Skyparksecure Travel Blog - THE TRAVEL BLOG by Skyparksecure

The ash from the eruption of Grimsvotn in Iceland may be about to impact the UK travel industry.

A spokesman for the Met Office, which runs Europe’s Volcanic Ash Advisory Centre, said ‘This is a very different situation to last April. The weather is much more changeable and there is a lot more uncertainty. There’s no risk of the ash moving across the UK in the next day or so.

“But there is a possibility that we’ll see some volcanic ash towards the end of the week.”

Last year, when Eyjafjallajokull erupted, while other companies in the travel industry were charging exorbitant amounts of money to cancel or amend travellers bookings, we did everything we could to make sure that our customers were not penalised for travelling at that time.

We spoke directly with every car park to ascertain their policies for customers and did our utmost to make sure that we had a fair system in place for helping customers.

Every customer was offered a full refund or a credit to their account – even in cases where the car park concerned declined the customer any recompense or assistance.

We even offered FREE and then half price cancellation cover for a long period to reassure customers that we are always on their side.

This year, should the same situation emerge we will have everything in place to make sure we make any disruption to your travel as painless as possible – at least as far as your airport parking is concerned.

Every customer will be offered a credit on their account so that the value of their booking can be used against future bookings. We are also offering discounted cancellation cover until further notice so that for just 99p you can ensure that you will not be charged anything for amending your booking at any time.

We will keep you up to date on how things develop here on our blog. Should you have any urgent enquiries please don’t hesitate to get in touch with our customer support team.

Skypark secure have been entered into the British travel awards for 2011 for our services to the travel industry.

The British Travel Awards is the largest awards programme in the UK created to reward the best companies in travel. The awards are recognised by consumers and travel professionals throughout the UK.

If you’re a travel professional and you would like to vote for us, you can nominate us here

In one of the largest airports in the world, London Heathrow, a men’s choir from Nepal has disappeared.

The ten strong choir, who were invited to the UK to participate in a music festival, did not come out of the arrival hall to meet their awaiting hosts. British immigration officials searched for three days for the men who apparently have been lost in London’s “Bermuda Triangle”.

After some time the missing men attempted to communicate with the proper authorities and said that they are in one of the houses near the famous football arena Wembley Stadium, about 24 miles from Heathrow.

A bus has been sent to the address that they have indicated in order to assist the choir. However, when the bus arrived at the scene, the singers were gone again.

The main organizer of the festival, David Peters could not explain what happened with the representatives during their time at Heathrow.

Belfast international has become the first airport to charge passengers, should they want to have one last cigarette before takeoff.

There has been a growing trend amongst most UK regional airports to charge passengers for services which used to be provided free of charge. These ancillary charges have become a useful way for these airports to raise extra cash. However, Belfast International have gone one step further and have introduced a £1 charge. The fee is paid via a coin in a machine which opens doors to a special smoking area situated near the main duty-free zone.

Quoted in Belfast Telegraph, outgoing Assemblywoman Dawn Purvis, a former smoker, described the fee as “ridiculous.”

She said, “I used to smoke before I got on a flight and it used to calm me down. Most people who smoke know it’s going to be a long time before they get another smoke, so they go for a puff before they get on the plane.”

In a statement, Belfast International said, “We recognise that there was a demand for a smoking facility from some customers given that all public places (including airports) are now, and have been for a number of years, non-smoking.”

“We are responding to that demand. However providing a specialist facility for a relatively small number of users is expensive to build and to maintain so it is not unreasonable that a small charge should be levied for the use of the facility.”

The airport is also keen to point out that passengers who do not wish to pay for the privilege can smoke in the front of the terminal building. But this location is landside (whereas the £1 zone is airside) so unsuitable if you need to smoke shortly before boarding.

Flights to Sicily operated by Ryanair, including one from Stansted Airport, have been diverted as a result of the air strikes currently being carried out in Libya.

Libya protesters fighting for there freadom

Ryanair has been forced to switch its service that goes to the island’s Trapani airport to Palermo instead. This change is mainly due to Trapani being a Nato forward operating base and is currently closed to all civilian traffic as a result of the military action going on in Libya.

Paul Simmons, EasyJet’s general manager, called the island “glorious” and said it is a popular location for tourists to visit.

Liverpool John Lennon airport has managed to maintain its status as one of the UK’s top 10 airports by moving up to eighth place in the official league table for passenger numbers.

The latest annual report by independent specialist RDC Aviation into the UK’s airports revealed that JLA achieved a 2.7% increase in total passenger numbers in 2010, to 5,013,940, making it the 10th biggest UK airport by passenger numbers.

