18 OCTOBER 2010
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Breakthough 15 October 2010
The first high speed trains should be operational and in use though the tunnel in 2017. The tunnel will have two tracks with multifunctional stations and crossovers under the mountain. www.alptransit.ch www.57km.ch
BAA Logo
The Court of Appeal has upheld a decision made by the Competition Commission that BAA Ltd must sell Stansted and either Edinburgh or Glasgow airports within two years.
BAA is now seeking to appeal to the UK’s Supreme Court to get this ruling changed after the company won an appeal last year against the original decision of the Competition Commission. Currently BAA owns six UK airports. www.baa.com
Holiday Inn Express Logo
The 95-room hotel has a 70-seater meeting room, business and fitness centres. www.ihg.com
IHG Logo
The Hotel Indigo Xiamen has 127 rooms and will open in 2011. The Hotel Indigo Taipei Xinyi has 173 rooms and expects to be open in 2011. The Holiday Inn Express Taipei Xinyi has 125 rooms and expects to be open in 2011 and finally the Holiday Inn Express Hong Kong Mongkok expects to have 300 rooms and to be open in 2014. www.ihg.com
Network Rail logo
The RUS is now being consulted on and sets out the priorities for the railway in the north over the next 20 years. The strategy includes features such as the Northern Hub and new platforms at Leeds, Huddersfield and Manchester Airport stations.
Comments on the proposals are welcomed and the deadline for responses is the 14 January 2011. Network Rail intends to publish the final RUS next spring. www.networkrail.co.uk
The Savoy Hotel
During the refurbishment the hotel has added a new two-bedroom Royal Suite.
The hotel retains features such as the Thames Foyer complete with grand piano, the American Bar and the Savoy Grill. As part of the refurbishment the River Restaurant has been completely remodelled. www.the-savoy.com
Virgin America Airbus A320
Over the next four days all the business jet manufacturers will gather in Atlanta, Georgia for this year's National Business Aviation Association convention. The convention will have a number of issues to discuss and aircraft manufacturers will showcase and launch a number of new aircraft designs as well as new interiors and modern technology that today's business jet aircraft need to compete in a tough marketplace. AERBT looks forward in reporting some of the news that comes from the show.
Terry Spruce, Guest Editor
Queenco Leisure Avro Business Jet
A Jetstream 41 will operate the service
Passengers flying from Newcastle can use the dedicated fast-track security channel to avoid any queues at the security search. www.easternairways.com
Hong Kong Airlines Boeing 737-800s
Currently, Hong Kong Airlines has orders for 33 wide-bodied and 30 single aisle aircraft from Airbus. www.hkairlines.com
Japan Airlines SkyRecliner
The SkyRecliner is modelled on the JAL First Class seat and has removable armrests. The seat has a 51 inch pitch and can be reclined to 132 degrees. The seat also has an individual 10.6 inch TV screen with video input, a USB port and electrical power outlet.
The first aircraft equipped with this new executive class seat will fly on the Singapore and Beijing routes starting later this month. www.jal.com
Leeds Bradford International Airport
The airline expects to carry some 28,000 passengers in the first year and is set to become the largest low cost airline to operate flights to Geneva from Leeds Bradford International Airport. www.leedsbradfordairport.co.uk www.easyjet.com
Embraer 650
The Legacy 650 will be based at Stansted and looked after by Inflite at the airport.www.titan-airways.co.uk
Vancouver International Airport – Gateway to an Emerging Global City
The last two decades have seen the emergence of high speed rail, cruise/ferry and rail termini, container ports and multi-lane trans-national highways as increasingly important hubs and spokes in global transport networks. They provide the connectivity for goods and passengers which is an essential pre-requisite to the effective functioning of both developed and emerging economies. Yet no other mode of transport has currently seems likely to usurp aviation’s place at the apex of a modern economy’s transport hierarchy. As long as people (and freight) need to move quickly across national borders and over long distances airports will continue to provide a the most high profile and recognisable of transport gateways and a public statement of the scale of ambition of a country or major city.
Aerial View of Vancouver International Airport
The Masterplan highlights the importance of the Airport to:
- Vancouver’s leading businesses and the wider economy (it is currently estimated to be worth C$6.8bn per annum and provides 2.3% of Greater Vancouver’s employment);
- its rapidly expanding tourism sector, to which the recent Winter Olympics and Canada’s acquisition of ‘Approved Destination’ status from China, is likely to give additional impetus; and
- the ability of the city’s growing and increasingly multi-ethnic population to access other parts of North America and the wider world.
And yet the Airport Authority has not chosen to achieve these strategic objectives by commissioning grand and expensive statement buildings as some other emerging global cities in have sought to do, but has instead focused on:
- high quality and commercially astute incremental development of its Sea Island site
- the export of its highly regarded management and investment expertise to a range of other airports in Canada, the Caribbean and Europe, through its sister company YVRAS dividends from which are ploughed back into improving the capacity, ground access, environment sustainability and corporate and social responsibility commitments at YVR.
The result is an airport that makes-up for what it lacks in size, high flown architectural lines and vaunted ceilings, with:
- an efficient and well designed operational functionality
- coherent and well sign-posted interior design; and
- a pleasing ambience for passengers to relax and spend time in the extensive and attractively presented airside retail facilities.
