The airways B747-437B listed are suggestive, not mandatory. Deviations do occur. Aside from that, there are plenty of aviation waypoints off the coast of Yemen to construct a commercial aviation routing, including IMKAD, NODMA, RIGAM, ORBAT, XANLO, PAXED, SOKEM, AMBOD, SEPRO, and MIXAN.
I have been on several flights over 5 years ago that began in Dubai and avoided Yemeni airspace even though it was on the direct routing. Yes, I carry a robust GPS device on all my flights, so I am absolutely certain about it.
The offloading of all passengers at Dublin (assuming it was ever the practice) has stopped.
No matter how one spins the statistics, ET has a woeful on-time arrival performance record for many (perhaps most) of its major international routes.
Last edited by Sabasi; Sep 10, 2015 at 10:53 pm