Time flies; it’s already Sunday again here in Melbourne and with that time for another weekly airport news round-up. This week we saw – surprise, surprise – more strike news (but don’t worry, it wasn’t the chocolate bunnies that went on strike…), an article about stolen goods and a pilot that freaked out mid-flight.
Continue reading This week: Easter strikes predicted & 200 thefts daily at JFK
This was an amazingly busy week in airport newsland! We found articles about the renaming of two airports, strike updates from two countries and an improvement project given the green lights. Oh and then there’s the pope too, but more about that later.
Continue reading This week: strike pairs, renaming pairs and a new runway
This week we have three news stories that have all one thing in common: the airports the articles are about are regulars of our little weekly news round-ups. We’re talking about Vancouver, Bangkok and candidate number one – drum roll please – Heathrow Airport.
Continue reading This week: Vancouver wins, Bangkok loses and London is in question
This is going to be fun, as we have another one of our rivalry reports between Heathrow and Gatwick. And this week it’s all about the luggage which went right for one and oh so wrong for the other; more about that in a few paragraphs.
Continue reading This week: More London rivalry and Hawaiian welcome gone wrong
Righty-o, as we say here in down-under, let’s get this show on the road. This week we have airport news from across the globe for you: There’s the closure of an Asian airport’s terminal building, a computer glitch in Europe, Sweden’s suspicious bag and a police chase down an active airport runway in the US.
Continue reading This week: an airport runway car chase & more
It’s been one of those odd weeks where one particular news story just didn’t go away; more about that later. In other news we found bits and pieces from the US (this time San Francisco and Denver made the cut) as well as our almost surely reoccurring news from England.
Continue reading This week: Strong winds, strikes and a wheelchair bomb scare
We love innovation and particularly – surprise, surprise – airport innovation. This one here was sent to us from a very attentive reader who discovered a story about a new way of overlaying digital flight information onto a binocular display at an airport observation deck. The story gets even better as the case study is based on an art installation at Zurich Airport (IATA: ZRH), one of our “like” airports in Europe.
Continue reading Airport Innovation: Augmented Reality Binoculars
What a busy airport week this one was again! We’ve got more strikes albeit this week from a different European country, a culinary feast about to be unveiled in the UK, Chinese turtles and a couple of “interesting” stories from the US of A. So let’s get started right away!
Continue reading This week: Jamie’s Gatwick, 79 turtles, and German strikes
This week we focused on two main geographical areas: Brazil and France. One had good news, the other not so much. Now the question becomes, which had which?
Continue reading This week: Strikes, Privatization and Victoria Beckham
Our lovely friends over at Forbes have recently come up with their selection of the best international airport for layovers. It’s a great idea and something we have been discussing for a while here at LateDeparture. So, in true LD-style, let’s get that red pen out and add some notes to their recommendations:
London Heathrow Airport (IATA: LHR)
Yes, London is exciting, however, the airport overall isn’t. Don’t get us wrong, we really like what they’ve done with Terminal 5 and the Virgin Clubhouse in Terminal 3 is simply fantastic, however, the average traveller would probably be quite underwhelmed by the airport overall. It still feels too crowded, outdated and confusing. Plus there’s always the chance of getting in or out late because of the airport is already at 99% capacity with its 2 runways. But then it is London, well known for being eccentric and a bit chaotic. So if that’s what you like, you’ll have a great time there!
Hong Kong International (IATA: HKG)
Yes, Hong Kong should definitely be on that list; we wrote about it numerous times, for example in one of our most famous headlines reading “When little airports grow up, they become Hong Kong International“. The airport has also won numerous awards and certainly has our seal of approval!
Munich International Airport (IATA: MUC)
Munich airport has two faces: a happy one and a rather confused if not angry one. Let us explain this further: Munich is one of the Lufthansa hubs and therefore receives special treatment by the German airline. The carrier occupies one terminal exclusively (together with its Star Alliance partners). This terminal, Terminal 2, is really nice and offers plenty of options for shopping or consuming one of those famous Oktoberfest beers. On the other side, Terminal 1 is dull and boring and doesn’t seem to fit next to its upmarket cousin. However, there’s a solution if you are not flying through Terminal 2: head outside and get into that middle section between the two terminals. There you find a few restaurants and other interesting stuff to spend your time with (read our more detailed review titled “Oktoberfest atmosphere at Munich Airport” to gain further insights).
Singapore Changi Airport (IATA: SIN)
Yes, yes, and yes! This airport ticks all the boxes and definitely belongs in this list. And no, we don’t get any money for writing this. But it is an open secret that this airport has been our long lasting favourite and we’ve covered it extensively (e.g. read our detailled review of Changi’s crown jewel, Terminal 3 here).
Amsterdam Schiphol (IATA: AMS)
Amsterdam, Amsterdam, what can we say? Maybe that we love you? There’s certainly no doubt that this is an exciting airport with plenty to see and do. In our opinion it’s probably the best European airport as it’s got the perfect size, it’s big but not too big. Plus similar to Changi airport, Amsterdam keeps introducing new and exciting things. The latest one was the banner vending machine – we wrote about it. If you want to read more about the airport, a good start is our review here.
That’s where the Forbes list ends. Overall we believe it’s a good selection but might miss out on mentioning South Korea’s Incheon International Airport (IATA: ICN), an airport that has also regularly won awards, Zurich Airport (IATA: ZRH) which we also featured a number of times (e.g. here) or good old Los Angeles International (IATA: LAX) albeit not for the airport itself, but for it’s great location only minutes away from the beach and other superb layover options (read our extensive LAX reviews here, here and here).
[Photo from Flickr – Some rights reserved by Gerrit Wenz]
