UA Dreamliners back in the skies
NEW YORK, 21 May 2013: United Airlines resumed Boeing 787 Dreamliner flights Monday after the advanced plane was globally grounded four months ago due to overheated battery incidents.
United, the only US carrier that owns the high-tech jetliner, relaunched 787 passenger service with a flight from the airline’s hub in Houston, Texas, to Chicago, where Boeing is based, United said in a statement.
The biggest US airline, owner of six 787s, also announced it expected to take delivery of two more Dreamliners in the second half of 2013.
Ryanair’s profits rise
DUBLIN, 21 May 2013: Irish no-frills airline Ryanair said Monday that annual profits rose slightly last year, aided by higher revenues, and hiked its traffic forecast for the current financial year.
Earnings after taxation grew 1.5% to 569.3 million euros (US$731.2 million) in the 12 months to the end of March, the Dublin-based carrier said in a results statement.
That marked a record high, according to Ryanair, and compared with net profit of 560.4 million euros in 2011 to 2012.
Hot-air balloons collide
ISTANBUL, 21 May 2013: Three Brazilian tourists died Monday and 22 other people were hurt after two hot-air balloons collided in a beauty spot in central Turkey, officials said.
The accident occurred over Cappadocia’s sculpted rock formations when one balloon’s basket ripped another’s envelope in mid-air, the governor of Nevsehir province, Abdurrahman Savas, told Anatolia news agency.
“The lower balloon was torn and fell quickly,” he said, citing witness accounts.
China plays hard ball on EU tax
BEIJING, 20 May 2013: China will not pay allow its airlines to pay CO2 emissions on flights within Europe, a top civil aviation official reportedly said after the European Commission warned eight Chinese firms face fines for non-payment.
The world’s second largest economy “will not accept any unilateral and compulsory market measures”, Yan Mingchi, deputy director-general of the legal and regulation department at the Civil Aviation Administration of China, told an aviation forum in Beijing Friday, the China Daily newspaper reported.
He said “airlines in developing countries should be provided with financial and technological support in their efforts at coping with the effects of climate change”.
Chinese official lambasts tourist manners
May 20, 2013 by AFP
Filed under News, North Asia
BEIJING, 20 May 2013: The dire manners and “uncivilised behaviour” of some Chinese tourists abroad are harming the country’s image, said a top official who lamented their poor “quality and breeding”, according to state-run media.
Wang Yang, one of China’s four vice premiers, singled out for condemnation “talking loudly in public places, jay-walking, spitting and willfully carving characters on items in scenic zones”.
Such “uncivilised behaviours” were “often criticised by the media and have damaged the image of Chinese people and caused vicious impact”, he said, according to the website of the People’s Daily, the ruling Communist Party’s mouthpiece.
Tainted drinks kill tourists
May 20, 2013 by AFP
Filed under News, Southeast Asia
JAKARTA, 20 May 2013: A British backpacker has died while trekking through the Indonesian jungle after she drank suspected tainted alcohol, police said Saturday.
Cheznye Emmons, 23, was travelling with fellow Briton Joseph Cook, 21, through lush rainforest on Sumatra Island, where many tourists go to see endangered orangutans, according to a police report into the incident.
The pair, accompanied by a third tourist, drank four bottles of local whisky called Mansion on 20 April, according to the document.
SQ warns of bleak outlook
SINGAPORE, 17 May 2013: Singapore Airlines said Thursday its net profit in the year ending March rose 12.8%, boosted by surplus from the sale of aircraft, spares and spare engines, but warned the outlook remained bleak.
Net profit was S$379 million (US$302.6 million) on revenue of S$15.10 billion, up 1.62%, the carrier said in a statement.
For the fourth quarter, net profit was at S$68.3 million, swinging back from a S$38.2 million loss in the same period last year.
Nepalese aircraft dives into river
KATHMANDU, 17 May 2013: Twenty-one people were hurt, including eight Japanese tourists, when a small plane skidded off an airport runway in northwest Nepal on Thursday and plunged into a river, police said.
All 21 people aboard the Nepal Airlines Twin Otter aircraft were injured, five seriously, police spokesman Keshav Adhikari said.
The plane’s brakes failed and it crashed into the Kali Gandaki river in the Annapurna mountain range in Nepal’s northwest, Adhikari said.
EU: Emissions drop slightly
BRUSSELS, 17 May 2013: EU greenhouse gas emissions, blamed for global warming, dropped slightly last year, but the much-vaunted system for cutting such pollution ran into even more trouble, the European Commission said on Thursday.
It said that total carbon dioxide output from industrial installations covered by the EU’s Emissions Trading System (ETS) was down 2.0% in 2012, reflecting the economic slowdown.
At the same time, a massive surplus of ETS pollution credits was building up, depressing prices.
Alcohol curbs debated in Turkey
ANKARA, 16 May 2013: A Turkish parliamentary committee debated Wednesday a proposal by the Islamic-rooted government to introduce new curbs on the consumption and advertising of alcohol, a parliamentary source said.
The supporters of the measure say the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) bill seeks to protect society, particularly children, from the harmful effects of alcohol.
Critics say the move is the latest in a campaign led by the AKP to Islamise Turkish society by stealth and constitutes an intrusion into private life.
