It’s the long Easter weekend and here are our topics from this week’s airport related news from around the globe:
- Sydney gets a second airport
- Delta bomb threat at Denver
- Heathrow provides personal shopping assistants
The week started off with some long due news from the southern hemisphere when the Guardian reported that Australia’s federal government approved the site of a second Sydney airport at Badgerys Creek, 50km west of Sydney’s CBD. Badgerys Creek has for decades been named as a possible site for a second facility, taking pressure off Sydney Airport (SYD) which is restricted by a curfew. In the article a spokesman for the Western Sydney Airport Alliance, David Borger, said the decision was long overdue and local residents would support it because it would create jobs and raise living standards.
In a subsequent travel commentary section, Sydney Morning Herald Travel Journalist Anthony Dennis wrote that it just won’t do for Sydney to settle for a second-best second airport link in the manner of the existing one. He argues that it needs to be a proper, fast and efficient airport train, similar to one that services Hong Kong Airport, not some hybrid commuter train compromise. Oh, and some luggage racks would do nicely, hinted Mr. Dennis, clearly criticizing the existing airport link service to King’s Ford Smith.
So, when will this new airport be operational and with how many runways? According to the Sydney Morning Herald it is expected to have just a single runway when flights begin in the mid-2020s.
Moving on to a news article that is only a few hours old: Reuters reported today that a Delta Airlines flight that landed at a Denver airport (DEN) was directed to a remote taxiway after an unspecified “potential security threat” onboard and passengers were ushered off the plane, but authorities later saw the threat as unlikely to be credible. Flight 1500, a Boeing 737 with 151 passengers and six crew, landed roughly on time at Denver International Airport from Detroit Metropolitan Airport at about 4:40 p.m. local time, an airline spokesman said in the article. The passengers were quickly sent off the plane without their luggage and taken by bus to a separate part of the airport, where they were being interviewed by FBI officials. There were no reports of injury and no arrests were made.
A lot more pleasant was the news piece we got from London this week. There PSFK reported that London Heathrow Airport (LRH) has just launched a personal shopping service which is free of cost and available to all flyers. Each one of the personal shoppers is multilingual and an accredited stylist, and their service is available 24 hours a day. Customers can book appointments for a bespoke consultation ahead of time or upon arrival at the Heathrow Airport, saving themselves the effort of browsing in the crowded duty-free stores.
That’s all for this week’s update. Happy Easter and safe travels!
[Graphic from Google Earth]