This week we saw airport news all the way from Beijing, Los Angeles, Manchester and once again even from Australia. Let’s start with that: On Wednesday Tiger Airways Australia’s grounding received an extension until end of July. It has now also finally stopped its ticket sales, reported the Wall Street Journal.

Across the Pacific, in California, Los Angeles International Airport (IATA: LAX; LD reviewed) gets ready for a long weekend of disruptions: Starting the evening of July 15, the San Diego (405) Freeway will be closed through the weekend for 10 miles from the 10 to the 101 freeways. According to the ABC report, the Interstate 405 Highway is one of the busiest stretches of freeway in the country and it leads right to LAX, one of the busiest airports in the country. So when the “Carmageddon” closure is in effect, airport officials and airlines are both bracing for a weekend full of late travelers. To make sure you plan accordingly if you are in LA during that time read the airport’s special info page.

Then later in the week a report from USA Today looked into duty-free stores and asked whether they actually still are bargains. Not very surprising the result came down to the travellers having to make their homework and knowing what prices are bargains vs which  ones aren’t. The report also suggested that duty-free products are of better value outside the US.

Exciting news reached us this week through Passenger Terminal Today when they broke the story that the winner of the master plan for the biggest airport of the world has been announced: With a capacity to handle up to 130 million annual passengers, the planned Beijing New International Airport (BNIA) will have a total of eight runways. The winner was NACO Netherlands Airport Consultants, a member of the DHV Group who paid special attention to sustainability when designing the master plan for the new airport (pictured). Incorporated into the design are all modes of public transport (including high speed trains, metro and inter-airport trains) that will be processed in a Ground Transportation Centre in front of the new terminals. You can read the companies press release here.

And now for the odd news of the week, thanks to The Daily Mail: Workers at Manchester Airport (IATA: MAN) were left in a flap after a flamingo forced one of the runways for five hours. The bird, famous for its pink feathers and standing on one leg, evaded capture and was unperturbed by ground staff’s efforts to scare it away. It eventually flew away but nobody knows where the flamingo came from or to where it went. Well, if you wanted budget holidays, in Manchester you certainly won’t have to fly to Miami to see flamingos in the wild!

That’s all folkes – have a great week and safe travels!

[Picture from NACO – all rights reserved]