COMMENT: Dear AERBT Editor - Hong Kong Airport

Cathay Pacific’s new CEO John Slosar may be in favour of a third runway at Hong Kong International Airport – Chep Lap Kok (HKG) – but clearly all is not well with the existing arrangements (see AERBT 12 September).  It is a great pity as in many ways HKG is superior to Changi Singapore, which wins all the awards.  One wonders why.

The following was received from Ian Lyne, based in Qatar, describing himself as a Hong Kong supporter.

"The debate over Hong Kong Chep Lap Kok’s third runway maybe in its final stages but something is clearly wrong.  For some time now, arriving as a visitor to Hong Kong has become one of the worst experiences of any major airport.  Gone is the bustle but heady efficiency of arrival at Kai Tak.  Instead passengers are regaled by video stories of returning students proud at the quality of their (British designed) airport and its efficiency.  Chairmen and CEOs prattle with pride about the economic importance of it growing and expanding.  Indeed the airport is an architectural experience but for the last three visits something awful has been building.

My last trip, two weeks ago, was greeted by the Cathay pilot announcing as usual an arrival a few minutes ahead of schedule despite delays leaving Heathrow.  All is smooth and efficient until the cattle runs at immigration.  As usual five or six booths are manned for HK citizens – who are processed in minutes leaving idle officers to chit chat.  There is even a special channel for returning maids, long the lowliest of HK society, this is a welcome upgrade.  For the rest, Business and First Class passengers alike, it is into the cattle runs.  At each of the four or five turns of the run a monitor screens the virtues of HK and the need for a third runway.  At each turn the assembled crowd of tourists, business folk, mainlanders and others clearly with money to spend, becomes more agitated. 

This trip reveals only two immigration ‘officers’ and seven vacant booths.  The last trip had slightly more at four but still more empty booths than active ones.  The resultant plod takes at least an hour (I timed it) and at the booth concierge ladies direct you to one of only two officers – as if there were multiple choices.  The immigration process remains as it did 15 years ago with the same form in duplicate and rubber stamps beloved of the Qing mandaracy.  Even Qatar with its ‘temporary’ arrivals hall can scan a passport and have you on your way in minutes.  The ultimate grievance occurs when finally reaching the baggage carousel passengers find that priority baggage labels are for nought as all of the flight’s luggage has been off loaded to an impenetrable standing phalanx to make way for another flight’s baggage on the carousel.  At least the bags get handled quickly.

Wake up Hong Kong!  There is no point building a third runaway and increasing passenger traffic if you can’t even handle the current numbers efficiently.  Having a well-designed airport and state of the art booth furnishings is all for nought if passengers have to endure an hour or more wait at Immigration just because only two officers bothered to turn up.  Maybe it is a log jam in the laundry cleaning the little white gloves required for stamping, maybe it’s just government employees being the weak link as usual.  Worse yet the growth of unionised labour in dear old free market Hong Kong.  Whatever is the reason for this rare show of Hong Kong inefficiency this disaster needs solving before you increase the capacity.  The best way to deal with unionised labour is to replace it with automated machines.  There is space to double the number of automated entry points at Hong Kong which would then have an Immigration service to match its 21st century airport.  You won’t find much support for your TV runway promotions amongst the very irate passengers in my queue and I for one will now be arriving in Guangzhou."

“Joigin”

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Air France-KLM splits its orders

Whether Airbus and Boeing are pleased with the orders, each for 25 Boeing 787 Dreamliners and 25 Airbus A350s, is arguable.  Normally commitments of that size produce great fanfairs.  This time around the mood is more subdued.  Air France is said to be more politically sensitive to where it buys its aircraft than most.  Rumours were that management wanted to go for the Boeing.  The airlines operate very successfully 60 Boeing 777s, but in recent times no 737 series aircraft at all.

Air France has had its differences with Airbus over what caused the 2009 mid-Atlantic crash of an Airbus jet.  Was it the aircraft, pilots, or a combination of both?