This was despite a 9.6% decrease in total UK scheduled domestic traffic to 8.7m passengers and a 2% fall in international traffic from UK regional airports to 41.6m passengers.

To make things sweeter, JLA was none of nine UK airports to show any passenger growth for 2010.

The snow chaos at heathrow airport before christmas 2010 was made worse by a series of failings at BAA according to an enquiry commisioned by the company.

BAA did not respond adequately to weather forecasts received four days in advance and did not hold enough supplies of emergency items such as blankets, water and food, the investigation found.

Heathrow staff clearing the snow after the blizzard

In responce to the investigation, BAA has stated it is currently in the process of developing a £50 Million investmant plan in order to address all of the shortcomings highlighted by the enquirey.

More than 4000 flights were cancelled and thousands of passengers were forced to sleep at the terminals, creating a wide spread anger towards BAA over there handling of the situation.

The report said “BAA and airlines had seen forecasts from 14 December onwards predicting heavy snowfalls as likely for the weekend of 18 December. The panel is concerned … that more was not done by the Heathrow community to prepare better for the event.”

BAA has sought to portray the snow fiasco as symptomatic of a wider lack of communication within the Heathrow campus, a point repeated today by the company’s chief executive, Colin Matthews.

“We clearly understand our role in keeping Heathrow open, unless for emergency or safety reasons, but to do that and to achieve the highest standards of passenger care, we need to work more closely and collaboratively with airlines and them with us, and all agree on the necessary training and investment,” he said.

“Heathrow is among the most congested airports in the world and the lack of spare capacity means that unlike every other British or European airport, we have literally no room to move when disruption occurs.”

“This means that any problem, large or small, that slows down the rate of aircraft arriving at or leaving from Heathrow, will disrupt many people.”

Like us, I’m sure all of you were waiting patiently to find out what surprises the new budget had in store. With talks of spending cuts and rising taxes, a lot of people within the travel industry were worried that Mr Osbornes speech would end up leaving a bad taste in the mouth of the everyday traveller.

Chancellor orGeorge Osborne

Earlier this month leading names in the UK travel and tourism industry, including Bristol Airport, came together to launch the Fair Tax on Flying campaign. As the Chancellor prepared for the Budget and with Air Passenger Duty having already increased 2,600 per cent since its introduction in 1994, the campaign was calling for a halt on any further rises in aviation tax.

In the Budget Yesterday, Mr Osborne brought in a one-year freeze on the banded APD system, which calculates passenger tax based on the destination. He went on to say  the Government would review the basing of APD on capital cities, as under current rules the system makes flying to the Caribbean more expensive than flying to most of the US.

Mr Osborne said the Government would need to investigate the legality of switching from a per-passenger to a per-plane tax, which aviation campaigners say would encourage efficiency, due to the regulations of the 1944 Convention on International Civil Aviation.

He said: “The continued omission of transfer passengers from APD undermines what the Coalition promised to achieve by replacing it with a fairer, greener per plane tax.

“Taxing planes makes sense. It could be used to encourage airlines to fly more modern fuel efficient planes. It would be a direct tax on flying empty seats. And it would remove an effective subsidy to foreign transfer passengers which would mean four out of five British travellers would be better off.”

Two UK airlines have cancelled all flights in and out of Libya as Britons are being advised to leave the strife-torn country.

British Airways and British Midland International both scrapped their service to the capital Tripoli on Tuesday. Others are thought to have followed suit. Almost 90 per cent of the 3,500 Britons who currently reside in Libya are thought to have already left the country.

The Foreign Office said it was looking at chartering an aircraft for Britons unable to get a commercial flight home. Meanwhile Italy, Greece and the Netherlands are sending transport planes to Libya to get their citizens out. Austria and Portugal have already done so.

The airport operator BAA managed to shake off the effects of the volcanic ash cloud and snow to post much reduced losses last year.

The pre-tax loss at BAA fell from £821.9m in 2009 to £317m last year. Revenues rose 5 per cent to £2bn, reflecting the increased tariffs.

Colin Matthews, BAA’s chief executive, backed the “robust” performance, adding that “strong passenger growth at Heathrow in the second half of the year reflected the ongoing improvement in the global economic climate”.

BAA, who sold Gatwick airport in December 2009, raised £2bn in new financing last year as it intended to invest in Heathrow, including an overhaul of Terminal 2.

Mr Matthews was enthusiastic over the company’s future prospects. He said: “In 2011, we expect to deliver a strong increase in profits and cash flow, enabling us to make further investments in improving facilities and further strengthening our financial position.”