The British Evacuation of Japan and Bahrain, compared

This is rather amusing.

Britain has warned all of its citizens to evacuate, and flights have been chartered to evacuate citizens back to Britain. Enough flights have been chartered to bring 17,000 nationals back to the motherland.

Now let’s look at Bahrain. Here also, Britain advised its citizens to leave — but a seat on a chartered evacuation jet is ￡260 – 310! The result? The chartered flight left empty – probably difficult to justify such a seat when that price is not very competitive with commercial airline alternatives.

But I’ve spoken with friends living in Bahrain and things sound relatively fine — as long as you stay out of the Pearl Square where the centre of the violence is.