Aircraft owned, operated or chartered by anyone connected with Russia are banned from flying to and landing in UK
UK authorities have grounded another plane to investigate possible links with Russia, the transport secretary has announced.
Russian airlines and private jets are prohibited from landing in the UK and it is a criminal offence for any Russian aircraft to fly or land in the UK.
Continue reading...Qantas chief says airlines have no choice but to increase prices and believes travel will be impacted
Travellers are facing steep air fare hikes as bans on Russian oil cause jet fuel prices to surge, Australian aviation experts warn.
Qantas chief executive, Alan Joyce, has said the average fare would increase by 7% as a result of the increased crude oil prices following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, but others predict the price rises could be higher.
Continue reading...The interference began soon after a meeting between presidents Sauli Niinistö and Joe Biden
Aircraft flying near the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad and near Finland’s eastern border with Russia have noticed interference with their GPS signals, according to Finnish authorities.
The interference began soon after Finland’s President Sauli Niinistö met Joe Biden in Washington on Saturday to discuss deepening defense ties between Finland and Nato due to Russia’s attack on Ukraine.
Continue reading...Downdraft toppled 87-year-old on footpath near Derriford hospital helipad and injured one other woman
An 87-year-old woman has died after being blown over by a helicopter landing at a hospital, police have confirmed.
Devon and Cornwall police said two people were thought to have been injured as the helicopter landed at a helipad at Derriford hospital in Plymouth on Friday.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Thousands of near-empty planes flown since March 2020, new figures reveal
Almost 15,000 “ghost flights” have departed from the UK, according to newly revealed official figures.
The ghost flights, defined as those with no passengers or less than 10% of passenger capacity, operated from all 32 airports listed in the data. Heathrow was top, with 4,910 ghost flights between March 2020 and September 2021. Manchester and Gatwick were the next highest. There were an average of 760 ghost flights a month over the period, although the data covered only international departure and not domestic flights.
Continue reading...For those looking for inflight fun, without having to squash into a tiny toilet, a new Las Vegas venture has the answer. But will the idea take off?
Name: The mile-high club.
Appearance: Sexy, up in the air.
Continue reading...In DM exchange Tesla boss offers $5,000 for takedown but 19-year-old replies: ‘Any chance to up that to $50K?’
A row has broken out between the world’s richest person, Elon Musk, and a 19-year-old student and aviation enthusiast from Florida.
Jack Sweeney created the Twitter bot @ElonJet, which tracks Musk’s Gulfstream private jet and posts real-time updates of its location.
Continue reading...Dutch military police say man taken to hospital and that his age and nationality have not yet been determined
A stowaway was discovered in the wheel section under the front of a freight plane that arrived at Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport from South Africa on Sunday, Dutch military police have said.
“The man is doing well considering the circumstances and has been taken to a hospital,” the police in charge of Dutch border control said in a statement.
Continue reading...When inventor David Mayman took to the skies, it seemed he’d answered an age-old longing. So why did no one seem to care?
We have jetpacks and we do not care. An Australian named David Mayman has invented a functioning jetpack and has flown it all over the world – once in the shadow of the Statue of Liberty – yet few people know his name. His jetpacks can be bought but no one is clamouring for one. For decades, humans have said they want jetpacks, and for thousands of years we have said we want to fly, but do we really? Look up. The sky is empty.
Airlines are dealing with pilot shortages, and this promises to get far worse. A recent study found that, by 2025, we can expect a worldwide shortfall of 34,000 commercial pilots. With smaller aircraft, the trends are similar. Hang-gliding has all but disappeared. Ultralight aircraft makers are barely staying afloat. (One manufacturer, Air Création, sold only one vehicle in the US last year.) With every successive year, we have more passengers and fewer pilots. Meanwhile, one of the most dreamed of forms of flight – jetpacks – exists, but Mayman can’t get anyone’s attention.
Continue reading...Belgian-British Zara Rutherford braved acrid smoke and freezing Siberia on round-the-world journey in two-seater microlight
It should have been perfect flying weather when Zara Rutherford set off from Palo Alto in California for Seattle, a month into her attempt to become the youngest woman to fly solo round the world. But while the skies were clear, wildfires were raging on the ground.
