For the last airport news of the year now though, we start with the most recent news which reached us from New Zealand. There CNN’s Breaking News Twittter Account alerted us yesterday of another earthquake in Christchurch only 10 months after the last, devastating 6.4 magnitude quake in February. This time CNN reported that the tremors have injured at least two people and resulted in the closure of the Christchurch airport (IATA: CHC). The airport later reopened and Chief Executive Jim Boult said through the airport’s media release that there has been no damage to the airport’s runways, which are open for landings and departures again.

Over in Europe France made it in to the news on an almost daily basis but this time not because of the Euro crisis, but because of a continued strike by French airport security staff in French airports causing delays at security checks. The strikes started the previous week on Saturday (we wrote about it) and kept continuing. On Wednesday Reuters informed us that the French government threatened to deploy police at airports to ensure that striking security staff do not paralyse flights in the travel rush ahead of the December 25 Christmas holiday and end-of-year festivities.

And finally some great news for our American friends and those who plan travelling to the States in the next few days. The Huffington Post announced on Tuesday that Skype offers free Wi-Fi for travellers at US airports. From December 21 through 27, the company will offer free Wi-Fi to fliers at more than 50 airports across the U.S. The airports participating in the holiday giveaway include New York’s JFK (IATA: JFK) and LaGuardia Airports (IATA: LGA), Boston’s Logan Airport (IATA: BOS), San Francisco International Airport (IATA: SFO) and Chicago’s O’Hare international (IATA: ORD).

With that we would like to leave you with a little festive video from Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport (IATA: AMS) and thank all of you for reading LateDeparture throughout 2011. We wish you and your families a Merry Christmas and a Happy New (travel disruption free) Year!

[Photo shows Prague Airport in December 2008, by Flickr - Some rights reserved by Cem K. (iyiinsan); video from Schiphol Airport, all rights reserved]

Reading a press release and seeing it in action are often two things, so ever since we read that story we wondered how this service really worked and – in true LateDeparture style – we didn’t rest until we got hold of a video proof of the ingenious machine.

While the video is in Dutch, the lovely guys at Schiphol provided us with English subtitles. But who cares anyway as pictures speak a million words:

Case rested. We now we only wonder who will be first to print out a large “LateDeparture.com rocks!” banner? Whoever it is, a fabulous prize will be awaiting them (photo proof required)…

[Pictures and video from Schiphol Airport - all rights reserved]

First up finally some encouraging news received us from Thailand. This week we were informed that Bangkok’s second airport, Don Mueang (IATA: DMK) is set to partially reopen in January after it got affected during the country’s devastating floods in October. A Thai news site reported that a budget of Bt490 million (US$ 14.3 million) approved by the Cabinet, will be used for restore the eastern runway of Don Mueang Airport, expected to reopen at the end of January for military aircraft, said Flying Officer Anirut Thanomkulbutra, president of Airports of Thailand (AoT).

At this stage the elephant in this week’s news room should probably be addressed. I’m talking about the planned public sector strike in the United Kingdom. The for Wednesday, 30th November planned actions are understood to severely affect the country’s largest airport, Heathrow (IATA: LHR). One of the many news reports this week was the one from the BBC that read that [Heathrow's] operator BAA warned of “gridlock” and said passengers could face 12-hour delays on Wednesday when immigration officers go on strike over pensions. The same source quoted a letter to chief operating officer Norman Boivin to all airlines operating into Heathrow saying “The delays at immigration are likely to be so long that passengers could not be safely accommodated within the terminals and would need to be held on arriving aircraft.” If you are planning to travel through the airport on Wednesday, make sure to follow the airport’s twitter announcements.

These days airports don’t just compete on the number of flights and basic terminal services they offer, they often (need to) go a step further and come up with some unique ways of differentiating themselves. Singapore Changi’s giant fun slide comes to mind here for example. Now, Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport (IATA: AMS) has had it’s own brainy moment as Reuters reported on Thursday: [Schiphol] now has the world’s first vending machine capable of printing out personalised giant canvas banners in just a few minutes. According to the story, you can pick your message, whether that is “Missed you Mummy”, “I love you”, “Will you marry me?”, or anything else that makes you stand out from the crowd, choose the font and background design, pay between four and 15 euros ($19.98) depending on the length of the banner, and hit the button.

