Author: News Team
Travelodge, the budget hotel chain that originated in the USA, is offloading 18 of its UK hotel properties. Following financial difficulties last year, the company agreed a restructuring package with its creditors in October, and the property sale forms part of that restructuring. Beneficiaries of the sale include rival hotel chains Best Western, Ibis and Metro Inns, who have all committed to taking some of the properties. Customers that have pending booking at the hotels in question will either have those bookings honoured by the new owners or have them transferred to another Travelodge property nearby. In addition to the…
Scientists are predicting that changes in the Earth’s climate will ultimately increase the levels of turbulence experienced by transatlantic airline passengers and increase the cost of tickets, according to reports today. Reading University scientists have been studying the North Atlantic corridor, the main flight route between North America and Europe for 600 flights per day. With the help of a supercomputer they have been plotting the expected changes to air currents above 10km in altitude, including the jet stream. Global warming has already caused these winds to intensify and become less stable, and this phenomenon is expected to intensify still…
Sir Richard Branson, head of the Virgin Group including the Virgin Atlantic airline, is to work as an airhostess on a rival carrier’s flight. The humiliating comedown from business tycoon to serving passengers on an Air Asia X flight is the result of a lost bet. Branson and his counterpart at Air Asia X, Tony Fernandes, are also both owners of Formula One racing teams. At the beginning of the 2010 Formula One season, Sir Richard agreed to a bet with Fernandes with regards to the respective finishing position of their two teams, with the loser committed to working a…
Emirates airline, an air carrier based in Dubai, United Arab emirates, has announced that it is sponsoring the Newcastle Metro, a light rail/rapid transport system that serves the Newcastle and Gateshead area. The sponsorship, in the form of a promotional travel advert that will be displayed on the outside of four Metrocar compartments, will run for one year. From May, the two carriages that comprise each of the four adverts will feature 56 metres of Emirates’ ‘Hello Tomorrow’ promotional format, with images of destinations to which the airline operates flights from Newcastle International Airport. The airline is also promoting destinations…
Virgin Atlantic, the UK-based long haul airline, is formally launching its Little Red domestic subsidiary today. Although the new airline has been operational since it commenced flights between Manchester and London on March 31, and the Edinburgh service also started on April 5, the airline’s head, Sir Richard Branson, will officially mark the company’s launch today by joining a flight from Heathrow to Edinburgh. The Aberdeen route will commence its service from tomorrow, April 9. Countering the negative opinion of some commentators that have compared the service available from Little Red with that of the ill-fated BMI, Craig Kreeger, Virgin…
For three nights in May, a large number of the UK’s art and museum attractions will be opening their doors to night visitors. Conjuring images of the spooky goings-on in Hollywood’s Night at the Museum movie franchise, Britain’s museums will be welcoming late night guests for two nights between May 16 and 18. The special event is part of a Europe-wide initiative, La Nuit des Musees, which has now also been adopted by Belgium, Luxembourg, Spain and Germany after being conceived in France in 2005. The event is not limited to museums, but will also include some observatories, stately homes…
The development of a major UK-based theme park has been halted by the discovery of a colony of rare spiders on the site. The proposed development on the outskirts of London is backed by US-based filmmaking giant, Paramount, and at 842 acres the rival to Disneyland Paris would be the third biggest theme park in the world once it is completed. However, tiny arachnid, sitticus distinguendus, or the distinguished jumping spider, has shown that it has little respect for the movie company’s ambitious £2 billion plans by claiming squatters’ rights once it was discovered during an environmental audit of the…
A new promotion by Visit England, the authority responsible for the development of English tourism, is to be co-funded by operators in the UK tourism industry. Popular plasticine animation characters Wallace and Gromit will be fronting the government-backed campaign, which is to be known as ‘Great Adventure.’ It has a budget of £4 million, £2 million of which is in direct funding from the government. In addition, the campaign will be backed by a number of high street operators and travel agents who will be launching a range of holiday packages in the UK and offering £2 million in ‘in-kind’…
The authorities in Florida, USA, have backtracked on a recently introduced law that penalised British visitors wishing to hire a car in the southern state. The law stated that all drivers of hire cars in Florida had to carry an International Driving Permit (IDP) in order that an English translation of their licence was always available for production. While the law was introduced to account for the many foreign language visitors that descend on Florida each year, there was no exemption for carriers of English language licences from the UK, Canada and Australia, all of whom had been able to…
UK-based airline, British Airways, has confirmed the order that it will be placing with US airplane builder, Boeing, for its 787 Dreamliner aircraft. BA has confirmed an order for 18 Dreamliners, with a total order value in the region of $4 billion. BA’s parent company, International Airlines Group (IAG), has already ordered 24 of the aircraft as well as 12 Airbus A380’s as part of the fleet modernisation plan that it initiated six years ago. The new aircraft will be replacing some of BA’s Boeing 747-400 fleet between 2017 and 2021, according to IAG. BA’s order has been confirmed as…