Flights Direct

Leeds Bradford International Airport will see its first ever flights to New York take off in November. Jet2 will be flying to Newark airport before Christmas on four days.

“New York is one of those cities that everyone must see at least once in a lifetime. It has so many iconic images and sightseeing opportunities, culture that is second-to-none, the world’s top stores and boutiques, and a fantastic array of restaurants, bars and clubs,” said Richard Bodin, Managing Director at Jet2holidays.com.

Other new flights announced lately are Ryanair’s new service from Manchester to Hahn this autumn. The route will be operated twice a week starting October 26.

And Eastern Airways, a business travel specialist, has started flight from Newcastle to Stavanger in Norway. Flights will be operated every week day.
 
 “Our convenient service is the fastest weekday transport link between the two cities, which will not only appeal to business travellers, particularly those in the oil and gas industry, but also visitors taking short breaks in both regions,” said The new service operates every weekday, Eastern Airways’ chief operating officer, Chris Holliday.

UK airports will start a trial of using face scans to identify people this summer. Instead of passport officers checking the passport, people’s faces will be scanned and data compared to the data chip in biometric passports.

Border security feel that facial recognition technology will be better at preventing ID fraud, but admit that people’s reactions to being stopped by a machine may be a problem.

It is not clear how many airports will take part in the trial, but if it proves successful the technology will be incorporated in all UK airports.

Last year 42.2 million pieces of checked baggage were mishandled or delayed at airports around the world – the problems ended up costing the air transport industry a massive $3.8 billion.

 “Once again, the past year has seen an increase in the amount of baggage mishandled worldwide. It also brings fresh hope, however, in the shape of new initiatives such as IATA’s Baggage Improvement Programme,” said Francesco Violante from SITA, who published the new figures in the annual Baggage Report.

Baggage handling is facing more problems each year as air travel becomes more and more popular. More demand, stricter security and very short turnaround times put pressure on handling 2.25 billion pieces of checked baggage every year.

The Baggage Report says that in 2007 the reasons for baggage delays were:

• transfer baggage mishandling, 49%;
•  ticketing error/ passenger bag switch/ security/ other, 14%;
•  failure to load, 16%; space-weight restriction, 5%;
•  loading/offloading error, 5%;
•  tagging errors, 3%;
•  arrival station mishandling, 8%

The British Airways has announced it will delay the full move to Terminal 5 until June. The airline was supposed to move all its long-haul flights and remaining short-haul flights to T5 on April 30.

The spaces BA was supposed to vacate on April 30 were to go to 54 other airlines, which are now facing major problems due to BA’s delay. Some airlines may seek compensation for costs they expect to have.

The ripple-effect from the BA delay has angered the airlines which have already been running campaign informing their passengers of the changes they were expecting to have. Many airlines have been planning to move to spaces vacated by BA for years.

Nigel Turner, bmi chief executive officer said: “The programme and timescale of changes was agreed in joint consultation with all airlines that are now geared up to undertake the moves as agreed.

“BAA and BA have shown a total disregard for all other airlines and their passengers at Heathrow in coming to this decision because of their own shortcomings and their inability to implement an agreed plan.”

The BA/BAA statement said: “BAA regrets this postponement, and we recognize the impact it has on other airlines, but we believe it is a wise precaution to ensure that passengers can have the maximum confidence once the move does take place.

The opening day of Heathrow’s Terminal 5 was a complete disaster – the state-of-the-art baggage handling system didn’t allow staff to login, and the staff was unable to find their car park spaces, among other problems.

BA has had to cancel hundreds of flights, and a week after opening says there are 20,000 bags without owners. The airport authority BAA says the number of misplaced bags is closer to 28,000.

The BA spokeswoman said: “We are throwing resources at this. But as soon as you have bags without their owners there are security issues and it becomes time-consuming.”

BA announced earlier this week that it’s sending thousands of bags to Milan to be sorted out, and the rest to Gatwick, Manchester and Scotland.

Today BA promised that 90% of flights departing from Terminal 5 will be running, and is aiming to get higher during the weekend and early next week.

Flight cancellations are focused on routes with high frequency, so people can be offered alternative flights. There is also the option to re-book a flight or get a refund.

An apology issued by BA said: “Problems developed that were not encountered during the extensive trials. There were problems in car parks, airport areas, computer glitches and the baggage system.”

