I called her up she had just crossed the Lebanese border and about to enter Syria.

Her cellphone signal was weak so I couldn’t talk to her much but I will post updates when I get them.

update: she crossed the Syrian border

update 2: Nat messaged me at 1:40PM telling me she was at the airport and to call her. I call her up and she sounded a bit freaked. She told me the airport is over crowded and she can barely move. She told me she couldn’t even find a trolley to put her bag on. She was also feeling dizzy since she had been in the car since 8AM and there was no AC so her head was spinning everytime she stood up. Her flight is at 9PM and she can’t find a magazine stand or anything nearby. She is resting now before she goes looking for the Jazeera Airways stand.

You really have to owe it to these guys, they have done an amazing job so far.

Jazeera Airways is ready to fly travelers with tickets from other airlines to return to Kuwait at NO cost. Travelers must report to Jazeera Airways’ Damascus office with their tickets

Jazeera Airways accepts Kuwaitis with NO tickets at NO cost, with letter from Kuwait Embassy in Damascus

All Beirut flights re-routed to Damascus for 7 days (until July 21). Booked travelers have the option of flying to Damascus (or flying from Damascus to Kuwait), or canceling their flight and receiving credit in the amount of their ticket to be used to any Jazeera Airways destination within 12 months

[Link]

I purchased Nats ticket with my Jazeera account so they just sent me the following message:

We hope you are safe. Beirut airport is closed. You can travel via Damascus, or cancel and receive credit for future travel. Call 4338540 for more info.

This article I am linking to talks about the art of one carry on and gives tips on how to travel light. Its in response to Marzouqs British Airways post on how they recently decreased their baggage weight limit from 32KG down to 23KG. Jazeera Airways travellers have already mastered the technique of light travel since Jazeera allows only 20KG of baggage weight. [Link]