And finally to the United States where, other than expected, we didn’t receive any of those long delay reports from the increased passenger numbers over the Thanksgiving weekend, but instead heard of an “old friend” again: the Bikini Girl. The Daily Mail printed the following headline this week: Air passenger who famously stripped to her bikini in TSA protest returns to LA a year later… and guess what, peels off again. Well, we’ll leave you to judge for yourself or – if you must – have a look at the newspaper’s full story here.

Have a great week everyone – safe travels!

[Picture from Flickr - Some rights reserved by ilConte]

Schiphol Airport in the Netherlands (IATA: AMS; LD reviewed) has always been known as one of the better airports. One of it’s unique feature, the annex of the famous Rijksmuseum announced a new exhibition. From 7 September to 12 December, the exhibition Dutch Girls will feature at the airport, wrote Passenger Terminal Today. The exhibition will consist of a small collection of nine well-to-do, leading models from the Golden Age, most stunningly painted by among others Frans Hals, Caesar van Everdingen (see picture above featuring one of his paintings), Isaack Luttichuys and Bartholomeus van der Helst. Rijksmuseum Schiphol is located on Holland Boulevard between Piers E and F in the area beyond passport control. The museum is open daily from 6 am to 8 pm. Admission is free.

Esthetic changes in a different way are happening at Little Rock National Airport (IATA: LIT). Today’s THV reported that the Arkansas airport is getting a major face lift. According to the report, Crews have already begun $53.6 million dollars worth of improvements to the airport’s existing facilities. Projects in the first phase will include a new two-story baggage matrix building and terminal renovations, a new inline baggage screening system, system upgrades, surveillance enhancements, security checkpoint expansion, new communications center and flight information display system.

And finally news reached us from Passenger Terminal Today that work on the overhaul of the two terminals at Belgrade International Airport in Serbia (IATA: BEG), has begun. Located near the A transit area gates, the business class lounge, used by all airlines, is being expanded and modernised and will be completed in September 2011.

That’s all for this week. Did you guess the theme? Correct,  it’s esthetics of course – well done! Have an esthetically beautiful week and, as always, safe travels!

[Photo cropped from Wikipedia - some rights reserved]

In summary, Schiphol offers a lot. Of course, you find the usual things like Duty Free Shops, Cafés, Burger joints and bars. But Schiphol goes further, a lot further actually: You can find everything from a full Casino in the main terminal, a branch of the famous Rijksmuseum with a drawing from Rembrandt among the display to one of the Yotel chains that offer affordable, modern rooms for as short as 4 hours.

But even if you are just looking for a quick refreshment, Schiphol has it: you will find shower cabins in the toilets in front of the First Aid on the first floor of the main hall, between the airport lounges 41 and 42. There, you also find comfort seats for you to rest from your busy travelling life. And if you need refreshment for your stomach, try the noodle soup (€15) at “Noodles” next to the T5 transfer desks.

Finally, even the usually from airports banned smokers will like the Dutch version as there is a smokers cell room on the first floor next to the airport lounge 42. However, if you are looking for a typical Amsterdam coffee shop you are out of luck unless you book one of the Holland Tours directly from the airport and make it into the city (disclaimer: I am not suggesting anything here! ).

Now to the tricky part, the Top-5: I really had to think about it hard this time as there are so many things you can do – here are my favourite five:

1. Visit the Rijksmuseum branch and find the Rembrandt drawing
2. Eat a pot of pork noodle soup at “Noodles”
3. Buy some Dutch cheese from the Delikatessen shop (alternatively, buy some famous Dutch liquorish)
4. Count how many Dutch, blond ladies you see that are over 1.90m tall (6’3″) – trust me you need more than one hand to count them!
5. Try to find Starbucks (remember, the Berlin task?) – it’s not that tricky here, but you may need some time depending on your destination (this is already a hint)…

Airport Name	Amsterdam Schiphol
Website	http://www.schiphol.nl
IATA Code	AMS
Design
Shopping
Toilets
Overall
	€84.50 (£75.10)
	€32.95 outside the EU (£29.30)