Airport spy-swap: Plenty of cloak. Probably no daggers.

Vision Airlines tags itself as 'Your Personal Airline of Choice', which seems fairly ironic given that the alleged Russian spies on board its Boeing 767-200ER at Vienna today are being forcibly deported.

More irony, if you're into that sort of thing: the 767 in question, N766VA, has a history of transporting Russians having formerly been in service with the AirUnion alliance and Polet.

Hard to know which group of special transfer passengers is getting the raw end. The onward service from Vienna appears to be courtesy of a Russian emergency situations ministry Yak-42, RA-42446, but - on the bright side - it's only two-and-a-half hours' flying time to the Lubyanka.

Airside exchange, of course, means less hassle with passports and visas, and fewer nosey photographers. Not sure why it's all happening at Vienna, mind. Maybe there's some decent duty-free to be had, or maybe it's a chance to plug those convenient east-west connections, but I think it's a missed opportunity to re-enact the good old days at the Glienicke Bridge.