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# Wednesday, 02 January 2008
New Year price increases will mean that the cost of some rail tickets will rise by nearly 15%. This is despite the fact that many services have problems with chronic overcrowding and punctuality. One of the biggest increases is on the Southeastern Railway's weekly season ticket from Hayes, Kent, to London, which will rise by 14.5%, from £24.80 to £28.50.

posted on Wednesday, 02 January 2008 21:05:30 (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)  #    Trackback
The Unite and PCS unions have cancelled the planned one day stoppage that would have closed seven UK airports. The strike was called off after BAA managers agreed to negotiate any changes that are made to the firm’s final salary pension scheme. Two further strikes could also be called off if a deal is reached by union representatives in a meeting planned for Thursday.

posted on Wednesday, 02 January 2008 15:19:24 (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)  #    Trackback
# Friday, 28 December 2007
Talks aimed at stopping industrial action by airport staff have failed. Seven of Britain’s airports will now be closed by industrial action next month. The first 24 hour walkout will take place on January 7th with more strikes taking place on January 14th and January 17th. Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted, Southampton, Glasgow, Edinburgh and Aberdeen will be affected. If the strikes go ahead the airports will close because they will involve crucial workers such as firefighters, maintenance workers and security staff.

posted on Friday, 28 December 2007 18:31:00 (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)  #    Trackback
# Thursday, 27 December 2007
Around 40,000 customers of Travelscope have been told that their holiday bookings can no longer be honoured after the company went into administration. All customers will get a refund but many who were due to depart in the next few weeks are angry that they have not been given time to make other arrangements.

posted on Thursday, 27 December 2007 18:25:54 (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)  #    Trackback
# Sunday, 23 December 2007

blogoftheweek_thumbThis weeks Travel Blog of the week is Cheapest Destinations written by Tim Leffel who has also written a book with the same title. Tim is a regular columnist for Transitions Abroad magazine and is also editor of the online magazine Perceptive Travel.

His most recent post talks about how the expansion of The Schengen Zone will mean it will now be easier for travellers to move around Europe with just a passport. Basically the agreement means that you can now travel from Tallinn in Estonia to Lisbon in Portugal without any border controls.

rei_mug Another post highlights six travel gifts that can you purchase for $30 or less, perfect for those last minute Christmas presents. Among the gift ideas are the REI vacuum coffee mug which can keep your coffee hot for several hours and a mini shortwave radio perfect for journeys to remote locations and camping trips.

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The blog also contains lots of useful information that should help save you a bit of cash whilst travelling, as well as links to other sites that can help you with planning your trip. In particular this article about Honduras provides a wealth of useful information from sites that have information on local events to links to good hotel guides and dive shops.

posted on Sunday, 23 December 2007 17:03:30 (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)  #    Trackback
Union members at BAA have voted for strike action in a dispute over changes to pension rights. The Unite union has called for 24 hour strikes starting at 06.00 on 7 and 14 of January and a 48 hour strike starting at 06.00 on the 17th of January. The strikes will take place at seven of the UK’s airports including Heathrow, Gatwick and Edinburgh and are expected to affect around 1.3 million passengers.

posted on Sunday, 23 December 2007 13:49:19 (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)  #    Trackback
Work has begun on a new transport system for Heathrow Airport. The system will include a Personal Rapid Transit System with low energy battery produced vehicles. Initially there will be 18 of the driverless guided vehicles which will take people from the new Terminal Five to the business car park. The system will be on trial before it is rolled out across the rest of the airport.

posted on Sunday, 23 December 2007 00:08:30 (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)  #    Trackback
# Friday, 21 December 2007
If you were hoping to get tickets for next years Isle of Wight festival you are likely to be disappointed. The tickets which went on sale last week have now completely sold out. Around 50,000 tickets have been sold for the show. The show last threes days and will include acts such as The Police, the Sex Pistols and the Kaiser Chiefs.

posted on Friday, 21 December 2007 16:53:09 (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)  #    Trackback
# Thursday, 20 December 2007

blogoftheweek Todays travel blog of the week is really a travel journal from Worldnomads.com. One journal entry I found of particular interest was "Through Siberia". Part of three stories on our writers journey through the Russian Federation.

I've always been interested in Russia but sadly have never had the chance to go, the journal entry covers one of the types of trips I've always wanted to take. Traveling through the Russian Federation by train, getting to see parts of the country side and sleeping on the train. Our writer starts off with three friends sharing a "kupe cabin" from Moscow to Listvyanka which is on the south west banks of the biggest fresh water lake in the world, Lake Baikal. He notes quite a few interesting quirks about the locals such as their encounter with the "self named crazy football hooligans" who were told by the lady in the restaurant car not to steal anything. Other things I found amusing was the train being delayed because they had hit a cow on the tracks or how they painstakingly tied up their rubbish in bags while the other passengers on the train just throw it out of the windows!

posted on Thursday, 20 December 2007 14:56:50 (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)  #    Trackback
# Monday, 17 December 2007
I read this article that suggests millions of presents will be lost by delivery companies in the run up to Christmas. The article suggests that if the failure rate remains same as last year around 5.6 million parcels will either be returned to the sender or disposed of by the carrier. One of the main problems is carriers delivering to the wrong address either because the details are entered incorrectly or the information is out of date. Last posting dates this year are December 17 for 2-class items, December 20 for 1st-class and December 22 for special delivery.

posted on Monday, 17 December 2007 17:15:25 (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)  #    Trackback
# Thursday, 13 December 2007
A committee has recommended that airlines should be forced to increase the amount of leg room on board passenger jets. The study was carried out by the Lords committee on science and technology which accused the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) of ignoring its own research that suggested the amount of leg room should be increased.  CAA research found that for a passenger to adopt a safe brace position they needed a minimum distance between seats of 35ins instead of the current 26ins. The lack of leg room on planes also leads to deep vein thrombosis which can cause fatal blood clots, although this is more common on long flights.

posted on Thursday, 13 December 2007 22:34:00 (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)  #    Trackback