Oman Air

And that includes the stopover, the extra 5K points with them.

And then coming back from Kuala Lumpur, they'll spend about five days in Kuala Lumpur and then fly Oman Air from Kuala Lumpur to Paris.

And then they'll stay in Muscat for three days.

And then eventually we'll get back home from Paris.

Meaning in this case, I couldn't book Kuala Lumpur to Paris on one ticket because there just wasn't availability for that flight from muscat to paris but if we stayed three days in muscat utilizing the stopover program we can book that on one ticket and it ultimately ends up being less points than booking everything individually

Okay, Allison, I think I need a recap of that routing because it sounds so complicated.

I mean, it sounds awesome because Oman Air is awesome.

So can you tell us the route again and how many total points that was?

Folks, media reports have named the co-pilot as an Omani national.

They've reported that he had already been flagged while at Oman Air over extremist material and barred from flying.

He was kept in an administrative role before he ended up back in a fly-to-buy cockpit bound for Israel.

The UAE says the investigation into motive and any links is still open, but we will not pretend we don't know this pattern.

He had begun to become radicalized while undergoing training in Australia.

He subsequently worked for Oman Air and Royal Air Maroc.

The accident flight had been the first officer's third flight to Tel Aviv.

He had used the earlier flights to plan the attack.

Now I'm thinking they've lowered their standards, number one, on just pilot experience.

And obviously, maybe background checks, because this person, this first officer had been suspended of his duties in Oman Air for posting online content that was considered radical content.

and yet fly to buy still hired him and i believe he had been passed over by another airline they did the security background and saw this stuff and they passed him over so you know it it makes me think that they need pilots so bad they're willing to overlook stuff so that's my concern is about the declining hiring standards and you know that's how that's how this happened is that they needed people so bad they overlooked it would i fly on fly to buy today fly to buy maybe not honestly um just just from all that plus then recently fly to buy suspended two suspended and uae deported two more uh fly to buy pilots for radical uh, stances on things.

So this has been rampant inside that company for a while.

One of the reasons why I like Air Canada Aeroplan redemptions is because they actually do have a distance-based chart, so you can predictably know what a business class flight will cost with one of the partners.

And another reason why I like s- Air Canada is because not only can you redeem Air Canada Aeroplan points for Air Canada and Star Alliance, but they have other partners that are not part of any other alliance, such as Emirates, Etihad, they have Gulf Air, Oman Air, which is due to join Oneworld.

Uh, you know, there's a bunch of other carriers that you can redeem your points for.

Now, for some of these other partners, especially Emirates, they do have a separate award chart, but you do still have the option to redeem your points for some of these other partners.

So the investigation, Saudi authorities detained Almani and transferred him to Abu Dhabi.

Investigations revealed he had previously studied in Australia, was dismissed by Oman Air due to extremist views, and managed to pass flydubai's background checks without triggering red flags.

Excuse me? He literally lost his job at Oman Air due to extremist views, and managed to pass flydubai's background checks without triggering red flags.

All right, so I just wanted to get, since we were talking about it, and I know some people will be like, "Oh, I need to look into that.

I didn't hear about that." 'Cause I'm surprised.

Beyond changing how planes work, aviation security experts say airlines need to also improve how they screen pilots.

In the case of the recent incident with Flydubai, the pilot, an Omani national, had already been banned from flying by Oman Air two years ago.

So it's not clear how he ended up on the flight, especially as Israel bans pilots from countries like Oman, where there's no formal diplomatic relations.

Experts also told Tangel that prioritizing pilots' mental health is a critical step in preventing future catastrophes, pointing to changes made in Europe after the Germanwings crash of 2015, where local officials concluded it was intentional.