Tag Archives: PER

This week: Qantas black Monday, UK’s air traffic chaos & more

It’s our last news update for 2014 before we go on our Xmas break. And what a week it was:

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This week: a kangaroo, a snake and a sandwich causing troubles down-under

It’s been the first real weak after the festive season when most people got back to work resulting in more airport news. Interestingly three pieces received us from Australia this week – our home country. But we swear we had nothing to do with any of these little stories directly though!

Continue reading This week: a kangaroo, a snake and a sandwich causing troubles down-under

This week’s airport events: more ash, glitches and pranks

It’s surely been a week from hell for many travellers in Australia and New Zealand as the ash cloud from the Puyehue volcano, high in Chile’s Andes, disrupted air traffic first in New Zealand, then over in Australia in Hobart (IATA: HBA), Melbourne (IATA: MEL; LD reviewed) and Adelaide (IATA: ADL; LD reviewed) before moving further east and affecting Perth in Western Australia (IATA: PER) later in the week. Interesting was that there were massive differences whether flights were cancelled or not depending on the individual airline. Qantas took the cautious approach and grounded most of its flights on affected routes whereas its competitors Virgin Australia and Tiger Airways argued they could take routes avoiding the ash or fly below the cloud. In an email to its frequent fliers, Qantas CEO Alan Joyce backed his airlines decision on the fact that “unlike the meteorological authorities in Europe, Australia’s [Volcanic Ash Advisory Centre] VAAC does not have the ability to calculate ash density so we are unable to access definitive measurements.”

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