General News
Below are links to stories of general interest in relation to aviation and airports.
Credit crisis forces BAA to delay refinancing
BAA has been forced to delay its planned £10bn refinancing. The owner of seven British airports - acquired in 2006 for £16.3bn - said only last month it planned to complete the refinancing by the end of June. Now it expects completion "early in the third quarter of 2008". (Telegraph)
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Ferry boost ‘from airport delays’
Airport taxes and delays have led motoring tourists to return to ferries "in their thousands", according to Dover Harbour Board. The board said tourist car journeys reached nearly 2.84m last year - the highest annual total since 1999 - airport taxes and delays had reduced the appeal of short-haul flights in favour of drive-and-sail holidays. (BBC)
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Spy caught by anti-aviation group was ‘more Austin Powers than 007’
A spy who infiltrated Plane Stupid has been exposed after making a series of elementary errors that aroused the suspicions of genuine activists. Toby Kendall joined Plane Stupid after graduating from Oxford last year, but he in fact works for C2i International, a counter-intelligence company run by former special forces officers. (Times)
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Budget airline Flybe wanted actors to fill empty seats to avoid penalty charges
A budget airline advertised for actors to pose as passengers in an attempt to avoid a £280,000 commercial penalty for having too many empty seats. Flybe also laid on extra flights, offered the public free trips and placed its own staff on stand-by to fly in case seats were not filled. They took the "unusual" steps after failing to reach agreement with officials at Norwich International Airport. (Daily Mail)
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Wales – Call for North-South flights’ true cost to public
Officials have no idea how many passengers on the North-South air service are getting their travel costs paid by the public. One AM (Assembly Member) said yesterday it was important to record how many users of the flights between Anglesey and Cardiff were civil servants, councillors,and others from the public sector. (Western Mail - Wales)
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‘Jet-setting’ government clocked up 300 million air miles last year
Ministers were accused of hypocrisy and extravagance after the Conservatives calculated that Whitehall departments and major public bodies clocked up more than 300 million "air miles" last year. The Tories said the flights would have been enough to take politicians and civil servants to the moon 1,280 times or make 12,240 journeys around the world. (Independent)
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Air support for Africa’s organic farms
British Airways and Virgin Atlantic, which make millions of pounds from flying food in passenger jets, are joining forces with African farmers to fight environmental restrictions on food transported by air. They have given free tickets to representatives of farmers in Ghana and Kenya to visit London to argue their case to the Soil Association. (Times)
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Who needs Terminal 5 or bigger and better runways? Oh to be a second-class European backwater . . .
Terminal 5, said Nigel Rudd (BAA Chairman), would keep us at the forefront of aviation; it would enable us to retain our status as a world-class business centre and, well, did we want to be a first-class nation or a second-class one? "Second class will do very nicely thanks," I found myself replying. (Guardian Comment)
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ICAO appoints 17 countries to new High-level Group to hammer out important policy issues on aviation MBMs
Ryanair is going nose to nose with Europe's largest and most successful high-speed railway system. They announced that it was starting cheap flights in May from Beauvais airport, 50 miles north-west of Paris, to Marseilles. Ryanair will also try to break into the German domestic market for the first time with flights between Frankfurt and Berlin. (Independent)
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Advertising Standards Authority ruling on an advert by EnoughsEnough and AirportWatch
The Advertising Standards Authority has banned a national press ad for Airport Watch and Enoughsenough.org, two pressure groups in favour of reducing the number of flights taken by UK citizens, because their statistics about climate change were not officially recognised. The ad showed a photograph of a woman and a child standing on land covered in cattle carcasses with a plane and several vapour trails in the sky. (Brand Republic)