Making air travel more accessible for passengers with hidden disabilities is the name given to an advice document which the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) has sent to all UK airports.
Will Adrian be serving up an old fashioned Christmas meal of oyster stew this year? Probably not. Gingerbread- yes and that covers just two of the stories in his round-up of the week.
The Civil Aviation Authority – CAA – expects that two million of us will book holidays in January. But will our holidays be protected if the tour operator goes bust?
CD-Traveller tells you what’s hot and what’s not in the travel world. This month Peckham and Virginia are making waves, but there’s criticism for cruise ships and the Chancellor’s increase of APD
Heathrow airport has been ordered to pay a £500,000 penalty after an investigation revealed passenger queuing times at security checkpoints were longer than the London airport previously reported.
For the past 40 years, it has been the Air Transport Users Council (AUC) that has been the body that has supposedly championed the rights of consumers. That has just been brought to an end. If you want to complain about an airline or an airport there is a new body to represent us.
Actually that’s not quite true. There are two new bodies but both still attached to the CAA, Civil Aviation Authority.
This morning, easyJet held a press conference to announce that a solution might have been found to one of the problems that significantly affected us during April and May. The Icelandic volcanic eruption caused cancellations in Europe, disrupted travel plans and contributed to reduced economic activity. EasyJet said that the disruption cost them between £50 and £75 million. Two of my flights were cancelled and train services did well out of me, being able to charge higher rates than I would normally pay in order to get back home. Now easyJet think that this solution, called AVOID, could prevent a similar issue affecting us in the same way. And it is all down to Fred.
Fred is actually Dr Fred Prata, a scientist working at NILU (Norwegian Institute of Air Research) and he has been working on this technology since 1993. It is he who has developed AVOID which for the technically minded of you stands for Airborne Volcanic Object Identifier and Detector.
A spokesman from TUI (the owners of Thomson and First Choice) said this week that if a bird swims, quacks, waddles and looks like a duck then it must be a duck. The courts think otherwise. Most of you will never have heard of a company called Travel Republic but the result of a court action against it by the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) might actually help travellers with better consumer protection for our flights and holidays.
From the website:
“The CAA is the UK’s independent specialist aviation regulator. Its activities include economic regulation, airspace policy, safety regulation and consumer protection.”
