This week we’ve done something different by pairing up the airport news of the week. Before we get into it, we would like to make an announcement of our own: if you’re reading this on LateDeparture, you might have noticed that we changed our site layout quite dramatically. The old layout has seen its days, so we redesigned the whole thing with the aim to make it a lot more user friendly and give you a better experience. Let us know what you think!
Alright, let us start with the news pairs: First up are France and Cyprus which this week had one thing in common: airport strikes. On Thursday The Washington Post reported that Cyprus’ airports and government offices have shut down in a daylong strike by a civil servants’ union and air traffic controllers to protest a wage freeze and other spending cuts affecting them. According to the report the rare work stoppage has forced the cancellation of 79 flights to and from the east Mediterranean island. Over in France, we heard from Reuters just yesterday that a strike by French airport security staff caused the cancellation of all flights at Lyon airport (IATA: LYS) and disruption at Paris Charles de Gaulle airport (IATA: CDG).
The next pair comes from Africa, an area often neglected from aviation news. Not this week, as we heard from Kilimanjaro Airport (IATA: JRO) – yes, we’ve even reviewed it! – that it will get a facelift. The Citizen reported that the renovation of the Kilimanjaro International Airport will start in January as part of efforts to improve services at the 40 year old airport to meet the demands of increased tourist flows in Northern Tanzania. Over at the west side of the continent Modern Ghana informed us that the Minister for Transport of the Republic of Ghana has announced that financial arrangements for the Tamale airport (IATA: TML) would soon be finalised to upgrade it to international status, to serve as an alternative to the Kotoka International Airport (IATA: ACC).
And the last but not least of our “news pairs” is between the two mega airports London Heathrow (IATA: LHR) and Los Angeles International (LAX). Both made news this week when Facebook released a list of the airports with the most online check-ins. The Los Angeles Times headlined the survey by shouting out the “winner”, Los Angeles International Airport while over in England, the Daily Mail was quite satisfied with Heathrow making it among the Top 20 of the “most social” airports. Airport International has the full list, in case you are interested.
That’s all we have this week – safe travels everyone!
[Photo from Flickr – Some rights reserved by kennysarmy]