Airports, Americas, Asia, Europe, In the News

This week: Karachi airport under attack, Pandas in Hong Kong & music in Vegas

It’s been another mixed week for airport related news. We found everything from a self-made video at Las Vegas Airport to terror attacks at Pakistan’s main airport:

The week started off in a dramatic fashion for Pakistan’s main airport. CNN reported on Tuesday that seven bodies have been recovered near a cold storage facility at a Karachi airport (KHI) Tuesday morning, more than a day after a deadly militant attack there left 29 others dead. According to the article the Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility for the assault on the country’s largest and busiest airport. Later that day the same news media reported that for the second time in two days, Pakistan’s largest and busiest airport was forced to shut down after militants launched a brazen attack on airport security forces. The Civil Aviation Authority said flights were temporarily suspended but later resumed Tuesday. Well, we surely wouldn’t want to go there right now.

The soccer World Cup is in full swing now, but it wasn’t all smooth sailing for Brazil in the lead up to the event. Even down to the last days, reports came in of various disruptions: On Tuesday, for example, Business Insider wrote that some foreign journalists and fans arriving in São Paulo on Monday for the World Cup are being greeted by a travel nightmare. Amid a strike by metro workers that’s wreaking havoc on the city’s transportation system, there are long taxi lines at both of the city’s two major airports. In the article a Reuters reporter said he waited 140 minutes for a taxi at the city’s new Guarulhos international airport (GRU).

Nature often can cause delays at the world’s airport. This week strong thunderstorms passing through the Washington area were disrupting Dulles International Airport (IAD) on Friday afternoon. The Washington Post wrote that air traffic was delayed for up to 2 hours earlier that day at Reagan National Airport (DCA) as well.

Then over in England a lightning strike has caused disruption and delays to hundreds of passengers at London Gatwick Airport (LGW), wrote the BBC. A spokeswoman said the strike, which happened overnight, led to a power dip in the area which caused electrical trips to the airport’s systems. There were delays at check-in and in baggage handling.

Lighter news (pardon the pun) reached us from Hong Kong this week. There, one thousand six hundred pandas, made out of papier mache, have been installed at Hong Kong Airport (HKG), reported the BBC. French artist Paulo Grangeon wants to raise awareness of dwindling panda populations. He said the 1,600 paper pandas represented real pandas still alive in the wild.

And finally the story of the airport music video gone viral. Well, you’ve probably heard of it by now, but basically a guy stuck overnight at Las Vegas’ McCarran International Airport (LAS), rejected the standard time-wasting techniques of reading and crying alone into stale Cinnabon, The Huffington Post wrote. Instead, he let his inner creativity take the wheel – and it steered him to Celine Dion’s classic cover of the Eric Carmen song, “All By Myself.”

All by myself from Richard Dunn on Vimeo.

That’s all for this week – safe travels!

[Photo from Wikipedia – some rights reserved]