A daily wrap of Thailand news, with a Phuket perspective and reports from national and international media.

Thai Airways is now flying the Phuket-Hong Kong route on Wednesdays Fridays and Sundays. Vice Governor Worapot Rattasima was at Phuket International Airport for Sunday's first flight. Chanthad Srininta, Thai Airways Manager on Phuket, is confident that the tourists from Hong Kong who stopped coming after the 2004 tsunami will begin returning now that direct flights are available.

Associated Press Two Northwest Airlines pilots have told US investigators that they were going over schedules using their laptop computers while their plane overflew their Minneapolis destination by 241 kilometres. Authorities became so alarmed that National Guard jets were readied for take-off at two locations and the White House Situation Room alerted senior White House officials.

nytimes.com There is no procedure for flight attendants to check on pilots during flight. Before the airplane hijackings on Sept. 11, 2001, flight attendants casually entered the cockpit as a plane was cruising, but since the terrorist attacks, cockpit doors have been reinforced and are locked during flights.

latimes.com Airline passengers who are shaken by news that two pilots are under investigation for overshooting a Minneapolis airport after possibly nodding off will not want to hear this: sometimes pilots sleep in the cockpit. ''Pilots on occasion do take controlled naps,'' said Barry Schiff, an aviation safety consultant and retired pilot. ''So this is not without precedent.''

Phuketwan Update An early-morning blaze yesterday at a new Subway restaurant on Phuket caused damage estimated at 500,000 baht. The blaze lasted for about an hour and took four fire trucks to control. An electrical fault was blamed. The popular restaurant brand recently opened near Loma Park in Patong.

reuters.com Malaysian budget carrier AirAsia carried 19 percent more passengers in Q3 than a year earlier. Southeast Asia's largest low-cost airline by fleet size said it carried a total of 3.6 million passengers during the quarter.

aljazeera.net In what is supposed to be Thailand's peak tourist season, the long tail boats along the Chao Phraya river, in the heart of Bangkok, are mostly empty these days. ''This year is the worst. It's actually the worst of the worst,'' one tour-boat operator said. In most tourist areas of Thailand, locals are hanging their hopes on a surge of last-minute bookings to lift them out of the slump.

bangkokpost.com The Tourism Authority of Thailand is using social networking (Facebook, Twitter and blogs) to reach tourists and is confident it will become an important marketing strategy. Social networking yielded better results than expected for the TAT's first project, Ultimate Thailand Explorers, with 25 million viewers expected before the project ends in February.

wsj.com The weekend's summit of Asian leaders in Thailand generated more heat than light on economics, but one thing is increasingly clear: Beijing and Tokyo understand the strategic importance of trade. Washington does not, and it risks paying the price in lost influence. The question is why isn't the US doing more to influence this regional debate?

bloomberg.com The US may have less than a half- century left as the dominant global economic power before it will share top billing with China and India, former Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew said in an interview. ''The first half of the 21st century, a large part of it, will still be the American,'' Lee, 86, said in an interview with the Charlie Rose television show on the PBS network. ''But I believe the second half you'll have to share top places with China and also with India.''

news.com.au A 30-year-old Australian man arrested in Thailand over the smash and grab theft of a $1 million ring from a jewellery shop in Melbourne says he is innocent. George Georgiou was arrested by Thai police in a raid on an apartment in the seaside resort of Pattaya.

summerinphuket.com November 5 has been set as the next date for Phuket's island-wide clean beaches campaign. Organisers hope to attract 3000 volunteers to 28 regular monthly cleanup destinations from 3pm.

jakartaglobe.com An Indonesian maid who was found locked and bound in a bathroom by a cleaner last week in Klang, Malaysia, has died in hospital, the New Straits Times reported. The maid, 37-year-old Mantik Hani from Surabaya, was employed by a night market hawker and his wife.

afp Customs officials in Norway say they had arrested a man who tried to illegally import 14 snakes and 10 lizards into the country by taping the reptiles to his body. The snakes, king pythons that are large in size but not venomous, were rolled up in socks and taped to the man's torso, while the geckos were found in small boxes taped to his legs.

dailymail.co.uk Celebrity chef Keith Floyd is still missed. ''He'd been talking about travelling to Phuket to share Christmas with us,''says Burasari boss Lily Udomkunnatum, where Floyd's Braserrie continues to operate. ''We had so much joy and laughter together at the bar. Sometimes he'd jump up and steal the microphone from our resident singer and burst into song for our guests. It was quite a battle to get the mike back off him.''

eturbonews.com The Travel Agents Federation of India held their annual convention in Chiang Mai over three days in October then delegates had the opportunity to participate in a three-night familiarisation trip to 10 destinations in Thailand and beyond. Destinations included Bangkok, Pattaya, Hua Hin, Phuket, Chiang Rai, Cambodia, Vietnam, and the Philippines.

Associated Press The Big Mac, long a symbol of globalisation, has become the latest victim of Iceland's overexposure to the world financial crisis.Three McDonald's restaurants in the capital, Reykjavik, will close next weekend, as the franchise owner gives in to falling profits caused by the collapse in the Icelandic krona.