Air France-KLM said it aimed to operate 73 of the 250-300-seat aircraft by 2024, including 43 Airbus A350-900s and 30 Boeing 787-9 models.  A big winner so far is Rolls-Royce which is the only current power supplier for the A350-900.  It will also pitch for the 787 order, which could go to GE. www.airfrance.fr

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Bilbao now twice daily from Heathrow

Vueling, which calls itself “the new generation Spanish airline” and also boasts of being the only budget carrier into Heathrow, is to increase the frequency of its flights to the port of Bilbao in northern Spain.  From 30 October the schedule will feature twice daily services, doubling the airline’s capacity to the Spanish destination.

The increased frequency follows a successful seven years of service between London and Bilbao.  “We are responding to increased demand from passengers in both the leisure and business markets.  The new schedule enables business executives to make convenient day return trips, and leisure visitors can enjoy comfortable long weekend breaks,” said Alex Cruz, CEO of Vueling.

Vueling has noted a growing demand from regular business travellers for the route to the burgeoning economic centre.  “This sector is increasingly important for Vueling and we plan to create additional business focused products to join our existing portfolios of services,” commented Cruz on the significance of the market sector.  Vueling already offers a variety of business focused products including Go which enables passengers to check in for an earlier flight than booked if required; Duo allows clients to buy the middle seat of three for extra space. www.vueling.com

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Credit card charges

Skyscanner, the Edinburgh-based leisure fare flight comparison operator and booking search engine, have come up with a most interesting schedule of "plastic money” reservation charges.

Offering comparisons for both debit and credit card, 17 airlines feature on the list.  It must be emphasised even as we go to press the costs are changing in what is a very competitive business segment.  The evaluation is based on return costs as some airlines like to charge per actual flight, others per person, or as a percentage of the total flight charges.

According to Skyscanner if you use a debit card Ryanair is the most expensive with the fee £12 for the return flight.  Next up is Aer Lingus (£10) followed by Flybe (£9), easyJet (£8), bmi Baby and Thomas Cook (£6), Jet2 (£4.99) and finally Thomson Flight (£3.99).  With credit card, easyJet is fractionally ahead of Ryanair (£12.95 against £12) and a special mention should be made of British Airways, Germanwings, KLM, Iberia, SAS, Swiss and Virgin Atlantic who do not charge at all with debit cards. www.skyscanner.net

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Gatwick numbers up - and Glasgow too

Passenger numbers have taken an upward turn at Gatwick Airport together with record average load factors.  The August figures, just published, show an increase of 132,500, year-on-year, an increase of 3.6%.  With long haul carriers Air Asia and Vietnam Airlines due to start operations in the coming months and the possibly of Hong Kong Airlines arriving next March (see in this issue) the mid-term outlook for the airport looks promising.

Average load factors rose 1.4 percentage points to 88.4% this month compared to the same month last year – resulting in Gatwick's highest ever average load factors.  The school summer holidays saw year-on-year growth with around half a million passengers travelling through Gatwick over the August bank holiday weekend.  The most popular destinations being Malaga, Palma de Mallorca and Dalaman.  Overall capacity was up by 86,000 seats with growth to a wide range of Spanish, Italian, Swedish and Canadian destinations.  Air transport movements grew 2.1% with short haul markets seeing the greatest gains.

August was also a good month for BAA’s Glasgow Airport.  A strong demand for long haul and EU scheduled flights ensured passenger numbers rose by 5.5% over the same month last year. www.gatwickairport.com www.baa.com   

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Melia for Manchester?

Manchester could be the next UK destination for the family-owned Spanish hotel group which is also in the process of rebranding.  Whilst the company is reticent regarding details it is said to be close to exchanging contracts for a 5-star property in central Manchester which would then be completely remodelled.  The 270-room Drurys Inn does fit the bill.

Presently in the UK, Melia own and operate the luxury White House hotel near London’s Regent Park, and is busy completing the prestigious ME Hotel, on the former Marconi House site in The Aldwych, which was damaged by fire in June (AERBT 20 June).  This is delayed but will open in time for the Olympics. 

