Customer Reviews

Airlines of Asia

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Over almost 600 pages, Davis traces the history of Northeast, Southeast and South Asian airlines since 1920 through to the the mid 1990s. Coverage is comprehensive and includes airlines from India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Maldives, Burma, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Hong Kong, Philippines, China, Taiwan, Japan, North and South Korea, and Mongolia, among others. Chapters cover the historical development of the airlines and include, among other things, route maps, information on fleet development and some other highlights. For the interested reader there is a two page bibliography of books related to Asian air transport at the end of the book.

One major shortcoming is that the author does not reference his sources, which is unscholarly to say the least. For a book that was the result of 20 years of reseach, a two page bibliography is rather disappointing und undermines the credibility of the author's undoubtably extensive research. Moreover, Davis has a habit of littering his writing with general comments on the airline business that are irrelevant and make the author seem high-browed (e.g. pg 180, "Airline people are airline people and seem to be a special breed whose devotion to the cause of air transport tanscends petty prejudices or even major ones").

Nevertheless this is a unique book and useful compendium of Asian aviation history and despite its shortcomings deserves its place on the shelf of anyone interested in Asian airline history.