The Airport hotel group Arora is about to buy a new portfolio of commercial properties from the UK airport operator BAA for £265 million.

Arora hotels was started by the hotel tycoon Surinder Arora, who arrived in the UK at the age of 13, and began his working life a customer service agent for British Airways.

In 2006 alone, Arora bought nine airport hotels from BAA in a exchange worth around £300 million. Arora Holdings is now thought to be the largest family-owned hotel group within the UK, and they are in the process of building a hotel for Heathrow’s new terminal 5.

BAA’s own properties include airport offices and warehouses, was last year valued at £1.1 billion last year. The down-side to these financial markets is that they have been hit just as hard as house prices, which has made it difficult for BAA to find a buyer.

Arora is now buying 33 of the 58 property sites that are owned by Airport Property Partnership (APP), which is the process of a joint cohesion between BAA and Morley Fund Management. The majority of these properties are within Heathrow Airport.

BAA is continually looking for buyers for its airport properties, which mostly consists of industrial buildings such as land and warehouses. This is in an attempt by BAA to gain more money from its airports, as they struggle for cash. Earlier this month BAA sold over is World Duty Free shops to the Italian group Autogrill for £546 million.

Wales is not a huge international destination, and as its stands, business people will travel internationally via another airport such as Heathrow or Gatwick. Although, this may change, as Patrick Duffy who is the new managing director of Cardiff Airport states that this will not be the case for much longer.

Duffy who was speaking to the Western Mail, recently commented that ‘Cardiff Airport has an opportunity to enhance its contribution to the economic and social well-being of the nation. There are ways we can look to do that – for example do we define ourselves as a regional airport in the UK, or a national airport in Wales? Can we be better connected with other capital cities in the world? Of course we can. In strict classification terms, we are just one of many regional airports around the UK. But spiritually we need to adopt more of a national outlook.’

However, this type of expansion to Cardiff will be determined by their new marketing campaign, which has been launched online at www.youwouldifyoucould.co.uk, which will attempt to find out how high the demand for an International Airport in Cardiff actually is.

The long awaited Terminal 5 is due to open on March 27 and relieve the congestion at Heathrow airport.

Having battled against major problems with lost baggage, long queues for check-in and security, Heathrow Airport is more than ready for the opening of the new terminal.

The formal opening of the £4.3 billion wing will be held on March 14 with the opening done by the Queen. Terminal 5, which will be in the exclusive use of the British Airways, has taken more than 18 years to complete.

Heathrow airport has been handling 67 million passengers a year, while it’s only planned to handle 45 million passengers.

Terminal 5 will have 12,000 bags-an-hour handling system, 96 fast-bag drop counters, 96 automated check-in kiosks and 50 normal check-in counters. There are also 20 security channels compared to the 12 at Terminal 4.

An old terminal which was once known as the symbol of the jet-age glamour is to reopen in the fall as an entrance to a new terminal at John F Kennedy airport.

The Port Authority of New York & New Jersey’s board has decided to go ahead with the $19 million renovations for the 1962 Trans World Airlines terminal, which was closed in 2001.

The terminal was originally designed by renowned architect Eero Saarinen, and the new terminal will be built around the old structure, leaving the old terminal as the entrance to the new one.

The new terminal is being built by JetBlue Airways, who say that passenger will have the option to check in at the new premises or in the old terminal marked by dramatic curves and many wing-like projections. The new terminal is due to open later this year.

Flight routes over southeast England may be changed to reduce delays and cut the disturbance caused by noise by airplanes.

National Air Traffic Services (NATS) has introduced a new plan which it says will reduce the number of people affected by noise from airplanes flying below 4,000ft, by 20%.

Heathrow, Stansted, Luton and London City airports could be affected by the route changes, as well as smaller airports like Southend and RAF Northolt.

The airspace in southeast England is one of the busiest and most complex in the world with so many major airports in the region.

Operations director Ian Hall said: “All these airports have grown considerably in the past 20 years. London City has grown from virtually nothing since the early 1990s - and we have simply accommodated this growth within the existing airspace infrastructure.

“Just like bottlenecks on roads, increased air traffic causes congestion in the airways meaning delay and extra fuel burn - and that has an impact on the environment.”