Malaysian Air Flight Took Route Avoided by Qantas, Asiana
Malaysian Airline System Bhd. (MAS), whose plane carrying 298 passengers was shot down over eastern Ukraine, took a route avoided by Qantas (QAN) Airways Ltd. and several other carriers as separatist fights in the region intensified.The attack, blamed on pro-Russia separatists by the Ukraine government, killed everyone on board the Amsterdam-Kuala Lumpur flight, prompting the airline to take alternative routes for its European flights. The disaster comes four months after Malaysian Flight 370 bound for Beijing disappeared without a trace.
Qantas hasn’t been using that route for a few months, said Andrew McGinnes, a spokesman for the Australian carrier, while Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd. (293) said it hasn’t been flying over the area for “quite some time.” Singapore Airlines Ltd. said it’s “no longer using Ukrainian airspace.”
“All airlines will be avoiding it like a plague,” Mohshin Aziz, an analyst at Malayan Banking Bhd. in Kuala Lumpur, said about the Ukrainian flight path. “Even today, Syria is in the middle of a war and commercial aircraft pass it every day -- there hasn’t been an incident.”
Ukraine’s state security service said it intercepted phone conversations among militants discussing the missile strike, which knocked Flight 17 from the sky about 30 kilometers (18 miles) from the Russian border. U.S. officials said the weapon probably was a Russian-made model used widely in Eastern Europe. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-07-18/malaysian-airline-took-flight-route-avoided-by-qantas-asiana.html
