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Travel News Weblog
Car Channel crossings decline
The number of UK travellers to France in 2003 may only be down 0.8% overall, but an article in yesterday's Daily Telegraph reports that cars crossing the Channel have fallen considerably. In 1997 5.9m cars crossed the Channel while last year it was 4.5m. This decline can be accounted for partly by the Channel Tunnel. The other reason is that visitors to France are taking the Eurostar and cheap flights. However UK visitors are not taking their cars over to France in anything like the numbers predicted when the Channel tunnel was seeking funding. The abolition of Duty Free is also cited but even when Duty Free was at its peak the best value deals were not in the Duty Free Shops. It did however make valuable profits for the cross channel operators and enabled them to do numerous sail to France for £1 offers. The article goes on to offer the ferry companies advice. It is basically that they should take a leaf out of the budget airline's books and make their pricing structure a lot more comprehensible. Although I am not sure that the airlines do make it easy to find the cheapest flights they do offer the range of fares over a 2 day period and allow you to move forward a day at a time and see what effect it has on the fares. 4.9 million cars is still a lot of visitors to France. If it was made as easy to get there as it was in 1994 to 1997 when the ferries cut prices in an attempt to put the tunnel out of business, then we would be looking at 7 or 8 million cars crossing the Channel this year.
6 March 04
Name your price ticket offer from German budget airline
Yesterday, while researching this site, I came across an offer from Hapag Lloyd Express. The offer is really a competition that enables the winners to pay what they think for a flight on the inaugural services from UK:
Newcastle > Hanover - Sun 02.05.2004 Manchester > Stuttgart - Wed 21.04.2004
from Ireland:
Dublin > Stuttgart - Sat 17.04.2004
from Germany:
Cologne/Bonn > Bari - Sat 24.04.2004
Hamburg > Klagenfurt - Sat 01.05.2004
Stuttgart > Bari - Fri 23.04.2004
Berlin/Tegel > Klagenfurt - Thu 29.04.2004
from Austria:
Klagenfurt > Hamburg - Sat 01.05.2004
Klagenfurt > Berlin/Tegel - Thu 29.04.2004
from Italy:
Bari > Cologne/Bonn - Sat 24.04.2004
Bari > Stuttgart - Fri 23.04.2004
Naples > Berlin/Tegel - Tue 20.04.2004
Palermo > Hanover - Tue 20.04.2004
Olbia > Stuttgart - Wed 21.04.2004
from Spain:
Valencia > Stuttgart - Wed 21.04.2004
Bilbao > Stuttgart - Wed 21.04.2004
I've booked one of these flights myself in the hope of getting lucky.
5 March 04
P&O and Airbus suffer as River Dee silts up
The failure to dredge the shipping channels in the River Dee in North Wales is causing consternation to Airbus and has been a factor in P&O's decision to close its Mostyn to Dublin Ferry service. Airbus intends using the Dee to ferry the 38 tonne wings for its new super jumbo the A-380 on barges from berths close to its Broughton factory to Mostyn docks. From there they are to be transferred to ships to be transported onwards to Toulouse. Without dredging these ships will be unable to get bin and out of the harbour. Pressure is being applied, to get the Environment Agency, DEFRA and the Welsh Assembly to issue dredging consents without delay. The departure of P&O will lead to the loss of 20 jobs at the port. P&O claim the route was unprofitable and has sold the two ships operating the route to rival company Stena who will use them on another route. P&O started operating the Mostyn to Dublin route in 2001, after £17 million had been spent upgrading Mostyn. They will stop sailings from the port next month.
3 March 04
Bomb threat to French Railways
BBC News claims that letters threatening to blow up Railway tracks have been received by the French Authorities. The group who sent them calls itself AZF, the name of a chemical factory that exploded in Southern France in 2001, killing 30. The investigation into the explosion concluded that it was accidental. The letters are threatened to explode at various dates and will only be revealed if a ransom is paid. One letter led police to a bomb planted under tracks in Central France last month. More
1 March 04
Germanwings doubles UK operation
one of the budget carriers is to take up slots at London Gatwick and fly to Cologne/Bonn twice a day. Its currently flies there from London Stansted, again twice daily. The new service will start at the end of May. Flights from Stansted to Cologne currently start at £13 one way including taxes. managing director Joachim Klein said: "We are delighted to have secured valuable slots at Gatwick airport. We will now be able to offer both our UK and German customers an additional low cost route from London." EasyJet has also been expanding it services from Gatwick and announced that it would also serve the same route from 27 September this year. Their tickets will start at £22.99. This is becoming something of a trend for EasyJet which is obviously taking on its competitors head on instead of offering different routes and avoiding a direct clash. It recently went in to battle with BMIBaby at Gatwick. EasyJet operates 18 routes from Gatwick at present.
29 Feb 04
Florence's Uffizi to double in size by 2006
No, its not been eating too many pizzas. The famous Uffizi Art gallery in Firenze / Florence is to invest £38 million and expand to enable it to house an extra 800 items. The gallery which houses such works as Botticelli's 'The birth of Venus' a statue of David by Michaelangelo and a wealth of Rennaisance Art, hopes that it will surpass "even the Louvre". The Uffizi is an extremely popular destination in Florence and doubling its size will hopefully ease the queues.
MP calls for airlines to provide DVT socks
In today's Sunday Times, it is reported that John Smith MP, chairman of the all-party group on travel related DVT has suggested that airlines provide free DVT socks. He said, "Airlines offer complimentary comfort socks; why not free compression ones too?". Some research indicates that up to 1,400 Britons die each year from blood clots induced by long haul flights. BA's response was; "Anyone concerned about DVT should consult their doctor, not their travel provider."
28 Feb 04
Ryanair axes a route
Ryanair has now announced that it will drop the London Stansted to Brussels Charleroi route upon the introduction of its Summer timetable on April 29 2004. This follows the European Commission fining Ryanair after ruling that it had received illegal payments in order to use the airport. Ryanair was bringing 360,000 passengers a year to the airport. The Ryanair capacity will be transferred to other routes. The reduction of 8 daily flights will reduce Charleroi's throughput by about 10%. Michael O'Leary has warned that other Ryanair flights will be routed away from the airport if a new low cost agreement can't be reached with the airport authorities. Ryanair is challenging the European Commission's judgement at the European Court in Luxembourg.
25 Feb 04
Ferry industry shouts foul!
The Passenger Shipping Association (PSA), the body that represents the ferry and cruise line industry has lodged a complaint with the Advertising Standards Authority. They accuse the airlines of 'unfair and misleading practices'. Particularly the 'free' flights which have numerous extra charges levied including airport charges and taxes. This they say contravenes advertising regulations designed to protect the consumer. The PSA claims this sort of advertising gives the travel industry a bad name. The main contention is that consumers have great difficulty in making fair comparisons between travelling by ferry or by air. The Observer got a statement from EasyJet saying that it quotes one way fares because that is how their flights are sold. Ryanair was not available for comment.
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