Category Archives: Oceania

This week: an unusual auction, fog and strike

It was a semi-busy airport week, this one. But, as always, it depends how you actually define “busy”. Surely the news kept flowing in in similar rates, but we didn’t see as much drama as in previous weeks. We think, that’s a good thing, of course. We still managed to find you some real jewels though. Let’s call them out: fog, strike, staff training and an airport sell out – sounds interesting?

Continue reading This week: an unusual auction, fog and strike

This week: Berlin disappoints with a 9 month delay and more

Well, of course it happens when I’m away without access to my computer: the site goes down. My sincere apologies for the disruption – it seems like one of the WordPress plugins has caused the crash. I’m still investigating which one, so please bear with me while I’m fixing this issue asap. Let’s move on and focus on some of the important and interesting, airport related news from the past few days. I’ve got a nice, mixed bag of goodies for you!

Continue reading This week: Berlin disappoints with a 9 month delay and more

This week: Emergency at Gatwick, Sydney’s new airport & more

This week has been a mixed news bag kind of week. We saw some disruptions (England), some new additions (India), a growing debate (Australia) and some new, old winners (Austria). Let’s resolve the riddle by going straight into the first piece.

Continue reading This week: Emergency at Gatwick, Sydney’s new airport & more

Seoul’s Incheon wins Airport of Year Award 2012 – yawn!

It was this time of the year again when the World’s Best Airports are named at the annual Skytrax World Airport Awards. Last Year Hong Kong won the trophy, this year it was South Korea’s Incheon International Airport (IATA: ICN). It’s boring as the overall winner always seems to be either Hong Kong (HKG), Singapore (SIN) or, well, Incheon. At least this was true over the past years.

Continue reading Seoul’s Incheon wins Airport of Year Award 2012 – yawn!

Last news of 2011: Christchurch again, French strikes & free Wi-Fi

Only seven more days remain in 2011 and it’s therefore time for us at LateDeparture to pack up and enjoy a little (well deserved?!) break. But of course, we won’t leave you before we put another, final round of airport news in front of you. Besides that, you should already get excited for coming back to LateDeparture in January as not only will we continue to review airports and bring you weekly airport related news, but also we will be presenting you with the very first Airport News of the Year Award in early January. The best of all this is, that you can vote for the news you liked best and as a result win some awesome prizes! So stay tuned and get ready for a big 2012!

Continue reading Last news of 2011: Christchurch again, French strikes & free Wi-Fi

This week: a cat & mouse game from down-under plus more

Pre-Christmas time is definitely a busy period for everyone and it’s therefore no surprise that airports around the planet stirred up a lot of headlines this week as well. On Tuesday we brought you a piece about the newly proposed Thames Hub in the United Kingdom yet today we have a cat and mouse game from down-under, environmental impacts in Scotland and Beijing as well as two tabloid stories from the United States for you.

Continue reading This week: a cat & mouse game from down-under plus more

A day at the airport: refuelling planes

Most people never really think about what is involved in getting a plane ready before take-off. One of those important jobs is refuelling the aircraft. It’s something the general public doesn’t get much insight about, so clearly I jumped at the opportunity when offered to shadow the refuelling operation for a few hours at Melbourne Airport (IATA: MEL).

Continue reading A day at the airport: refuelling planes

This week: Thanksgiving plans, angry passengers and new technology

Okie dokie, let’s get this week’s news round-up going as we’ve got a lot to get through! Our tour will bring you to Singapore, Hong Kong, Los Angeles, Melbourne, Moscow and London. It’s obviously been a news week from around the world!

Continue reading This week: Thanksgiving plans, angry passengers and new technology

This week: Qantas, east coast storm and stranded Everest tourists

Well, what can I say? For the first time in the history of the weekly LateDeparture airport news round-ups, I decide to take a leave of absence for a couple days. Plus – and this really was the big mistake – I decide to pre-write the news without a disclaimer of when it was written. Naively I thought, what can possibly shake up the airport world in the 3 days I’m away? Oh dearie-me, how wrong was I? One day into my leave (note, I didn’t even have any means of communication at all), the Australian carrier Qantas decides to ground its entire fleet worldwide. Thousands of passengers got stranded across the globe while Irish-born Alan Joyce – the airline’s CEO – bet on a solution to its ongoing, costly disputes with the unions. He got his way, even though they say it’s not yet entirely over, but further threats of future strikes from the unions are out of the way for the moment.

Continue reading This week: Qantas, east coast storm and stranded Everest tourists

A solid mid-of-the-range airport: Brisbane International Terminal

I’ve been in Brisbane quite a few times but whenever I landed there it’s always been the domestic terminal. So when I recently got a chance to fly out of Queensland’s capital to Port Moresby (IATA: POM; LD reviewed), I took the opportunity and reviewed the international terminal of Brisbane Airport (IATA: BNE) for my loyal readers:

Continue reading A solid mid-of-the-range airport: Brisbane International Terminal