Sea Island Business Park Photgraph Credit: Santec
In such a commercially charged environment, the attention given to the exposition of the Airport’s “Earth, Sea and Sky” branding, as expressed in the use of the colour pallet in flooring, glazing and decorative features is extremely effective. However, it is the inclusion of public spaces featuring First Nations art, which demonstrates a laudably far sighted recognition by YVR’s Board and management of the need to create an “sense of place”. This is fundamental to their vision and to securing long term community, investor and political support.
Aquarium and Creek
The “Green Wall”, which faces arriving passengers as they head for the new Skytrain Station, the spectacular Sea Life Centre aquarium in international departures, and the striking elliptical Link Building joining the domestic and international terminals could all have been value engineered out of a more prosaic, cost-conscious design. Yet they now stand as testaments to the wisdom that investment in such assets will produce intangible long term benefits to future commercial performance. Combined with the presence of a public park within the airport boundary and an eclectic mix of aircraft, including float planes on the nearby Fraser River and a Canadian Coast Guard Hovercraft, YVR is undoubtedly a unique and distinctive airport.
Tony Gugliotta, SVP of marketing and business development at YVR, is rightly very proud of what has been achieved thus far, but also recognises that if the ambitious plans set out in the ‘Your Airport 2027’ plan are to be achieved, growth will have to come not solely from a rapidly growing population and tourism sector in Vancouver and an increased number of domestic, US city and Central/South American and Caribbean sun routes. The Airport’s will also need to carve out a multi-functional “hub” role, combining:
- A ‘gateway’ for Asia-Pacific originating traffic connect to a wide range of Canada domestic and US West Coast and Mid-West destinations;
- Similarly, European originating North American West Coast bound traffic; and
- Regional local commuter services within BC and on into Alaska.
Cathay pacific Boeing 747-400 taking-off
BC’s Premier Gordon Campbell’s announcement in September of the removal of tax on aviation fuel for international routes, the Airport’s own 5 year incentive scheme and the Canadian Government’s ‘Asia Pacific Gateway and Corridor Programme’ are all signs of a joint commitment to take advantage of YVR’s favourable position on Great Circle routes and its significant Asian population, to make it the premier global gateway of choice linking the Asia-Pacific Region to the Americas. But it faces significant competition in this enterprise from Los Angeles, San Francisco and Seattle and will not be helped by the fact US carriers now have improved bi-laterals allowing them to fly direct to Asia from established bases in the USA, whilst Canada has not liberalised Fifth Freedoms for such routings.
Despite its many successes, which may well attract shareholders of further airports to importing its business International Terminal
YVR has so far risen admirably to this task and appears well equipped to address the many challenges it faces in an increasingly competitive global marketplace through a combination of far-sighted, imaginative and commercially sound management and a deep commitment to the heritage, environment, community and partners that have created a business model of shrewd investment and stewardship that many others will wish to follow.
Article by Chris Cain
Airbus A380
Later the aircraft was flown to Sapporo New Chitose airport, Hokkaido on another first airport visit, again to check the readiness of the airport for the aircraft. Currently, Air France, Lufthansa and Singapore Airlines fly the A380 into Narita airport. www.airbus.com
British Airways Boeing 747-400
The airline recently announced increases in frequencies to other Caribbean destinations, flights to Barbados from ten to 12 flights a week, Antigua from five to six a week and St Lucia – Port of Spain increasing to daily from five times a week. www.ba.com
Gatwick Express train at Gatwick Airport Station
Icelandair Boeing 757
The route will be flown by Boeing 757.
Washington will be the eighth North American destination in Icelandair’s network. www.icelandair.is
Libyan Arab Airlines CRJ900ER
Based on current list prices, the firm order is valued at US$131.5m and increase to US$267.8m if all the options are converted into firm orders. Libyan Arab Airlines currently operate three CRJ900s and two CRJ900 NextGen aircraft in their fleet. www.bombardier.com www.libyanairlines.aero
Radisson Blu Hotel Dubai Downtown lobby
The hotel has 198 rooms and 22 suites all with free high speed internet. It also has an all day dining restaurant, speciality restaurant, a pub, two bars that includes a rooftop poolside bar. The hotel also has extensive business centre and meeting facilities. www.rezidor.com
NATS Logo
Air traffic in Europe was effected by two periods of industrial action in France, an air traffic control strike in Belgium and a general strike in Spain during September. There was positive growth in the Transatlantic Arrivals/Departures of 4% and in the Transatlantic Overflights of 6.3%. Traffic at NATS airports decreased by1.3% in the month compared to September 2009.
There were exceptions. Traffic at Farnborough increased by 9.6%, Heathrow by 5%, Southampton by 3.6%, Aberdeen by 0.8% and Bristol by 0.1%. www.nats.co.uk
More from the Cabin Crew
"This aircraft is equipped with a video surveillance system that monitors the cabin during taxiing. Any passengers not remaining in their seats until the aircraft comes to a full and complete stop at the gate will be strip-searched as they leave the aircraft”
and
"Smoking in the lavatories is prohibited. Any person caught smoking in the lavatories will be asked to leave the aircraft immediately.”