Gabriel Escarrer, Chief Executive Officer, unveiled the new corporate name last week and using the opportunity of a London press conference of a new Strategic Plan for the period 2012-2014 with a clear focus on globalisation.

The new emphasis is on Melia Hotels International with each brand having its own product identity and prominence, the top end represented by Gran Meliá, Paradisus and ME by Meliá hotels; the superior or “upscale” segment includes the Meliá and Innside brands; whilst the mid-scale properties cover the Sol resort properties and TRYP by Wyndham city hotels. www.melia-hotels.com

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SkyWork Airlines to Rome and Vienna

Based at the Swiss capital of Bern, SkyWork Airlines, an independently-owned regional carrier, has introduced flights to Rome and Vienna.  At the same time and just five months after its debut, the airline has upped frequencies from London City to Bern from six to 11 flights weekly.

The Bern to Rome service operates Monday to Friday with departures from Bern leaving 10:10 and arriving Rome 11:45.  The return Rome service departs 12:25 arriving back in at 14:05.  With Vienna the operation is daily (except Sundays) leaving Bern 15:40 arriving in Vienna 17:15 with the return 17:55/19:30.

With these new additions, SkyWork now links the Swiss capital to a total of ten destinations.  A further four – including Amsterdam, Belgrade, Budapest and Madrid – come on line at the end of October. 

At London City the new schedule gives morning and evening return trips Monday to Friday.  Also on offer are Saturday morning and Sunday evening roundtrips.

SkyWork was founded in 1983 initially specialising in ad-hoc, business and charter operations.  Its fleet now comprises of two Dornier 328 and two Bombardier Q400s.  Three additional aircraft – two 328s and one Q400 will be added in 2012. www.flyskywork.com

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ON TOUR: Where is La Rioja?

Jane Stanbury reports

The region of Rioja, in North East Spain and south of Bilbao, is renowned for its long heritage of wine production which began when the Roman’s introduced the vines back in the first century.  However, a quiet revolution has recently taken place as modern architectural structures featuring striking designs have become as prevalent and potent as the region’s full bodied reds.  Canadian architect Frank O. Gehry put Rioja on the map with his sophisticated design at the Marqués de Riscal Bodega.  Others have added to the landscape with elite Valencian architect Santiago Calatrava Valls designing the beguiling Ysios which, with its undulating structure, reflects its Cantabrian mountain range backdrop; J. Marino Pascual’s Bodega Antion replicates a carefully balanced set of children’s building blocks.

Hotel Viura, located in the medieval village of Villabuena, population 300, (vineyards 43!) epitomises the pattern of constructing elaborate edifices that should radically conflict with the surroundings.  Yet careful design, attention to detail and considered thought ensure the avant-garde properties of Rioja actually complement and add to the beauty of the local scenery.   From Bilbao’s airport it is around 70 picturesque twisty miles.  Depending on your driving about 90 minutes.

Opened in Spring 2010, Hotel Viura has quickly become one of the region’s iconic boutique hotels.  Designed by a young woman from the diminutive village, the impossible building which blends industrial techniques with style and comfort, consists of seemingly precariously balanced cubes bursting animatedly from the ground.  On careful viewing much is actually optical illusion with carefully angled window frames, columns and supports belying the solid structure beneath. Each of the 26 rooms and seven suites have an individual identity but feature a collection of style elements most down-town Manhattan hotels would be proud of.  Coloured glass partitions, polished concrete, refurbished industrial wood all combine to create comfortable, bright and airy rooms.  Seemingly randomly scribbled chalk numbers indicate the rooms, and idly doodled chalk images entice you to get up close and personal with the industrial design. 

