It wouldn’t be the US if they didn’t come up with some crazy things around this particular event: JetBlue, a domestic airline, setup a special flight from Burbank to Los Angeles International Airport (IATA: LAX; LD reviewed) and back. For those who don’t know the area well, that’s a direct distance of only about 30km (20mi)! According to the L.A. Times blog, there was a real festive atmosphere at Burbank airport (IATA: BUR) surrounding those 20-minute longshort flights. Other than that, there were also cyclists who tried (and succeeded) to beat that particular air service. You can read more about their 38.4mile-journey in another L.A. Times blog article.

In other news, we read about La Palma Airport (IATA: SPC): According to Passenger Terminal Today, the Canary Island airport opened a new terminal which allows the airport to more than double its capacity to three million passengers annually. The same source also revealed in another article, that Oslo Airport in Norway (IATA: OSL)has been named the most efficient major air transport hub in Europe (large airport category), according to the 2011 ATRS Global Airport Performance Benchmarking Project from the Air Transport Research Society. The hub regained the title it lost in 2008 to Copenhagen Kastrup International Airport (IATA: CPH; LD reviewed), having won in 2007.

Finally, as always, the odd airport news of the week. This time the story reached us from Munich Airport (IATA: MUC; LD reviewed) in Germany: Reuters reported that on Wednesday German authorities impounded a Boeing 737 (similar to the one pictured) used by the Thai crown after seeking payment of an old debt owed by the Thai government to a collapsed German firm. According to the story, Thailand’s foreign minister said on Thursday he would fly to Germany to try to convince authorities to reverse a court-authorized impounding.

That’s all for this week, have a great and travel-disruption-(or impounded-plane-)free week!

[Photo from Flickr - Some rights reserved by kathybragg]

It certainly was a musical week as another airport reported adding “tunes” to its facilities:

Travelers at Reagan National Airport [IATA: DCA] are hearing more than jet noise. The Washington-area airport has a new, lunchtime concert series.

wrote Kake news.

Another story this week was that New Delhi (IATA: DEL) finally launched it’s metro service to the airport after having missed the original deadline by 4 months. Oh well, what’s four months anyway?

Then there was the type of disruption no one wanted to read about: New Zealand’s Christchurch was hit by a massive earthquake on Tuesday and consequently its airport (IATA: CHC) was shut completely and then later reopened for domestic flights only. It has since fully re-opened again.

Across the Tasman, things weren’t as bad but Australia’s second biggest airline, Virgin Blue, faced another check-in glitch causing massive disruptions to about 150 flights from Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane.

Then there were news of Spanish unions threatening an Easter airport strike, Las Vegas’ McCarren Airport (IATA: LAS) planning on opening a a new terminal in 2012, Munich (IATA: MUC) increasing its capacity to Frankfurt’s levels through a new terminal 2 satellite and of Geneva (IATA: GVA) unveilling the world’s first mobile passenger terminal. But the most interesting piece I picked up this week was the FT story about bed bugs on British Airways flights. Hang on a minute, didn’t I just book that BA flight from Las Vegas to London? D’oh!

Safe travels and read you again next week!

[Photo from Flickr - Some rights reserved by downeym]

Munich is a fairly big airport with 2 terminals serving as Lufthansa’s second hub airport after Frankfurt. With airports however, size is not everything…

It’s not surprising then that Munich airport has two faces: The rather boring and older Terminal 1 which opened in 1992 is not the most exciting place. This terminal serves all non-Star Alliance flights and is divided into subsections A to E. Once you are through security, it’s a very limited experience in terms of what you can do there!

Terminal 2 on the other hand is the flagship terminal of the airport and hosts all Star Alliance flights. It offers a wide range of shops and restaurants even after passing the security section. So, you shouldn’t get bored anytime soon. My personal favourite is the Dallmayr shop: try the fresh “Bretzen” for example. Delicious!

Overall however, I’d recommend you spend as much time as you can in the airports “Zentralbereich”. This is the central area located between the two main terminals.

Here my top 5 things to do:

1. Enjoy an Oktoberfest atmosphere and super friendly staff at “Airbräu’s” outside beer garden between the terminals
2. Stock up for an authentic, Bavarian Weisswurst breakfast at the well equipped grocery store “Edeka”
3. Still haven’t sent the bundle of postcards and gifts you promised? No problem. You can send them off with the all important German post stamp at the “Deutsche Post” office next to “Edeka”.
4. The ever present Starbucks can sort out your early-flight coffee needs. You find it on the way to Terminal 2 from the outside area.
5. Oh and did you really, really, really like that waitress from the Airbräu (see first point)? Buy her some red roses from the beautiful flower shop “Airport Flower” next to the Starbucks

Airport Name	Munich “Franz Josef Strauss” Airport
Website	http://www.munich-airport.de
IATA Code	MUC
Design
Shopping
Toilets
Overall
	€ 87.90 (£74.30)
	€ 34.50 (£29.15)

[Picture from Flickr - some rights reserved.]

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]

AEA’s survey of its members’ punctuality at 27 major airports identifies London Heathrow as the most affected, with 44.1% of European departures subject to delays of 15 minutes or more – substantially higher than second-place Dublin with 33.0%, followed by Helsinki, Geneva and Frankfurt – all three of which are customarily to be found in the lower half of the delay table.

This surely comes as a huge surprise to all of us. Not really. Heathrow has long been troubled by lengthy delays many caused by its limited number of runways and overall capacity problems. According to the report 15.3 per cent of outgoing flights delays were caused by problems with airport and air traffic control, while a further 11.1 per cent was blamed on loading and handling issues.

This news couldn’t have come at a worse time for BAA, the owner of Heathrow airport as the Daily Mail writes

The latest figures will add further pressure on the Government to end BAA’s much-criticised monopoly on London’s major airports.

The least affected airport, according to the report, was Munich airport which we already featured in the top 10 most punctual airports worldwide.

(Picture by Flickr - some rights reserved)

So, which airport is the worlds most efficient one? According to a Forbes Travlerer article, the winning airport is Haneda airport in Tokyo (HND) with 90% of its arrivals and departures on-time. Never heard of Haneda? Me neither, but according to the article, the airport is the fourth busiest airport in the world primarily handling domestic traffic. It’s bigger sister airport, the well known Narita International (NRT) makes it on to the 2nd place. Well done, Japan!

Interestingly, 6 out of the 10 most on-time airports are located in Asia, only two from the US (Orlando and Houston) and one from Europe (Munich) make it into this elite group - maybe some of these airport managers should have a summer exchange class organized in Asia…

1. Haneda (HND), Tokyo, Japan - 90%
2. Narita International (NRT), Tokyo, Japan - 84.2%
3. Taiwan Taoyuan International, Taipei (TPE), Taiwan - 80.3%
4. Kingsford Smith International (SYD), Sydney, Australia - 80.1%
5. Hong Kong International (HKG), Hong Kong, Hong Kong - 79.7%
6. Soekarno-Hatta International (CGK), Jakarta, Indonesia  - 79.3%
7. Suvarnabhumi International (BKK), Bangkok, Thailand - 79.3%
8. Orlando International (MCO), Orlando, USA - 79.8%
9. Franz Josef Strauss Airport (MUC), Munich, Germany - 77.8%
10. George Bush International (IAH), Houston, USA - 77%

Read the full Forbes Traveler article here.

(Picture by Flickr)