The budget airline Oasis which runs flights from London Gatwick to Hong Kong has applied to go into liquidation. The airline offered flights for a little as £65 each way and operated daily flights between London and Hong Kong. The airline has debts of around one billion Hong Kong dollars. Hundreds of people have been left stranded after the shut down.

Thomas Cook has brought the luxury travel firm Elegant Resorts from its shareholders Geoff Moss and Barbara Catchpole. The company carried more then 20,000 last year and its assets are worth around £22.3 million. Thomas Cook plans to run it as a standalone business and will keep the company’s current management team.

The problems with the new Terminal 5 at Heathrow have left BA with losses of around £16 million so far. The costs have mainly been incurred because of the cancellation of 300 short haul flights. The problems are likely to continue and some analysts predict the losses could eventually run to as much as £150 million.

This weeks travel blog of the week is steveislost.com. The blog is written by Steven Kazuo Nakano and charts his travels over the last couple of years. After selling off all of his stuff including his prized car back in 2005 Steve has already been to Argentina, Chile, Egypt, Israel, Peru and Venezuela, just to name a few places. The most recent entries find him in India where he purchases a motor bike in order to see more of the country. Steve talks about the complexities of dealing with the local police and paperwork issues and the fact that the best way to deal with them is just not to stop at the checkpoints.

One of the more humorous posts from his time in India also mentions what Steve describes as "the number two worst room I stayed in". Whilst this is not surprising, after reading the post you probably like me will be left wondering what the worst room he has stayed in was like, perhaps Steve can enlighten us here? Firstly he says the room was very close to a pig sty which gave it a beautiful spring smell, but the wildlife inside the room was slightly more irritating. One thing is for sure his post will certainly have you scratching as you read about the population of bed bugs he shared the room with. You can see what he calls his first nights catch pictured left. He says of the room and the number of bedbugs:
"I have stayed in places before where I have seen a few, but not a major infestation like this. At the joining of the wall to the ceiling was thousands of little droppings where they pooped. After the first night I finally realized where they were coming from and could see them sticking their heads out of the cracks waiting for me to go to sleep" and he resorts to staying awake most of the night as the bugs come out to feed. It sounds lovely. On a more cheerful note he also posts this cute picture of a family of monkeys . ahhh.

PC2Paper has increased its UK prices this weekend to reflect the recent increases in postage prices from Royal Mail. The increases mean that a UK letter will now cost 56p to send via first class mail and 49p to send second class. Prices for letters sent to overseas destinations from our UK based printing station have also increased accordingly.

Just when it was looking like things were getting better at Terminal 5 there have been yet more problems. Once again the baggage handling system has caused more problems and the recent snow in the UK has added to these problems. More than 60 flights have been cancelled as a result and passengers are advised to check the BA website before travelling.

Nearly a week after the new Terminal 5 opened at Heathrow it is finally ready to operate a full schedule of flights making it the first day of normal operation. Until today flights have been cancelled every day to take pressure off the overloaded baggage handling systems.

BA has called in international couriers to help return customers bags. The airline has chartered planes from FedEx to take luggage back to the US and BA flights are also taking bags back across the Atlantic when there is spare space in the hold. Some bags have also been taken by road to Milan where they will be sorted and flown out to their owners.

CrossCountry Trains will run a high speed summer service between Manchester and Newquay and Newcastle and Newquay. The service will operate on Saturdays between May and September and is aimed at encouraging holidaymakers to the county. The trains will have large luggage compartments so will be able to easily accommodate surfboards. They are likely to prove popular with the hundreds of surfers who regularly visit Cornwall.

Plans to introduce fingerprinting for passengers travelling from Terminal 5 were suspended only 24 hours before they were due to open. BAA says that the measures are needed to distinguish domestic passengers from international ones but the data protection watchdog has said the plan may breach British law. Talks are now being held between the Information Commissioner and BAA which wants to bring in the checks in the future.

There is likely to be more disruption at Terminal 5 as BA struggle to sort out the problems that hit the opening week. BA is still struggling to clear the backlog of luggage and is still cancelling some flights and there are now reports that it could take months for things to get back to normal. BA has now postponed the switch of long haul flights to the terminal which was due to happen on the 5th of April and there could also be a threat of strike action which would hit service further.

The General Administration of Civil Aviation of China (CAAC) has plans to build 97 airports before 2020. The plan will see the number of airports in China increasing to 192 in 2010 and to 244 by 2020 meaning that most people will live within 90 minutes drive of an airport by 2020. The new airports will cost around 450 billion Yuan ($64 billion) and are being built to meet increasing demand.