It’s been another busy week for airports around the world. And once again we have seen the full spectrum of news articles coming in: everything from small animals delaying flights at one of the busiest airports in the world to an “animal-named” airline being grounded due to safety concerns. Oh and then there’s the one with new bathrooms too. But let’s start at the beginning:
Continue reading This week’s airport events: turtles, tigers and more
This week Paris put on a good show by hosting the 49th International Air Show at Le Bourget Airport (IATA: LBG), 11km northeast of Paris. While the usual purchase orders of new aircraft made the rounds throughout the week, EADS, the parent company of Airbus announced its details of a hypersonic transport concept cutting air travel times down significantly as reported by FlightGlobal and others. It is said that the plane could cut the Tokyo-Los Angeles journey to as little as 2h 20min.
Continue reading This week’s airport events: the show, protests & more
It’s surely been a week from hell for many travellers in Australia and New Zealand as the ash cloud from the Puyehue volcano, high in Chile’s Andes, disrupted air traffic first in New Zealand, then over in Australia in Hobart (IATA: HBA), Melbourne (IATA: MEL; LD reviewed) and Adelaide (IATA: ADL; LD reviewed) before moving further east and affecting Perth in Western Australia (IATA: PER) later in the week. Interesting was that there were massive differences whether flights were cancelled or not depending on the individual airline. Qantas took the cautious approach and grounded most of its flights on affected routes whereas its competitors Virgin Australia and Tiger Airways argued they could take routes avoiding the ash or fly below the cloud. In an email to its frequent fliers, Qantas CEO Alan Joyce backed his airlines decision on the fact that “unlike the meteorological authorities in Europe, Australia’s [Volcanic Ash Advisory Centre] VAAC does not have the ability to calculate ash density so we are unable to access definitive measurements.”
Continue reading This week’s airport events: more ash, glitches and pranks
It’s been a rather uneventful week in airport news terms. But that, of course, doesn’t mean we can’t present you with some interesting and some juicy aviation stories this week! First of all, the spotlight is put on a nation that’s not regularly in the news and most certainly not with aviation stories: Mongolia. This week Passenger Terminal Today revealed hat the landlocked nation has agreed with the government of Japan on a US$270 million soft loan, repayable over 40 years, to build a new airport to service Mongolia’s capital Ulaanbaatar. The city’s current airport, Chinggis Khaan International Airport (IATA: ULN; pictured) suffers from occasional high winds and has a relatively short runway unsuitable for 747s and larger aircraft.
Continue reading This week’s airport events: Mongolia, a flirt and a proposal
It was easy to pick this week’s biggest airport event. And no, it wasn’t the free roaming airport bear in Montana nor was it the airport toilet song writing artist. More of that later. It – of course – was all about the volcanic ash cloud over Britain and mainland Europe. After the eruption of Icelandic volcano “Grímsvötn” on Sunday evening, we posted an article on Tuesday asking whether this would bring down much of Europe’s air traffic again similar to last year. Luckily the outcome so far wasn’t as grim as widely forecasted. The Wall Street Journal even calls the threat to be entirely over while other media aren’t all too sure yet.
Continue reading This week’s airport events: a volcano, a bear and Taylor Swift
It seems as this week was mostly about Delta Airlines and Minneapolis St Paul International Airport (IATA: MSP). The news started on the good side when Delta Airlines announced new dining options and Apple iPads to rent at the airport as published by the Pioneer Press on Tuesday. The article read that the changes are part of a $2 billion investment to improve the overall travel experience for customers after similar upgrades at New York-area airports. Then, just when it was all happy days, on Saturday, local time, the news came from the same airport that Delta had to cancel 250 flights due to a power outage at the airport. According to a CNN report, the cause of the extended outage has not been pinpointed yet.
Continue reading This week’s airport events: Delta loves and hates Minneapolis
This week three US airports caught our attention: First on Tuesday there was San Francisco’s International Airport (IATA: SFO; LD reviewed) which made headlines with the arrival of the first scheduled Airbus A380 flight. The Lufthansa plane with flight number 454 landed at the Northern Californian airport on Tuesday morning for the first time and was welcomed by a fire truck and many eager plane spotters as reported by the San Francisco Chronicle.
Continue reading This week’s airport events: Bears, Bites and an Orchestra
This week we published our 35th airport review. And it wasn’t just a review about some large, well known airport – no – we wrote about one of the more exotic airports in the world: Papua New Guinea’s Port Moresby airport. It’s our first review of an airport in Oceania outside Australia and while Port Moresby’s airport doesn’t have many shops or other “ready made, time consuming attractions”, we nevertheless provided a list of interesting things to do when your flight is delayed or you simply have ample time. Check it out here.
Continue reading This week’s airport events: some want to be small, some big
The long Easter break didn’t just bring travellers to their loved ones or chocolate eggs to the kids, it sadly, also brought the tornado season to the South of the United States with devastating effects in Mississippi, Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee and elsewhere. The New York Times even calls it the worst tornado disaster since 1925. The storms also had severe effects on the aviation industry with delays and some closures throughout the US. One of the worst hit airports, however, was Lambert-St. Louis International Airport (IATA: STL). The drama was even caught on CCTV when the tornado hit the airport; watch it here.
Continue reading This week’s airport events: Tornados, Trump & Terminal upgrade
What’s so comfortable in sleeping high up in a US airport control tower you might ask after having read this week’s news about controller number five and six falling asleep during their night shifts. Number five was reported to have happened mid week at Reno-Tahoe International Airport (IATA: RNO) where a medical flight carrying a sick patient tried to land without anyone responding. The latest one, number six, was reported on Saturday. Here the controller fell asleep during his shift at the Miami Air Route Traffic Control Center, which oversees mostly high-altitude, long-distance flights. According to the FAA, this time the controller did not miss any calls from aircraft and there was no operational impact. With all this, voices suggesting problems in the system rather than failures of individuals now become louder as stated in a Washington Post article. This won’t be the last time we wrote about it!
Continue reading This week’s airport events: tail clipping, ribbon cutting and even more sleeping
