Phew, this one was a big week. We saw tons of aviation relevant articles – most of them featuring around one particular topic from the US. Other stories reached us from Hong Kong, Italy and Greece. Plus we’ve even found another ‘odd news of the week’ piece for you – more about that later.

Let’s talk about the elephant in the room first: the 10 year anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Coincidentally this day is today and with that, all our thoughts are with all those directly and indirectly affected by the worst terrorist attacks the United States have ever experienced. Those events 10 years ago cost nearly 3,000 people’s lives. They also had a profound effect on the travel industry in the US but also for the entire world. It’s therefore no surprise that the past week brought countless articles about exactly that subject. Two articles stood out for us: first the nicely done info-graphic from the TravelPod blog and the article from the Financial Times with the headline “Passenger checks: Airlines keen to get away from one-size-fits-all security“.

Moving on to another worry for airline officials this week. Some would say this was a rather small problem, others simply called it by its name: a mouse. According to GMA News Online, the mouse sneaked into the cockpit of the Kathmandu-bound Nepal Airlines aircraft parked at Hong Kong International Airport (IATA: HKG; LD reviewed), preventing it from taking off since Tuesday night. In a separate article the BBC wrote passengers were to stay a second night in a hotel as efforts to trap the mouse continue. Nepal Airlines General Manager Sita Gurung said the plane would have to remain in Hong Kong until the mouse is caught because it poses a potential safety risk.

Europe is on strike. At least you could get that impression by reading the various articles popping up on news sites and Twitter posts this week. On Thursday and Friday Taxi drivers in Greece held another strike in Athens and for the first time also in tourist destinations like Santorini. Two days earlier, on Tuesday, Union workers in Italy mounted a general strike against austerity measures affecting public transport and air traffic as reported in The Guardian.

And finally, the odd news of the week: According to Flyertalk’s ‘The Gate’ an aircraft operated by Continental Express landed at the wrong airport this week. Excuse me? Well, apparently the aircraft, which originated in Houston, was bound for Lake Charles Regional Airport (IATA: LCH) south of Lake Charles in Louisiana but instead landed approximately eight miles due west at Southland Field south of Sulfur, Louisiana instead. The article finishes with the sentence ‘the error caused the passengers to be delayed in reaching their final destination.’ No kidding.

Have a good, travel interruption (think mouse and strike) free week!

[Photo showing 2004 memorial; from Wikipedia by Derek Jensen – some rights reserved]