UNITED KINGDOM: Virgin Atlantic on Thursday announced its return to passenger flying with service from London Heathrow to four international cities starting next month. Starting on July 20 and 21, Virgin will begin flying from Heathrow to New York JFK, Los Angeles, Orlando, Hong Kong, and Shanghai. The carrier will then start gradually ramping up service to other destinations throughout the second half of 2020, and then throughout 2021. Like a lot of other carriers, Virgin is planning to relaunch with new health and safety measures including increased cleaning of boarding areas and cabins, social distancing practices “wherever possible” including…
Author: holidayweekly
ABU DHABI: Etihad Airways has launched a new travel vouchers scheme designed to entice customers back into the air. Passengers who buy an Etihad ticket before June 24th will receive 50 per cent of the cost of that ticket back, to use as credit on another flight after August 1st. The move comes at the Abu Dhabi-based flag-carrier rebuilds its network in the wake of the Covid-19 shutdown. Etihad Travel Vouchers can be purchased in increments of US$250 up to a maximum of US$65,000, and once bought are added to a travel bank for use by the customer. