Tag Archives: France

This week: new airport for Machu Picchu & more

And again it’s been another week of full airport news related inboxes. This week we received airport news from Peru, Mexico, the United Kingdom, the USA and from Australian and Singaporean airlines.

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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

This week: Ice Age in Europe, Super Bowl congestion and Bieber’s apology

Wow, what a big week for LateDeparture this one was! On Monday we announced the winner story from our Airport News of the Year award voting process. As you probably heard by now, the story about Jack the Cat who was lost at the JFK airport won the title. Subsequently many of you commented on the sad fate of Jack and reinforced on your views about who was to blame. If the award did one thing, then it showed that some airlines still have a long way to go in regards to handling incidents like this one.

Continue reading This week: Ice Age in Europe, Super Bowl congestion and Bieber’s apology

Flightstats announces 2011 Airport On-Time Performance Awards

FlightStats, the leader in flight information services announced the winners of the 2011 Airport On-Time Performance Awards (OPS). In its third edition, the award honours airlines and airports for their performance. As airports are (obviously) our thing, we want to focus on them. According to FlightStats, the winning airports are recognized for delivering the highest percentage of departure from the gates less than15 minutes after the published scheduled departure time. So without further ado, here are this year’s winners:

  • Winner – Departure performance among major international airports:
    Seattle-Tacoma International Airport (SEA)
    Seattle, WA, USSEA achieved a 2011 on-time performance record of 86.28%. The average on-time performance was 71.02%% for this category. This is the second year in a row SEA has won the award. “The investments we’ve made improving our facilities and operations continue to pay off,” say’s Mark Reis of Sea-Tac Airport. “Credit goes to the efficiencies built into the airfield, terminal and runway operations as well as the terrific work from the entire team of port employees and our operational partners.”
  • Winner – Departure performance among major North American airports:
    Salt Lake City International Airport (SLC)
    Salt Lake City, UT, USSLC achieved a 2011 on-time performance record of 86.55%. The average on-time performance was 76.67% for this category. Portland International Airport (PDX) was a very close second in achieving an on-time performance of 86.38%.
  • Winner – Departure performance among major European airports:
    Oslo Airport (OSL)
    Gardermoen, NOOSL achieved a 2011 on-time performance record of 87.17%. The average on-time performance was 73.42% for this category. This is the second year in a row OSL has won the award.
  • Winner – Departure performance among major Asian airports:
    Haneda Airport (HND)
    Tokyo, JPHND achieved a 2011 on-time performance record of 95.05%. The average on-time performance was 55.03% for this category.
  • Winner – Departure performance among regional North American airports:
    Keahole Airport (KOA)
    Kona, HI, USKOA achieved a 2011 on-time performance record of 92.57%. The average on-time performance was 80.90% for this category. This is the second year in a row KOA has won the award.
  • Winner – Departure performance among regional European airports:
    Bordeaux Airport (BOD)
    Bordeaux, FRBOD achieved a 2011 on-time performance record of 90.13%. The average on-time performance was 78.66% for this category.
  • Winner – Departure performance among regional Asian airports:
    Itami Airport (ITM)
    Osaka, JPITM achieved a 2011 on-time performance record of 95.60%. The average on-time performance was 69.74% for this category.

For the full results, head to the FlightStats Award announcement page.

Last news of 2011: Christchurch again, French strikes & free Wi-Fi

Only seven more days remain in 2011 and it’s therefore time for us at LateDeparture to pack up and enjoy a little (well deserved?!) break. But of course, we won’t leave you before we put another, final round of airport news in front of you. Besides that, you should already get excited for coming back to LateDeparture in January as not only will we continue to review airports and bring you weekly airport related news, but also we will be presenting you with the very first Airport News of the Year Award in early January. The best of all this is, that you can vote for the news you liked best and as a result win some awesome prizes! So stay tuned and get ready for a big 2012!

Continue reading Last news of 2011: Christchurch again, French strikes & free Wi-Fi

This week: three news pairs & a redesign

This week we’ve done something different by pairing up the airport news of the week. Before we get into it, we would like to make an announcement of our own: if you’re reading this on LateDeparture,  you might have noticed that we changed our site layout quite dramatically. The old layout has seen its days, so we redesigned the whole thing with the aim to make it a lot more user friendly and give you a better experience. Let us know what you think!

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