Travel News – 11 October 2010

With excess baggage charges being used to restore profitability (Easyjet charge £10 per kilo, BA £30 if you exceed the limit), you’d have thought that airlines /airports would have been careful to make sure that their weighing machines were accurate.   Well, Gatwick trading standards officers have discovered that 75 out of 330 scales were inaccurate and 39% (or 29) were overcharging customers. Apparently this is no better than tests conducted in 2007. What we don’t know yet is whether the airlines will be refunding passengers or the trading standards will bring a prosecution.

Queen Elizabeth is looking better than ever as she visits Southampton for her naming ceremony. The third ship of the name will be named by HM the Queen today.

The Savoy re-opened yesterday – apparently its original character has been preserved against all the odds.

Eurostar is planning to run services from St Pancras to Amsterdam and Geneva from 2014 – new trains will allow them to use continental power supplies. It is also planned to connect the Channel Tunnel Rail Link to Britain’s other High Speed Rail services linking provincial cities to European destinations. (Er, how many of these HS rail services have we got and surely a plane would be quicker and cheaper?)

How would you like to use your Oystercard in Paris, London, Sydney, New York ? That’s what TfL are trying to arrange. Maybe they should integrate the car park charging at their own stations first !

Stena Line has added a new ship to the Harwich – Hook of Holland route – but Stena Britannica sounds more like a cruise liner than a ferry. This might be a better way to visit Northern Europe than some.

Four Raphael tapestries and seven cartoons are on display in London’s V&A museum until the 17 October. This may never happen again as the Vatican, which owns the four of the tapestries, believes them to be too fragile to be moved again. The cartoons belong to the Victoria and Albert Museum and are also very delicate. The cartoons are the design drawings for the tapestries and historians have long wanted to see both together. This one-off opportunity came together as a result of the Papal Visit to UK.

Terrorist warnings about Europe’s major cities are being issued by governments all over the world and Americans and others are staying at home – “Dum spiro, timeo” to corrupt the well know phrase or saying (“Dum spiro, spero” for those in doubt) seems to be the spirit of the times. I say” Don’t be afraid, I haven’t seen a terrorist in 48 years living here and I think it is very unlikely that any of you Americans will either if you come here. You will have to put up with some inconvenient airport security, but nothing like visitors to the USA.” I might even go further and say “Don’t just come in spite of the bad guys, but because the bad guys are planning something!”

I’m beginning to realise just how seasonal the travel industry is…. they’ve gone into hibernation and there isn’t enough snow to get excited about that yet. But it won’t be long now !

Bonnes Voyages

James