Remember voting for which travel companies you thought were the best in the British Travel Awards? Altogether, 700,000 votes were received. Last Wednesday the winners were announced.

This daft idea was put up fourteen regional airports in the UK to the APD consultation process. They have jointly signed a submission saying that replacing APD with tax on the busiest airports would stimulate the regions.

Don’t countries want us to visit them? Have many got a tourism death wish that they cannot understand?
Austria has decided to follow Germany and introduce an eco- tax from January 2011 on passengers leaving from its airports. Just in time for the skiing season, the time when the largest number of visitors will be expected. They will charge €8 to fly to a European destination and €40 elsewhere. And how much will this tax bring them? Estimates vary from between €50-€70 million per year. And how much will they lose as visitors decide to go elsewhere

UPDATE: 17 MAY the Department of Homeland Security tells us that the greeen I-94 card will still be used for the time being (probably at least a year) as things run in parallel until a decision is made on when the I-94 can be dropped. They also confirm that on your first entry to the US you will have to have all 10 fingerprints made but on subsequent visits only the four fingers of the right hand will be required to be fingerprinted as this will provide a sufficient match with the previous data that they have recorded

Last week The Sunday Times wrote a piece by Matt Rudd about how unfriendly airports are to children. It presupposes the question that airports are supposed to be friendly in the first place. Not just for children but for everyone.
Airports are there to enable you to catch a flight to somewhere so surely the prime aim is to get you through and out as soon as possible? If you are flying in then the same applies. It is get you off the plane and out into the real world. Then some bright spark decided to add duty free shops, then cafés, then restaurants, then shops, then lounges, then viewing areas and places where you can spend £20 on a ticket to win a car. All of a sudden they were bigger than villages. All they need is a Tesco or a Sainsbury and I can do my weekly shop there as well

In a view that surprised nearly everyone, probably including BAA themselves, there has been a ruling that BAA may not have to sell of one of their Scottish airports (Aberdeen, Edinburgh and Glasgow) nor dispose of Stansted. BAA appealed against the decision of the Competition Commission and the Competition Appeal Tribunal has agreed with BAA.

Why?

Because of a technicality.

This is the time of the year when the National Customer Service Awards are announced. In any industry service is important. Good service leads to satisfaction. Satisfaction can lead to loyalty and repeat business. No customer likes being ill treated, ignored, patronised or fobbed off with meaningless official waffle so awards that support good service are welcome. But travel and tourism doesn’t seem to have done to well in this year’s awards. Is that because they didn’t enter or they did but weren’t shortlisted for the final?

Last night the winners were announced of the British Travel Awards. CD-Traveller is one of the sponsors because these are the only awards where you, the traveller and holidaymaker, can vote. So it’s not just the travel industry patting itself on the back. And over 100,000 of you voted so our thanks, and those of the organisers, for taking the time to vote.

Both Ryanair and easyjet have complained about the landing fees being charged by certain airports. According to easyjet, Luton Airport’s fees have risen by over 25% over the last few years and that it is why it has cut the number of flights operating from there. The same applies to the cutbacks by Ryanair at Manchester, Dublin and Stansted airports.