Category Archives: Various

London Stansted: Come fly with me

It’s no secret, LateDeparture has always had a love-hate-relationship with the UK’s third busiest airport. Whilst the airport itself is quite alright, it can feel crowded plus the pure nature of mainly operating low cost carrier can add to the airports stress level (as reviewed a while back). Now, however, the airport presents itself in an entirely different light. And it’s not because of the UK Competition Commission’s turnaround of allowing BAA keep owning the airport, it’s a different story: the actors from the controversial but highly acclaimed comedy show, Little Britain, Matt Lucas and David Walliams launched a spoof of British documentaries Airport and Airline. The series officially started in Britain on Christmas day last year and follows the activity at a fictional airport and three airlines: FlyLo (a low-cost airline), Our Lady Air (an Irish low-cost airline) and Great British Air (a major international British airline).

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This week’s airport events: Bears, Bites and an Orchestra

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.

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This week’s airport events: some want to be small, some big

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.

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This week’s airport events: Tornados, Trump & Terminal upgrade

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.

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Top Tips for a better Easter Airport experience

With the long Easter weekend around the corner, many of us are taking the plane to reach their Easter break destination. And you won’t be the only one! Airports across the globe will be filled with eager travellers. Many of the airports will reach or even exceed their capacity resulting in long queues and departure delays. But all this doesn’t mean you can’t have a great airport experience. Let us show you how to make the whole experience a pleasant or even exciting one:

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This week’s airport events: tail clipping, ribbon cutting and even more sleeping

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!

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This week’s airport events: dangerous taxi ride & more sleep

This week Fox News reported that US federal authorities are investigating a second case of an air traffic controller sleeping on the job, after a similar incident at Washington’s Reagan Nation Airport caused an uproar (we wrote about it). The article said that the latest report of a snoozing air traffic controller came Wednesday during Capitol Hill testimony. This time the incident took place in, in Knoxville, Tennessee (IATA: TYS). In this case, the air traffic controller appeared to be “willfully” sleeping and the FAA said it is taking steps to fire the person.

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This week’s airport events: Herbs on planes and more

It was April fools day on Friday and Virgin Atlantic released a funny press release for the occasion: they announced that fresh herbs and vegetables will be grown on board Virgin Atlantic flights for Upper Class passengers from April 1st 2011. They really built up a proper story by specifying that in Upper Class, fresh herbs will be used to complement drinks and cocktails from the bar area including thyme for Bloody Mary’s and fresh mint for Mojitos, Pimms and tea. The vegetable offering will complement the in-flight meal with availability of vegetable depending on your destination. Carrots, baby new potatoes and spinach will be available on flights returning to the UK. Miniature pumpkins and sweet potatoes will be grown on transatlantic flights to the USA, while Tokyo routes will have the choice of okura (okra) or shiitake mushrooms. Virgin Atlantic even supplied pictures of the “new service”, see one above.

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This week’s airport events: sleep in Washington, fire in Miami

It’s been a massive week for Miami International Airport (IATA: MIA) after a fire broke out on Wednesday night and turning into an enormous blaze near six fuel tanks on the southeast side of the airport. It subsequently destroyed the airport’s hydrant fuel pump system forcing the cancellation of hundreds of flights. The Miami Herald wrote that “some semblance of normalcy could return by early next week after temporary pumps are installed and the backlog of canceled flights clears out.”

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This week’s airport events: Delays in Tokyo, the rise of Beijing and more

The media this week mainly focused on the developments of Japan’s Fukushima nuclear plant. With that there were various reports about Tokyo’s International airport (IATA: NRT) becoming overwhelmed with people wanting to leave the country. Also we heard of several airlines (e.g. Lufthansa and Air China) stopping services to the country’s busiest hub altogether and of the opposite where airlines increased their capacities to fly their people out (e.g. Air India). But there even was “Japan nuclear” news from well outside Japan: On Thursday the Chicago Tribune reported that passengers on a flight from Tokyo had set off radiation detectors at O’Hare International Airport (IATA: ORD).

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