Travel
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Smarter airport capacity use urged
Airport capacity at some southeast England airports is underused, according to a London Assembly report on Wednesday. Even at Heathrow airport, where 99 per cent of capacity is being used, 20 million extra passengers a year could fly if larger...
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Lufthansa A380 on new Frankfurt-Shanghai route
Lufthansa will be offering passengers five new flights weekly from September 26 with the Airbus A380 from Frankfurt to Shanghai, which can be booked now. Shanghai is the second Lufthansa A380 destination in China after Beijing. Flight LH 728 leaves...
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Russian tourists help Hungary spa town flourish
A former Soviet military airport in western Hungary where MiG fighter jets landed for decades when Hungary was under Soviet rule is now receiving a different type of Russian visitor – tourists arriving in charter flights. Locals have welcomed the...
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Impossible... yet so beautiful
Definitions of paradise are subjective. It can be found in a variety of forms, dictated by personal preference and circumstance; a quaint Parisian cafe, a jungle island without roads, or simply a clean hotel room after a gruelling journey. Often,...
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Resort airports in stormy SE Asia leave safety to chance
It’s the invisible enemy: something all pilots dread as they land at Asia’s tropical island resorts. Wind shear – or the sudden change in wind speed and direction – is particularly hazardous at landing, but some of the region’s best known holiday...
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IATA: air travel demand accelerated in March
Global air travel grew by six per cent in March from a year earlier, led by emerging markets, the International Air Transport Association said last Wednesday. During the same month, capacity grew by just 3.5 per cent, meaning that there were...
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Backpack South America
South America has many faces; it can be a well-turned-out city boy, a peasant in a multi-hued skirt herding alpaca, a rainforest tribesman with painted cheeks, a blank-faced businessman or a tanned, bikinied party girl. Experience the continent’s...
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Spanish eatery hopes world best restaurant award boosts tourism
An avante-garde restaurant run by three brothers in northeast Spain hopes that being crowned the world’s best restaurant will boost food tourism in recession-bound Spain. El Celler de Can Roca in Girona scooped the prestigious prize from Britain’s...
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Fountains Abbey, Yorkshire
The map of western Europe is peppered with sites of medieval monasteries, most of them now in ruins. Outstanding among those in England is Fountains Abbey in Studley Royal Park, a few miles southwest of Ripon in Yorkshire. What, one might ask, can...
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Nice and easy in Santorini
Santorini’s natural beauty makes this Greek island one of the world’s top tourist hot spots. With its black volcanic-soil beaches, whitewashed buildings and dramatic views, it’s little wonder Santorini was voted Europe’s best island by Trip Advisor...
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Cape Town titbits
As Giselle McKenna’s holiday in Cape Town progressed, she learnt many interesting and quirky things about the South African coastal city. If you ask for directions and are told to turn left at the first set of “robots”, don’t be too bewildered and...
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Alone in India
Since the rape and murder of a woman on a Delhi bus in December, the number of female visitors to India has dropped 35 per cent. Hannah Wayte asks: just how unsafe is it to travel India as a solo female? I made my choice to travel alone around...
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Top 5 enchanted forests
1. Crooked Forest, Poland Looking like it fell out of a surreal Salvador Dalí painting, the Crooked Forest (Krzywy Las) outside Nowe Czarnowo, Poland, has intrigued the public for more than 80 years. The grove of about 400 pines was planted around...
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Italy fines Ryanair
Italy’s competition watchdog last week slapped a €400,000 fine on Irish budget airline Ryanair for not honouring it commitment to simplify online ticket sales. The regulator said the airline failed to provide an overall clear price at the very...
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Libya hopes for tourism spring
Perched on a low wall in the centre of the Libyan desert oasis town of Ghadames, 80-year-old tourist guide Mohammed Ibrahim says he is waiting for the foreign visitors he used to show around to come back. For more than 30 years, Ibrahim used to...
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Gozo attraction makes upgrade
Popular Gotizan tourist attraction Gozo 360˚ was recently enhanced by the purchase of 4K projectors and the corresponding hardware. The 30-minute show gives viewers an insight into the history and culture of Gozo on a full cinema screen. Gozo 360˚...
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Malta hosts German travel agents
Two hundred German travel agents and tour operators attended a conference organised by Raiffeisen-Tours Kooperation at the Dolmen Hotel in Qawra last week. Tourism Minister Karmenu Vella told delegates that Malta will be working to enhance...
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Gothenburg: where’s that again?
It’s easily confused with Batman’s hometown, but unlike the fictional Gotham City, Gothenburg (actually pronounced “Yutterborry”) really does exist and is Sweden’s second largest city. On April 1, Ryanair started flying there from Malta.
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The fair isle
Rome, Athens, Paris and London – these are all capitals which have become bigger, at least in our collective consciousness, than the countries they represent. London, especially, is as multi-layered as the world itself. From theatre or a musical at...
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Bright-light city
Las Vegas is called the Entertainment Capital of the World for good reason. Glitzy and outrageous in equal measure, Las Vegas’s reputation as a showbiz mecca was cemented by the likes of the Rat Pack and Elvis 1950s and 1960s. Half a century later,...
