Phew, this one was a big week. We saw tons of aviation relevant articles – most of them featuring around one particular topic from the US. Other stories reached us from Hong Kong, Italy and Greece. Plus we’ve even found another ‘odd news of the week’ piece for you – more about that later.
This week has been a mixed one. While it certainly wasn’t a quiet one for the US East Coast airports, elsewhere, things were more on the normal side with one notable exception: China. But enough of the vagueness, let’s get straight into it:
It’s been a turbulent week with plenty of airport related news. Earlier in the week we reported about the future of airport security, a topic that keeps being on top of travellers and airport managers minds alike, especially now with the approaching anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Then towards the end of the week the news headlines were dominated by hurricane Irene with severe implications for air travel.
This week has been a fairly quiet week in airport news terms. Nevertheless we still found few very interesting stories all the way from Amsterdam, Arkansas and Belgrade for you. They even all have one common theme – can you figure it out?
This week’s news has it all: two celebrities – one in a controversial fight with a European lobby, the other on a literature adventure (can you say it 10 times?) – and then two rival airports that finally start competing properly. Now if that’s not proper headline stuff, we rest our pencils.
This week we received airport news from around the world. Well, surely you would expect that but it isn’t always the case as the US is by far the most dominant source of (juicy) airport news. Actually, let’s start with the US and then make our way eastwards: The Wall Street Journal this week published a report compiled by the Transportation Department’s Bureau of Transportation Statistics about the timeliness of US airports. Of the 100 most-delayed flights over the past year, 40 come and go from Newark Liberty International Airport (IATA: EWR) making it the worst airport for punctuality.
Yes, we admit it, we’re one day late with our weekly airport round-up. So without further ado, let’s get right into it: This week, dozens of airport construction projects across the USA have been put on hold as the government failed to pass legislation to keep the Federal Aviation Administration running, wrote Passenger Terminal Today. According to Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, the FAA’s operating authority expired, forcing a partial shutdown of the agency. This has meant dozens of stop-work orders were issued last weekend on projects throughout the country.
Let’s start with some good news and let us congratulate Vancouver Airport (IATA: YVR) as the Canadian airport celebrated its 80th birthday this week. According to the Vancouver Sun, it drew delegations from airports around the world to admire its public art and West Coast decoration.
It’s been a very average week in terms of airport news from around the world. But don’t you worry, we wouldn’t be here if we couldn’t find juicy news for you even in a story drought. Actually, there was no shortage of airport news from one corner of the planet this week: Los Angeles. That’s because this weekend the main transit road from the city to the airport, the I-405 freeway was partially closed for demolishing an overpass. We wrote about it last week.
This week we saw airport news all the way from Beijing, Los Angeles, Manchester and once again even from Australia. Let’s start with that: On Wednesday Tiger Airways Australia’s grounding received an extension until end of July. It has now also finally stopped its ticket sales, reported the Wall Street Journal.