This week the Nepalese airport has pretty much dominated airport related news around the world. Here are our headlines in the overview:
- Chaos first, shelter later: Kathmandu Airport after the earthquake
- Passengers stuck in customs for hours at US airport
- Brisbane Airport set to expand
- Storm knocks out power at New Orleans airport
The massive earthquake in Nepal that costs Thousands of people’s lives has also had an effect on the country’s main airport: Tribhuvan International Airport in Kathmandu (KTM) stories on LateDeparture. LA Times described the scenes at the airport in their article as following: The plane traffic became so backed up that numerous flights were turned away Sunday and forced to return later. Discarded paper and plastic water bottles littered the tarmac, giving the place the sad air of a site where a carnival had just passed through.
A few days later The Wall Street Journal reported that since the quake, this capital city’s single-runway airport and an adjoining military airfield have become the hub of a massive international rescue and relief effort as the impoverished country struggles to care for the huge number of people wounded and displaced in the disaster.
We encourage all of our readers to provide help through one of the humanitarian organisations’ earthquake appeals.
We’re now moving on to a different topic: This week passengers at a US airport had to endure a rather lengthy wait before getting through to customs. Click2Houston reported that Thousands of furious international passengers tried to catch flights home following a massive baggage blunder at Terminal E at Bush Intercontinental Airport (IAH) stories on LateDeparture on Sunday. As for an explanation from the airlines, passengers were told the chaos was the result of too many international flights arriving at the same time. That’s a rather fishy explanation if you ask us, surely they anticipated the arrival of each of those aircrafts…
Then we got hold of some good news from Down-under: The Sydney Morning Herald reported this week that Brisbane Airport’s domestic terminal (BNE) stories on LateDeparture is set to undergo its biggest expansion since it opened in 1988, with the construction of a new regional airline building now out to market. The expansion will increase the number of gates at the domestic terminal from 61 to 72, with the potential for a further six gates as demand increases. Work is expected to start in early 2016.
And to finish the week off, some ‘storm’ news from New Orleans. According to Reuters a line of storms moving through Louisiana on Monday knocked out power to the New Orleans International Airport (MSY) stories on LateDeparture, sent freight train cars tumbling from an elevated bridge and left nearly 238,000 customers without electricity. At the airport, electricity was off in the main terminal for much of the day and the airfield operated on emergency power, before electricity was fully restored in the evening, an airport spokeswoman said.
That’s all for this week – safe travels.
[Title photo shows the domestic terminal at Tribhuvan Kathmandu Airport before the earthquake; Photo Credit: Debarshi Ray via Compfight cc]
