UK-based “Holidays 4U” ceases trading, thousands to be repatriated

UK-based travel company Holidays 4U has ceased trading today, advising the Civil Aviation Authority that it no longer had any credit. Holidays 4U specialised in Turkey holidays and also traded as AegeanFlights.com. Both trading names had an annual combined turnover of around £35m, offering package

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Snake on a bullet train

An ultra high speed Japanese bullet train was forced to stop yesterday after a conductor discovered a snake coiled up in a passenger seat. The red and black Honduran milk snake was discovered at around 9AM on the Kodama 642 bullet train between Osaka and Kyoto. The train was ordered to stop immediat

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Dubai Airport to invest in $7.8 billion expansion

Dubai Airport has been given the green light for a plan to spend a whopping $7.8 billion over the next 10 years, expanding airspace and airport capacity. It is expected the number of passengers going through the airport per year will rise from 60 million to 90 million by 2018. The plans include new

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Huge dust cloud covers Phoenix, Arizona

The US city of Phoenix, Arizona was last night engulfed in a massive 50-mile-wide dust storm at the beginning of the region’s monsoon season – running from mid-July until September. The gargantuan brown cloud engulfed homes, fields and even skyscrapers as it made its way across the city. Video f

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Pink flamingo forces closure of runway at Manchester Airport

Manchester Airport staff were left with quite the predicament yesterday when a flamingo was spotted on a runway. The pink-feathered bird forced closure of one of Manchester’s runways for five hours whilst crew attempted to get the bird to move on. Police were called, who attempted to capture the b

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Brit travellers “not as green” as Belgian and French

According to a poll by Eurostar, British people are not as likely to worry about the environmental impacts of air travel than their French and Belgian counterparts. The poll of more than 3000 adults from Belgium, France and the UK, found that up to 55% of British nationals take up to three holidays

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Fry away with Thomson as airline uses vegetable oil to power flights

Thomson Airways is due to become Britain’s very first biofuel airline when it launches flights from Birmingham to Palma, Mallorca from the 28th of July 2011. The flight will operate on a 50/50 mixture of hydroprocessed esters and fatty acids – extracted from used cooking oil – and standard Jet

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Have Facebook and Twitter killed off the humble postcard?

A new survey of 2,000 people by internet travel firm ebookers has discovered that four in ten holidaymakers no longer bother sending a postcard back to family and friends. The same poll also found that a whopping 50 per cent of British holidaymakers check social networking sites such as Facebook and

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Elk of a save!

Zoo keepers at Pocatello Zoo, Idaho were astonished yesterday as they watched four-year-old elk “Shooter” stare reluctantly at his water trough before fishing out a struggling marmot which had got itself trapped in the water. The elk, a huge male that some keepers at the zoo are often reluctant

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Malaysia Airlines ban children from First Class compartments

Malaysia Airlines are set to ban children from travelling in First Class on their flights on the Airbus A380 and the new Boeing 747-400 fleet. The airline said the ban was prompted by numerous complaints about crying babies and irritating small children in First Class on their flights. From now on,

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