Tag Archives: IAH

Airports, Americas, Asia, In the News, Oceania, Weekly

This week: Focus on Kathmandu Airport after earthquake

This week the Nepalese airport has pretty much dominated airport related news around the world. Here are our headlines in the overview:

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]

Airlines, Airports, Americas, Europe, Middle East, Weekly

This week: Tel Aviv Airport in firing line, Houston’s problem & more

Well, well, we’re running late again and to make matters worse, we’re very time poor this week. Yes, we know, it’s an awful excuse but it’s true. Nevertheless, we did want you to know what’s been going on this week in the world of airports, so here’ a little list and some short comments from our Chief Editor Tom. It’s a new format, but hey, who said you wouldn’t embrace change, right?

  • Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion Airport (TLV) came into the firing range this week – literally. The airport is located 50 miles north of Gaza, within range of rockets being fired by the militant group Hamas. After a rocket landed in the area, the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) told all U.S. airlines that flights to the airport are prohibited. Europe’s airlines soon followed suit, but lifted the ban later in the week as the BBC reported.

 

 

  • London’s Gatwick airport (LGW) got into some trouble this week after angry passengers complain about long baggage delays. According to passenger tweets reported by the BBC, passengers waited up to 4 hours for their luggage to appear. The airport told the news outlet that resourcing issues at the handling company were to blame.

 

  • Less serious yet equally interesting news came from a PSFK article claiming Alaska Airlines let travellers print pancakes in their lounges. Fresh pancakes, who doesn’t like that?

That’s it for our quick update – you can always read our up-to-date news on our Twitter page. Safe travels!

Photo Credits:
“Ben Gurion International Airport aerial view” by My another account (talk) – Own work (Original text: “I (My another account (talk)) created this work entirely by myself.”). Licensed under CC0 via Wikimedia Commons.

Africa, Airports, Americas, Europe, In the News, Weekly

This week: DFW’s winter nightmare, glitch in the UK & more

Alright-y, let’s do this. It’s going to be a brief update this week as we’re sure everyone appreciates that given the Christmas craziness has officially started!

Continue reading This week: DFW’s winter nightmare, glitch in the UK & more →

Airports, Americas, Europe, In the News, Weekly

This week: Houston’s shooting, Gatwick’s explosion and Turkey’s Justin Bieber

Righty, let’s see what this week brought in regards to airport related news stories. Understandingly there still seems to be quite some nervousness at airports around the globe relating back to the Boston bombing. We saw two news stories that showed that this week, one from the United States and one from England.

Continue reading This week: Houston’s shooting, Gatwick’s explosion and Turkey’s Justin Bieber →

Airports, Americas, Asia, Europe, In the News, Middle East, Weekly

This week: baby smuggle discovered in Xray, sinkholes in Bangkok and more

Every now and then you get a week with a lot of slightly out-of-the-ordinary airport news all coming in at the same time. This has been exactly such a week: We found news from a Swedish retailer moving into airport space, a baby smuggle attempt, a tower evacuation, sinkholes, a refurbished terminal and two emergency landings. Sounds interesting? Told you!

Continue reading This week: baby smuggle discovered in Xray, sinkholes in Bangkok and more →

Airports, In the News, Various, Weekly

This week’s airport events: Mongolia, a flirt and a proposal

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 →

Airports

The 10 most on-time airports worldwide

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Airport statistics are a fine thing as they give you an indication of where potential problems lie. Especially if you have the choice of different routes, it makes sense to take the on-time statistics of a particular airport into account when planning your travels.

So, which airport is the worlds most efficient one? According to a Forbes Travlerer article, the winning airport is Haneda airport in Tokyo (HND) with 90% of its arrivals and departures on-time. Never heard of Haneda? Me neither, but according to the article, the airport is the fourth busiest airport in the world primarily handling domestic traffic. It’s bigger sister airport, the well known Narita International (NRT) makes it on to the 2nd place. Well done, Japan!

Interestingly, 6 out of the 10 most on-time airports are located in Asia, only two from the US (Orlando and Houston) and one from Europe (Munich) make it into this elite group – maybe some of these airport managers should have a summer exchange class organized in Asia…

  1. Haneda (HND), Tokyo, Japan – 90%
  2. Narita International (NRT), Tokyo, Japan – 84.2%
  3. Taiwan Taoyuan International, Taipei (TPE), Taiwan – 80.3%
  4. Kingsford Smith International (SYD), Sydney, Australia – 80.1%
  5. Hong Kong International (HKG), Hong Kong, Hong Kong – 79.7%
  6. Soekarno-Hatta International (CGK), Jakarta, Indonesia  – 79.3%
  7. Suvarnabhumi International (BKK), Bangkok, Thailand – 79.3%
  8. Orlando International (MCO), Orlando, USA – 79.8%
  9. Franz Josef Strauss Airport (MUC), Munich, Germany – 77.8%
  10. George Bush International (IAH), Houston, USA – 77%

Read the full Forbes Traveler article here.

 

(Picture by Flickr)