Americas, Europe, In the News, Weekly

This week: Tiny bottles theft, drenched suitcases & another airport design

This week one thing is for sure: we don’t have to rush through a truck load of news items! Why? Because it was a rather uneventful week. However, if you think we’re going to stop here and throw in the towel, oh, you’re mistaken. You know, if you look close enough, you always find some interesting airport related news stories, even in the most droughts of weeks. And that’s exactly what we did.

So, let’s start with a bang and the following, highly interesting story from New York’s JFK airport:

100,000 tiny bottles of booze? Wow! CNN wrote this week that eighteen workers at New York’s JFK Airport were arrested on Wednesday and accused of stealing more than 100,000 mini-bottles of alcohol from LSG Sky Chefs, which provides food and beverages for American Airlines. The article continued by saying that prosecutors allege that 15 employees of LSG pilfered bottles of alcohol left over from various American Airlines flights and sold them on the underground market to local liquor stores and bodegas. Taking place over many months, these thefts yielded an estimated retail value of $750,000.

How about another bang? Okay, this one actually happened the previous week, but it’s too good not to report: The Independent wrote that British Airways passengers are kicking up a stink after a pipe burst at Heathrow (LHR) Terminal 5, drenching 100 suitcases in raw sewage. According to the article the leak occurred in the terminal’s baggage hold on Monday [the previous week], with travellers forced to leave their bags behind after the airport sent them off to be cleaned. Apparently many of the passengers are still waiting for their luggage to be returned.

Finally, another airport proposal emerged for the controversial suggestion of a new airport for London in the Thames Estuary. According to the BBC the proposals for London Britannia Airport, designed by architects Gensler, include four floating runways tethered to the sea bed. In the article the architect said the design allowed for future expansion to accommodate six runways when required. Renowned architect Sir Norman Foster unveiled their ambitious plan late last year (we reported).

That’s all for now – safe travels!
[Photo from Flickr – Some rights reserved by canonsnapper]