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The humble boarding pass is becoming the latest victim of the aviation industry’s drive towards a paperless future.Instead passengers will use their mobile phones to board an aircraft, with the device being read by a scanner at the departure gate.

It will mean that passengers will no longer rummage through every pocket at the departure gate only to find the pass has been used as a bookmark for a paperback bought 20 minutes earlier.

Underpinning the drive for the new technology in the aviation industry is an attempt to simplify the process of going through and airport cutting out the delays which have infuriated passengers across the world.

Saving a couple of seconds on processing an individual passenger can make a dramatic difference to the length of queues.

source: Telegraph.co.uk

The Department for Transport has delayed plans to bring in hand searches at UK airport security because of concerns from a Sikh group.

Sikhs are concerned it could mean hand checks of turbans or demands for the religious headwear to be removed.

At present, passengers walk through metal detectors at UK airports and, if the alarm goes off, they are then searched again with handheld metal detectors.

The new EU rules instead tell security staff to use their hands for the second checks.

source: BBC News

Shutting down Britain’s airspace could cost airlines more than £100 million if the disruption carries on into the weekend.

The wider economy will also suffer as tourists, businessmen and cargo, including fresh food for supermarkets, are unable to get into the country.

British Airways grounded hundreds of flights yesterday but is yet to calculate the potential losses. In the past, similar standstills caused by fog have cost the airline between £10 million and £20 million a day.

The disruption to services had an immediate impact on Ryanair after the airline grounded all of its British and Irish flights. More than £70 million was wiped off the company’s market value.

There have only been a couple of other examples of large-scale disruption caused by volcanoes. One incident in Alaska in 1989 resulted in the cancellation of North American flights for several days. US airlines estimated the disruption cost them $100 million.

source: Times Online

The UK’s airports handled 7.4% fewer passengers last year than in 2008, the biggest annual decline since records began 65 years ago, figures have shown. The Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) said that with passenger numbers having also fallen in 2008, it was the first time levels have fallen two years in a row.

It said last year’s decline was led by a fall in holiday airline traffic, with charter flights down 17%. UK domestic flight traffic was down 8% and overall scheduled airline traffic fell 6%.

source: BBC News

Japan’s 98th airport has begun operations – offering just one flight a day. Ibaraki airport is located 80km (50 miles) and a long bus ride north of Tokyo.

The airport was conceived as a hub for budget carriers but the check-in counters were almost deserted as operations began. There is just one plane a day, to South Korea. Another flight, to the Japanese city of Kobe, will begin next month.

The airport has become a symbol of decades of public spending to prop up the economy that has left Japan studded with bridges to nowhere and unneeded dams.

source: BBC News

Sixty climate campaigners have held a picnic in the check-in hall at Leeds Bradford Airport in a protest over its planned expansion.

The airport wants to build a £28m two-storey extension to the terminal building which would house an improved check-in area and departure lounge.

The expansion is part of a wider £70m, five-year investment package for the airport.

Source: BBC

Luton Airport is to become the first UK airport to charge drivers for dropping passengers off at the terminal.Motorists will have to pay £1, which will allow them to spend just 10 minutes in the refurbished drop off zone.

The “‘kiss and drop'” levy will be enforced by barriers which will take payment as the driver leaves. It is due to come into force later this month and comes within weeks of the same airport unveiling plans to allow passengers to jump the security queue for £3.

source: telegraph.co.uk

In one of the southern England’s greatest modern property rushes, more than 5,000 people signed up today to become joint owners of an acre of farmland on the line of the proposed third runway at Heathrow airport. They join Oscar winner Emma Thompson, comedian Alistair McGowan and Conservative party green adviser Zac Goldsmith who bought the land from under the nose of Heathrow airport owners BAA last week to try to slow airport expansion plans.

source: guardian.co.uk 

Virgin Atlantic, the British airline owned by tycoon Richard Branson, said on Friday that it was in talks about forming a consortium that would bid for London’s second biggest airport, Gatwick.

Analysts have estimated that the sale of Gatwick could fetch up to three billion pounds (3.48 billion euros, 4.42 billion dollars).

Britain’s Spanish-owned airport operator BAA announced in September plans to sell London’s Gatwick hub after regulators called for the offloading of two of its airports on competition grounds.

source: AFP

More than 46 million airline seats will be cut over the next three months as the aviation industry is engulfed by the economic crisis.

The latest figures compiled by OAG (Official Airline Guide) show that demand for travel is shrinking throughout the world. Carriers plan to operate half a million fewer flights between October and December compared with the same period last year.

At least 45 European airports will lose all scheduled services by the end of this year, with 83,000 fewer flights offered by airlines within the European Union during this quarter than in 2007. Worldwide, more than 200 airports will cease offering services.

source: Telegraph.co.uk