First up was Cairo Airport (IATA: CAI) where Reuters reported that go-slow protests by air traffic controllers grounded four fifths of flights from the major regional hub and left as many as 3,000 travellers stranded. At Toronto Pearson International Airport in Canada (IATA: YYZ) Scott Armstrong, a spokesman for the Greater Toronto Airport Authority, told The Vancouver Sun that [a job action by security workers tasked with screening passengers] resulted in about 200 delayed flights so far this week. Yesterday then, Business Week was able to report that those long delays eased to a more tolerable 30 minutes on average. And finally, over in Australia disruptions continued for Qantas on Friday at many of the country’s airports even though the previously announced industrial actions were called of. Sadly there are no sign of relief for the national airline as according to The Wall Street Journal the next strike is already on the horizon: 11,000 passengers will have their travel plans thrown into disarray tomorrow, Monday because of strike action planned by engineers at Sydney (IATA: SYD; LD reviewed), Melbourne (IATA: MEL; LD reviewed) and Brisbane (IATA: BNE; LD reviewed) airports.

Moving over to the United Kingdom where not strike actions were the talk of the week, but more so the Kingdom’s airports future. First up we heard from Reuters that Britain’s Competition Commission CC.L on Friday told UK airport operator BAA that it must sell one of its Scottish airports before it disposes of London Stansted airport (IATA: STN; LD reviewed). On Friday The Financial Times then broke the story that a radical plan for a new “Heath-Wick” airport hub featuring a £5bn high-speed rail link between Heathrow (IATA: LHR; LD hub page) and Gatwick (IATA: LGW; LD reviewed) is being considered seriously by ministers. The article continued by arguing that building a 15-minute link between Heathrow and Gatwick could increase the price of landing slots at the latter, and eventually force low-cost airlines such as Ryanair and EasyJet to move to Stansted [which in results] free up more slots at the new “Heath-Wick” hub for an expansion of regional capacity.

Moving on to the United States which – surprise, surprise – wasn’t left out of the news this week. CNN informed us on Tuesday that the Transportation Security Administration unveiled a “trusted traveler” program meant to expedite screening at U.S. airport checkpoints. The article unveiled that the program is currently in its evaluation phase, where only certain frequent fliers on American and Delta airlines flying out of certain airports. Delta passengers must be flying out of Atlanta (IATA: ATL) and Detroit (IATA: DTW) airports, and American Airlines passengers must be flying out of Miami (IATA: MIA; LD reviewed) and Dallas (IATA: DFW) airports.

And finally we close with the news from Forbes who informed us that Sacramento International Airport (IATA: SMF) was scheduled to open a $1 billion terminal on Thursday, replacing a structure that is four decades old with a building that is designed to be a striking entrance to California’s capital region.

With this, have a great new week and safe travels!

[Photo is a LateDeparture composition based on the logos of Heathrow and Gatwick Airport as well as the Flickr picture from by Ti.mo - some rights reserved ]

When you get past the fairly efficient passport control, the international terminal presents itself as a large but light-filled structure facing the runways. The first shop that presents itself to you is a large-ish duty free shop with a fairly good range of all the usual stuff. You then discover a semi-circled walkway on either side of this shop leading to additional stores that range from Sunglass Hut or Rip Curl to more unique outlets like the Rainbow Serpent. Then on either end of the walkways you’ll get to food and beverage outlets. On one side you find the Moreton Bay Ale House (yes, it’s a pub) and several fast food outlets. On the other side there’s Coffee Club and a few others.

Because my flight to Papua New Guinea received a two hour delay that day, it left me with plenty of time to explore the airport. It could have even been more time hadn’t Coffee Club been flooded with passengers that morning. With my coffee at hand I then got slightly more adventurous and discovered the airport offered more than just the usual things you see at every airport: at Brissie you also find some interesting art on display and even free wifi if you know where to go to. First, the art is displayed in form of two large sculptures by Stephen Killick (partially pictured above) on either side of the large glass-sided part of the terminal towards the gates. It’s well worth looking at it for a moment! Secondly, the free wifi, even though this really is a cheeky one, can be found in front of the Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer lounge as was helpfully pointed out by one Foursquare tipper.

Overall, here are my usual top “time wasting” tips:

• Check the departure board and uncover some unusual destinations (e.g. ever heard of Honiara?)
• Shop for some last Australiana at the “Around Australia” store next to the pub (e.g. they offer a neat Qantas plane toy kit)
• R.M. Williams is the store to go for your true Aussie outdoor hinterland kit
• Buy (or just look at) an original, certified Aboriginal canvas painting at the “Rainbow Serpent” store
• Get up to date on your emails by using the cheeky free wifi in front of the KrisFlyer Singapore airlines lounge
• And if you then must, use the smoker’s balcony behind the Coffee Club for that one last drag before your flight (well if this isn’t a time wasting activity, then I really don’t know!!)

