Equipping planes with traditional in-flight entertainment is a costly business. According to one estimate, seat-back screens cost £2.3 million per plane, while the weight of cabling required for the system costs £71,500 in extra fuel per year for every aircraft – based on a Boeing 767 aircraft with 260 seats. And those expensive screens can soon become technologically obsolete compared to the latest devices passengers bring on board to watch films and entertainment.Soo Kim (Telegraph)
Category: Telegraph (Page 1 of 5)
The interesting twist in this announcement is that Etihad will no longer be providing free pyjamas in business class, presumably in a cost-cutting exercise.Annabel Fenwick Elliott (Telegraph)
This trend for linking ski areas has, however, passed over St Moritz in Switzerland. It has long had four separate ski domains, with just one link between them. Skiers can transition to the smallest area, Lagalb, from the next smallest, Diavolezza, if they are prepared to grasp a rope tow and then remove their skis to walk across a main road; but the only way back is by train or bus. And – even more off-trend – before the 2016/17 season, St Moritz announced that rather than expanding, its slopes were to shrink. The resort’s smallest ski area would not open at all.Stephen Wood (Telegraph)
The Icelandic capital is one of a several cities to be feeling increasing pressure from a rise in holiday rentals, with critics saying the tourist market has led to a hike in rents and property prices. Last June the city’s authorities moved to curb the number of residents offering properties for rent in an effort to balance the needs of the overwhelming visitor numbers and local population.Hugh Morris (Telegraph)
Norwegian is perhaps best known in the UK for its headline-grabbing fares to the US, Argentina and Singapore (New York for £60, anyone?), but last week it was in the news again as experts suggested it had exacerbated Ryanair’s “messing up” of its staff holiday schedule by poaching 140 of the Irish airline’s pilots in just a year.Hugh Morris (Telegraph)
An annual study of “ancillary” revenue, which includes all income beyond the standard airfare, shows that the top 10 carriers raked in more than $28bn (£21.5bn) in extras last year, up from just $2.1bn (£1.6bn) in 2007. United earned more than any airline, with more than $6.2bn (£4.77bn) coming from sources other than seat sales, but the airline most reliant on extras is its US rival Spirit. They make up more than 46 per cent of its total revenue, according to the report.Oliver Smith (Telegraph)
Ryanair operates over 50 short haul routes to/from Madrid and now our customers can book flights on Air Europa long-haul routes to destinations including Buenos Aires, Havana and New York. […] We continue to speak to a number of other long-haul airlines about potential connecting flight partnerships and we look forward to offering our 130 million customers an even greater choice and range of long haul services in 2018.Michael O’Leary (Ryanair)
I think we listen to customers. I think we’re nice enough to customers. That word enough being very important. We still don’t want to be like any other airline. There’s something fundamental that is absolutely working about Ryanair, and that is just low cost and having the lowest fares wins. We’re Aldi in the air. We don’t like Ryanair to be like any other airline.Kenny Jacobs (Ryanair)
Details of the remake are yet to be finalised but the pending redesign aims to increase profitability by raising the aircraft’s capacity to more than 600. Fuel consumption could also be improved with the addition of vertical wingtips, which could potentially improve efficiency by around two per cent.Soo Kim (Telegraph)
The project is planned to cost around $6 million (£4.8 million), and be finished in time for the third quarter of 2018. The 50 rooms will have showers with beer fridges, minibars stuffed with chilled bottles of pale ale, and Punk IPA on tap. Instead of ‘ocean’ or ‘city’ views, guests can expect vistas of the brewery’s bloated wooden sour beer foeders (and that fat, yeasty aroma of fermentation wafting through the windows).Sherelle Jacobs (Telegraph)