Would you trust a 15-question survey to identify the perfect vacation for you?
Archive for the ‘Travel Tips’ Category
April 4th, 2011
Turkey is proving an increasingly popular destination among Britons heading abroad to enjoy relaxation and good weather, according to Stansted airport.
Nick Barton, the base’s managing director, highlighted the ongoing success of both Turkey and Greece following announcements that a number of new flights to the countries will be introduced from Stansted this summer.
Destinations on offer to travellers include the Greek island of Rhodes and the city of Thessaloniki, and Turkish holiday hotspots like Izmir.
Mr Barton said: ‘Links to Greece have always been extremely popular and Turkey continues to grow as one of the leading destinations for guaranteed sun on short-haul travel.
‘EasyJet ventured into the Turkish markets last year, launching successful services from Stansted to Bodrum and Dalaman.’
The London base was recently voted the world’s leading airport for low-cost flights, following an annual Skytrax survey that sought the views of more than 11m passengers of 100 different nationalities.
April 1st, 2011
WASHINGTON — More than one in five of air traffic controllers hired by the Federal Aviation Administration in recent years washed out before finishing their training, said a report released Friday by a government watchdog.
The FAA has been underestimating the number of new hires who didn’t finish their training because of flaws in the methodology the agency was using, the Transportation Department’s inspector general said in a report posted online.
Using a different methodology, the inspector general said 22 percent of new controllers who should have completed their training last year didn’t. In 2009, 21 percent failed to complete their training, and in 2008 it was 31 percent.
FAA had previously estimated a 9 percent attrition rate for new controllers in 2009.
Measuring the attrition rate of new hires and understanding what causes trainees to drop out is important to FAA right now. T
March 27th, 2011
Aer Lingus Regional, operated by Aer Arann, has started flights from Bristol to its third Irish destination.
The carrier now operates 20 weekly flights – three return flights Sunday to Friday, and two return flights on a Saturday.
Stephen Kavanagh, Aer Lingus’ chief commercial officer, said passengers flying from Bristol will be able to connect onto the airline’s transatlantic flights to New York, Boston, Chicago and Orlando from Dublin.
The south-west airport currently has no direct services to the US.
Passengers will also be able to clear US customs and immigrations at Dublin airport, allowing them to arrive into the US as domestic passengers.
Aer Lingus Regional already operates flights from Bristol to Shannon and Cork.
Paul Schutz, Aer Arann’s CEO, said: “The launch of this service demonstrates the ongoing success of our franchise agreement with Aer Lingus and we look forward to welcoming both business and leisure passengers onboard our flights to Dublin.”
Aer Arann has also started operations, under its own brand, from London’s Southend airport.
March 27th, 2011
Airport operator BAA will still have to sell two of its UK airports following a provisional ruling today by the Competition Commission (CC).
The commission had ruled in 2009 that BAA would have to sell Gatwick and Stansted airports as well as either Edinburgh or Glasgow airport.
Since then there have been legal challenges by BAA to the ruling, which ended with the CC findings being upheld.
BAA has already sold Gatwick and today the CC provisionally concluded that the sale of the other airports should go ahead.
The CC said today it remained convinced the original sale decision was “the right one for passengers and airlines”.
It added that Stansted should be sold first, with a “small overlap” between that sale and the sale of one of the Scottish airports.