Wow, what a mixed bag of airport related news we found this week. Here’s our overview:
- London’s City Airport up for sale
- Singapore closes one runway
- 15 of the world’s most terrifying airport runways
- ‘Ladies only’ parking at Frankfurt sexist?
On Thursday we got quite a surprise when we read an article in the Financial Times. Titled ‘London’s City airport up for sale’, the article states that Global Infrastructure Partners, the US fund that also has stakes in London Gatwick (LGW) and Edinburgh airport (EDI), has decided to sell London City airport (LCY), which it has owned since 2006. In the article the group said it was in the process of appointing advisers with the aim of selling the airport this year. People familiar with the business suggest it could fetch as much as £2bn (US$ 3.1bn). GIP bought the airport for an estimated £750m in 2006 from Dermot Desmond, the Irish financier, who paid just £23.5m for London City in 1995 from Mowlem, the UK construction group.
Then we heard through CNN this week that Singapore Changi Airport (SIN) may close one of its two runways possibly by 2019 to accommodate a massive Terminal 5 construction project. The airport served more than 54 million passengers and handled over 1.8 million tons of cargolast year, making it the world’s sixth busiest airport for international passenger traffic. Though some delays are expected, the likely runway closure may not dramatically impact traffic at the airport. It’s expected that a still-under-construction third runway will be open and continue operating by the time the second runway is temporarily shut.
Top X lists are always fun, in fact we’ve done our share of them too. This week, however, it was Business Insider’s turn. Their take? The 15 of the world’s most terrifying airport runways. Some of the expected ones made it into the list, such as Princess Juliana International Airport in St. Maarten (SXM) with it’s famous beach approach. Others are less known such as the quoted runway at Matekane Air Strip in Lesotho, Africa (pictured). This runway is feared due to the fact that it extends to the edge of a 600m cliff. Check out the entire list on their website.
For our gossip-of-the-week article we had quite the choice this week with posts like the one about Snoop Dogg being stopped by airport police in Italy or Pierce Brosnan’s embarrassment over a knife in his hand luggage at Burlington Airport in Vermont. But we choose an article from Germany: According to News.com.au Frankfurt Airport (FRA) came up with the idea to create a designated parking specially for woman by painting spaces pink and making them wider. What’s sexist about that? “It’s very patronising for women to be singled out in this way,” Geraldine Herbert, editor of Wheels for Women magazine told The Local in reference to parking spaces being advertised as wider. “All this does is reinforce the stereotype that women are bad at parking.” Well, enough said, you can make up your own mind about this one.
Speaking about our own opinion: LateDeparture will be going on an extended late summer break (or later winter if you’re in the Southern hemisphere). We won’t be publishing our weekly reviews, however we will continue to update Twitter. We’ll be back in October in the usual format. Until then – safe travels!
[Title picture from Wikimedia Commons – some rights reserved]