Airport Name	Brisbane Airport – International Terminal
Website	http://bne.com.au/
IATA Code	BNE
Design
Shopping
Toilets
Overall
	AUD 175
	AUD 65.99

[Picture by LateDeparture - all rights reserved]

Donald Trump is known for his great hair, his TV Show “The Apprentice” and recently also for getting Barrack Obama to dig deep in the archives in order to produce his full birth certificate as reported in the news. Trump didn’t stop there though, he also fired at La Guardia airport (IATA: LGA): “You land your plane at LaGuardia Airport, you go to LaGuardia Airport, it’s like a Third World airport”, he said on CNN’s state of the union.

Luckily not all the news was bad or plain provoking. In India, for example, it was reported that the new international terminal at the city airport in Ahmedabad (IATA: AMD) soon dazzle flyers. For the Rs 300-crore terminal, which became operational in September last year, is going to put on more colours. The glass walls at the airport will make space for colourful-wall graffiti using vinyl metallic film, continued the news article. Isn’t that just nice?

Finally, even we at LateDeparture were very active over the Easter break. Not only did we publish a post about London’s royal airports on Tuesday, we also conducted two new airport reviews: Brisbane International (IATA: BNE) and, wait for it, Papua New Guinea’s Jacksons International Airport in Port Moresby (IATA: POM). Both reviews will be published very soon.

Have a great new week everyone and save travels!

[Photo from Flickr - Some rights reserved by Stacy Lynn Baum]

La Niña, however, isn’t the only ecological hazard and Australia is not the only affected country. Other unusual weather patterns, such as the severe winter weather across Europe in December or masses of snow from Boston to New York and Atlanta more recently are other indicators that these events seem to increase in frequency and severity.

So what do these events mean for you as traveller? There are 3 main impacts you should be aware of:

1. Direct flight delays
   The first and most obvious impact is that there will be more direct delays to flights. Heavier snow falls mean more frequent clearings of the runway which delays arrival and departure patterns, meaning flights can’t take-off and land in the usual cadence. This will lead to delays and in some cases cancellations.
   While airports are usually prepared for clearing snow, floods are a whole different problem. In the case of the Queensland floods some airports like Rockhampton Airport had to close all together, others like the state capital’s Brisbane Airport (IATA: BNE)  issue frequent media bulletins regarding their operational status. Make sure you check these sites before you travel and consider alternative plans.
2. Indirect flight delays
   Often times flight delays occur even though the airport operates as normal. This can be due to the case of people having difficulties getting to the airport. Floods and rain can cause roads to be closed and are therefore making it difficult, if not impossible, for passengers reaching the airport. A “good” example, again, is Brisbane, where the airport is currently still operating as normal, but many road closures surrounding the city impact travels to and from the airport (see their media release of today). In this case, it’s suggested you check the airports website and plan your route and time accordingly. But even getting to the airport in time doesn’t mean your flight is going to leave on time. Airport workers and airline crew also have to get to the airport and if their route is impacted, it’s likely that your flight will be delayed despite of all passengers being there.
3. Knock-on effects
   Strictly speaking, knock-on effects can be categorized as indirect flight delays, but since they are often neglected or forgotten, a separate point is probably justified (plus 3 bullet points are so much nicer than just 2 ). As the word suggests, knock-0n effects are secondary effects. In the snow example this could mean that even when you fly from an area that is not impacted by say heavy snow (i.e. San Francisco), your flight can still be delayed BECAUSE of the snow elsewhere. This typically happens when the inbound aircraft receives a delay on the previous leg to/from an affected area or when crew delayed from other flights from impacted regions.
   Another fairly common knock-on effect is when your flight gets cancelled because of a delay impacting an airports’ operations curfew. Such curfews are in place in many airports in Europe (e.g. London or Zurich) and Australia (e.g. Sydney) have an operations curfew, which means they cannot operate between certain times. In a recent case flights from Melbourne to Sydney were cancelled altogether because the flight would have landed within the curfew. There’s not much you can do here other than checking if your arrival airport does have a curfew or not in order to estimate your chance of being able to fly that day altogether.

Let us know your experiences and any other tips you may have with severe weather delays. As always, LateDeparture suggests whenever you occur flight delays, stay calm, enjoy the lounge access (if you have one) or think of other creative ways of passing your time at the airport (for that, check our coverage on many airports around the world).

[Photo from Flickr - Some rights reserved by WSDOT]

Second best airport went to last year’s winner, Singapore Changi airport followed by Seoul Incheon. Best European airport was Munich in 5th place and San Francisco took the place for the best ranked US airport but didn’t make it in the top ten. Here’s the that top ten:

1. Hong Kong
2. Singapore Changi
3. Seoul Incheon
4. Kuala Lumpur KLIA
5. Munich
6. Kansai
7. Copenhagen
8. Zurich
9. Helsinki
10. Cape Town

Note that we already wrote about Zurich and Copenhagen on some delay stories, but both airports rated fairly highly in our own surveys as well.

Also, make sure you check out the full list of the category winners – Brisbane for example received the award for the airport with the friendliest staff. Well, I guess that’s no surprise when you work in a city with one of the best climates and the most leisure attitude…

[Picture from Flickr]