Pre-Christmas time is definitely a busy period for everyone and it’s therefore no surprise that airports around the planet stirred up a lot of headlines this week as well. On Tuesday we brought you a piece about the newly proposed Thames Hub in the United Kingdom yet today we have a cat and mouse game from down-under, environmental impacts in Scotland and Beijing as well as two tabloid stories from the United States for you.

First up, Edinburgh Airport in Scotland (IATA: EDI) made it into the headlines this week when Scotsman.com reported that 60,000 people were without power on Wednesday night and about 60 passengers were left stranded at the airport after the storms caused havoc to transport, schools and city centres across much of Scotland. In addition, hundreds of air passengers faced disruption after 100 flights were cancelled at Edinburgh and some 45 at Glasgow (IATA: GLA).

2 days earlier, a different kind of environmental impact hit another airport a few thousand miles to the East. The New York Times reported that Capital International Airport in Beijing (IATA: PEK) was forced to cancel hundreds of flights on Monday because of heavy smog and weather conditions. The article concluded that the cancellations were the latest sign that pollution in China’s largest cities, among the worst in the world, is leading to significant economic losses.

In Australia, the two airports of the ever competing cities of Melbourne and Sydney played cat and mouse this week. First the Sydney Morning Herald broke the story that Sydney Airport (IATA: SYD) is proposing a major overhaul under which terminals would be divided by what airline passengers are flying with, rather than where they are travelling to. The story continued by outlining that under the plan, the current domestic terminals would accommodate Qantas, its international partners and Jetstar, and the current international terminal would take Virgin Australia and other international airlines.

Two days later, the Melbourne based newspaper The Age answered Sydney’s challenge with the story that Melbourne Airport (IATA: MEL) is set to expand, with plans to build a $300 million passenger terminal and improve freeway access. And to score the match making goal against its arch rival, the news report said Melbourne is gearing up to have a new interconnected domestic terminal running by mid-2014, a mere 5 years prior to Sydney’s proposed terminal shuffle expected to be completed by 2019.

For the final two stories this week, we travel to the United States. First up was the story from Reno, Nevada where according to FOX News a woman fired about three weeks ago for refusing to load an emaciated hunting dog on a plane at the Reno-Tahoe International Airport (IATA: RNO) is taking her job back. The news said Lynn Jones, who had worked more than five years as a baggage handler for St. Louis-based Airport Terminal Services, accepted her employer’s offer to give her the job back, and said she hopes to put the flap behind her.

And finally to Mr. Alec Baldwin who made headlines this week for getting kicked off a plane at Los Angeles International Airport (IATA: LAX). According to The Scoop the incident happened on Tuesday when Mr. Baldwin boarded an American Airlines flight. In the same article Baldwin’s rep Matthew Hiltzik explained what went down: “Alec was asked to leave the flight for playing ‘Words with Friends’ on his iPad, while parked at the gate. Alec is so in love with ‘Words with Friends’ that he would risk getting thrown off a flight to play. He’s already been re-booked on another American Airlines flight.”
That’s all we have for this week – safe travels everyone!

[Picture from Wikipedia – some rights reserved]