She tried to avoid the towering plumes of acrid smoke by climbing to 12,000ft, but to no avail. “I couldn’t see in front of me,” she said. “It was all kind of a brownish, smoky, orange, dirty colour. I could smell the smoke as well, which was quite unpleasant.”
Continue reading...A Belgian-British teenager has flown into the record books by becoming the youngest woman to fly solo around the world. Zara Rutherford, 19, touched down at Kortrijk-Wevelgem airport in Flanders, completing a 52,000km (28,100 nautical mile) journey that took in 31 countries across five continents. 'It’s just really crazy. I haven’t quite processed it,' Rutherford, draped in British and Belgian flags, told reporters
Continue reading...Nineteen-year-old completes 52,000km journey that took in 31 countries and five continents
A Belgian-British teenager has flown into the record books by becoming the youngest woman to fly solo around the world.
Zara Rutherford, 19, touched down at Kortrijk-Wevelgem airport in Flanders just after 1pm local time on Thursday, completing a 52,000km (28,100 nautical mile) journey that took in 31 countries across five continents.
Continue reading...Airport says passengers abandoned plans because of Omicron variant and uncertainty on restrictions
Heathrow airport has said at least 600,000 passengers cancelled their travel plans from the airport in December because of Omicron, warning aviation would take years to recover from the pandemic.
Only 19.4 million passengers passed through the airport in 2021 – less than a quarter of 2019 levels and below even 2020, the year when the Covid-19 pandemic started in March.
Continue reading...Justin Trudeau calls revellers who partied onboard flight ‘idiots’ as three airlines refuse to fly them home
A group of passengers who filmed themselves partying without masks onboard a chartered flight from Montreal to Mexico face being stranded after three airlines refused to fly them home to Canada.
Sunwing Airlines cancelled the return charter flight from Cancún that had been scheduled for Wednesday and Air Transat and Air Canada also both said they would refuse to carry the passengers.
Continue reading...Report from aviation analytics firm Cirium shows domestic flights were down by almost 60%
Air travel in and out of the UK slumped by 71% in 2021 as the second year of the Covid-19 crisis took its toll on international flying, according to a report.
Just over 406,000 international flights operated from the UK up to 22 December this year compared with almost 1.4m in 2019 before the pandemic struck and travel restrictions were imposed, the aviation analytics firm Cirium said. UK domestic flights were found to have declined by almost 60%.
Continue reading...US reports 512,553 cases; UK reports 129,000; France reports 179,807; Portugal 17,172; and Greece 21,657
Stock markets have continued to gain ground despite the surge of Omicron around the world.
Asian markets lifted on Tuesday with the Nikkei in Japan up nearly 1%, Shanghai up 0.2%, Seoul up 0.1% and Sydney’s ASX200 is up 0.44%.
Continue reading...Passengers returning home for festive season face disruption as Omicron leaves airlines short-staffed
Passengers travelling home for Christmas have been hit with disruption worldwide after airline companies cancelled more than 3,000 flights on Friday, according to a flight tracking website.
The surge of Christmas Eve cancellations came as the rapidly spreading Omicron coronavirus variant meant carriers were unable to staff their flights.
Continue reading...Our 20 favourite pieces of the year
After growing up in a Zimbabwe convulsed by the legacy of colonialism, when I got to Oxford I realised how many British people still failed to see how empire had shaped lives like mine – as well as their own
Continue reading...The Guatemalan man was taken to hospital by immigration officials after emerging from the plane on the tarmac
A stowaway hidden in the landing gear compartment of an American Airlines jet survived a flight from his home country of Guatemala to Miami, where he was turned over to US immigration officials and taken to a hospital for evaluation.
The US customs and border protection agency confirmed the incident in a statement initially cited by Miami-based television station WTVJ, which posted video taken of the man at Miami international airport shortly after the plane landed on Saturday.
Continue reading...Joe Biden’s chief medical adviser, Anthony Fauci, said on Friday there was “no indication” the new “Omicron” coronavirus variant discovered in southern Africa had reached the US.
Nonetheless, the the Biden administration said it would restrict travel from South Africa and seven other countries in southern Africa, starting on Monday.
Continue reading...