The restaurant’s barrel ceiling leaves nobody in doubt about the regional location and as Pedro, the Maitre D, leads guests through the extensive restaurant wine list the call of the vines can be heard.  Haro is the central focus of the region’s wine production.  This focal centre is home to the traditional Compañía Vinícola del Norte de Espaná, or CUNE as it is better known, owned by the Asua family since its inception in 1879.  It is the byword for innovation in wine production and responsible for producing the rich reds such as Imperial Gran Reserva, Cune Reserva and the more coiffable white Monopol which is the oldest white wine of the region and made from 100% Viura (after which the hotel is named). 

Cune produces a mammoth 9 million bottles of wine per year and is listed on the Spanish Stock Exchange.  It has always been at the forefront of wine production and first demonstrated its radical approach by employing the architectural office of Alexandre Gustave-Eiffel, just 20 years after opening, to design a new type of wine cellar.  A form of structural support consisting of metallic trusses extending from wall to wall negated the need for columns in the vast barrel room.  This created a more cost efficient space in which to store, rack, maintain and supervise the wine barrels.  Later in 1941 CUNE became the first vineyard to use epoxy lined concrete vats in which to store its wine, a technique which was quickly adopted, then abandoned for stainless steel.  However the concrete vaults are now undergoing a renaissance across the region as the qualities of high neutrality and stable temperatures produce a superb wine making environment. 

Five generations later the Asua family continues to innovate and the latest addition to their radical wine production has been the construction of the Viña Real vineyard where 3m of the Cune's bottles are produced annually.  In contrast to the traditional hacienda style of Cune Viña Real’s architect Phillippe Mazières, who also designed the winged structure of Bilbao airport, has created both a beautiful and functional homage to wine production.  The unusually light main building is inspired by the  allegory of the wine making process.  Mazières took the key ingredients of wine production – wood, glass, stainless steel and concrete – and created a monolithic structure that represents an oak wine vat, but made of red cedar wood.  The cylindrical two-storey structure, which is supported by an a frame of lengthy pine wood columns, creates wine through an intriguing gravitational method which sees the grape always journeying downwards through the process.  The main “vat” building is then linked to two tunnels bored deep into the hill by the machines responsible for the Bilbao subway, and it is here in these enormous underground caverns that the wine finishes fermenting.

Perhaps the Asua’s most creative, but maddest moment can be witnessed at the CUNE vineyard.  Any visitor should ask for a tour of the “cemetery”.  Behind a gothic ironwork gate the Asua’s laid down a selection of their finest wines produced from 1879 onwards agreeing to only drink the wines 100 years later.  For obvious reasons this has not happened and a trip to the graveyard of wines leads you into arched vaults leeching mould of many varieties.  The wines have not been touched for decades, yet it is fascinating to learn that even now some of these wines could still be palatable

It is said that 1964 is the harvest of the century in Rioja, closely followed by 2001 so for any serious investor look out for the illusive Imperial Gran Reserva 1964, but you will need to be quick.  The economic crisis has driven much domestic tourism and the Spanish enjoy drinking their own wine.  For those that come from further afield Alava Incoming specialise in arranging cultural, gastronomic and tourist itineraries in the province.  Vineyard tours can be as simple as a tour and tasting for €8, or include a full five-course Spanish meal, with of course accompanying wines for around €35.  Harvest time, when the burnt umbers, brilliant reds and ochre yellows of the vine leaves paint a pallet on the landscape, is the best season to visit.  Alava can arrange for budding oenologists to become part of the harvest workforce. 

Reservations are essential because, as our guide told us, some of the vineyards which were initially sceptical about wine tasting and tours, now make more money from the visits than wine production.  Reflecting on the visit the following ditty comes to mind, “Oh mother I grow weary, my mouth is very dry, take me to a winery, and leave me there to die….”

Getting there – AERBT’s report coincides with Spanish budget (or “new generation airline”) Vueling doubling up on its Heathrow services, as reported elsewhere in AERBT. www.vueling.com www.hotelviura.com  www.alavaincoming.com www.cune.com

Jane Stanbury
Emerald Media
www.emeraldmedia.co.uk www.balearicdiscovery.com

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