Aviation Advice

Rising Gas Prices – How to Avoid Getting Stiffed on Holiday Flights

Fuel Prices have shot up this summer, and are projected to only get higher as the year goes on. As expected, airlines have had to raise prices due to the higher expenditures associated with a rise in fuel prices. I did a search of 4 airlines for my annual Christmas flights between TYO (the code denoting the airports in the Tokyo metro area) and CVG, and found the price of flights ranged between US$1,100 and $1,800…that’s between 1.7 and 3 times the price of the flights I paid last year for Christmas. I’m afraid this is probably as cheap as...Read more

When to Arrive: Morning Arrivals vs Evening Arrivals

One key aspect of planning a flight itinerary, especially for business trips, is scheduling, and often times this is overlooked in favor of price. However, if you’re trying to make a good impression to your hosts in a faraway land, making sure you’re not exhausted or that you’re not looking like you’ve skipped 3 days of showers is absolutely key. One way to do avoid the flying zombie look is scheduling your itineraries around your preferred landing time in your final destination. This scheduling is a lot easier when flying domestic, be it in the USA or in Japan. If...Read more

What To Do When Mech Issues Cause You To Miss A Flight or Connection

When flying with a tight layover at a connecting airport, there’s always a dread of the plane landing late and you not making your connection. Sometimes, the connecting gate will hold the flight if there’s a lot of passengers from a delayed connecting flight arriving, but in some cases, it’s too much of a delay, and the connecting flight leaves for its journey with a sizable amount of passengers missing, leaving the stranded passengers wondering what to do next, usually at their first airport. This is exactly what happened to me in May when I flew back to Japan, as...Read more

What Happens to Airports During an Earthquake?

Recently, there was a strong magnitude 6 earthquake in Osaka, the second largest city in Japan. Osaka has two main airports-Kansai International (KIX) which handles both international and domestic flights, and Itami Airport (ITM) which handles domestic flights. The epicenter of the quake this week was fairly close to ITM airport. However, the shaking was strong enough throughout the Kansai region that the transportation system was effectively crippled. Many train lines throughout Osaka were cancelled for the day and the bullet train here also suffered power outages. The airports did not report much damage. The runways at KIX and ITM...Read more

How I Flew Home-Transpacific-for Christmas for $600

Flying home for the holidays is one of the most stressful, hair-pulling chores one can do, especially if they live abroad. It’s the same for me. I fly home twice a year – once during the spring, and once during the holiday season, and each holiday season it’s always a big chore simply flying home to visit the family. To minimize this stress and to keep your wallet from screaming at you, it is very important to plan these trips in advance. I asked my other friends that flew home for the Christmas season last year what they did to...Read more

Aviation Advice Category

Welcome to Aviation Advice, or AvAd! This is going to be my main column for SkyZach. When I fly, I often try to find the most straightforward and cost-effective route to my destination. I’ve flown transpac to expensive airports for under 1,000USD, flown with minimal connections for minimal flying time, and even can tell you how to find a great seat on the increasingly cramped economy section of a flight. I want this column to be a column related to your aviation questions, so if you have one, please send me an email at zkuhn37@gmail.com with the email title AvAd,...Read more