Stansted Airport has been named the world’s best for low-cost airlines for the fourth year in a row at an international award ceremony.
The accolade is based on a survey of 13 million passengers at more than 400 airports across the world.
Stansted recorded a growth in passenger numbers last year for the first time since 2007.
A man bought a first-class ticket and used it to have free meals and drinks at the airport’s VIP lounge almost every day for nearly a year.
The itinerary for the ticket was found to have been changed more than 300 times within a year, and the owner of the ticket used it to enjoy the facilities at the airport’s VIP lounge in Xi’an in Shaanxi, China.
The rare case was discovered by a China Eastern Airlines staff member, who then decided to investigate.
When the ticket’s validity was almost up, the passenger cancelled it for a refund.
Airport body scanners that produce graphic images of travelers’ bodies will be removed from checkpoints by June, the Transportation Security Administration says, ending what critics called “‘virtual strip searches.'”
Passengers will continue to pass through machines that display a generic outline of the human body, raising fewer privacy concerns.
The TSA move came after Rapiscan, the manufacturer of the 174 so-called “‘backscatter'” machines, acknowledged it could not meet a congressional-ordered deadline to install privacy software on the machines.
The last remaining full-body X-ray airport scanners are to be scrapped within weeks.
The European Commission ruled that the cancer risk was ‘’close to zero” but, under Brussels legislation, the three-year trial period has elapsed and it has decided not to ‘’prioritise” them for permanent use across the continent.
The scanners will be replaced with ‘’privacy-friendly” machines which use radio-frequency technology.
source: Dailymail.co.uk
EU regulators said last week they had opened an in-depth investigation into the financing of Beauvais airport in France, to determine whether it was in line with EU state aid rules.
The European Commission, which acts as the competition regulator in the 27-member European Union, said in a statement it was also looking into rebates and marketing deals between the airport and its client airlines, to ensure those too met the regulations.
The Commission did not identify the airlines, but those with flights to Beauvais, which is 75 km (46 miles) north of Paris, include Ryanair, Wizz Air and Blue Air.
source: Reuters
Business travellers want a more “‘stress-free’†experience when moving through airports while the majority also criticised airports’ current security processes.
A global study by technology firm Amadeus found that 72 per cent of travellers thought that the current journey from check-in to boarding was inefficient and 69 per cent said security procedures needed to be improved.
It also found that more travellers were now seeing technology as a crucial part of the airport experience with many wanting to control the entire process through their smartphones.
source: abtn.co.uk
Heathrow Airport will cope with the huge surge in passengers and baggage during the Olympics, despite concerns over queues and security, BAA has reassured the public.
The airport, which will experience its busiest ever day on August 13 – the day after the Olympics closing ceremony – has pumped more than £20 million into the 2012 Games to make sure athletes and tourists can arrive and leave without a hitch.
At a briefing in central London, authorities insisted people will not suffer because of problems with the UK’s borders.
source: dailymail.co.uk
The opening of Berlin’s new airport will be delayed by up to three months due to fire safety problems, dealing an embarrassing blow to the German capital’s flagship project less than a month before its planned launch.
Nearly a quarter of a century after the Berlin Wall came down and 13 years after the government moved back to Berlin as the unified capital, Germany is still struggling to open an international airport to replace two from its Cold War past.
Berlin-Brandenburg Airport, which will also be known as Willy Brandt Airport after West Germany’s Cold War chancellor, had been scheduled to open on June 3. But the airport’s operator said the move from the city’s Tegel airport was suspended with immediate effect.
source: Reuters.com
Britain’s biggest airport has hit a new milestone with more than 70 million passengers filing through in the space of 12 months – although Heathrow’s owner admits the increase in its record-breaking year is largely down to Easter.
While BAA has pointed to fuller planes and the airport’s “‘resilience'”, the variation in the Christian calendar means that the Easter bulge in traffic has occurred twice in the last 12 months, this March and in April 2011.
The Easter factor generated almost 7% more passengers in March 2012 compared with the previous year, with 5.7 million people passing through Heathrow’s terminals last month. The load factor, or proportion of plane seats filled by passengers, was also up by 4.2% for the month, which BAA says continues an upward trend.
source: Guardian.co.uk
Welcome to the much improved London Southend Airport, where upgrades over just the past year have launched the quiet airfield squarely into the competitive ranks of airports serving the greater London area.
Located a less than one-hour train ride east of London, the airport has an illustrious past, having served as a military airfield in both World Wars. Until the late 1970s it was the third busiest airport in the UK, when it was overtaken by London Stansted Airport and thereafter drifted into something of an aviation afterthought. Then in 2008, multi-modal logistics juggernaut Stobart Group acquired the property and launched a $158 million upgrade program.
source: ainonline.com
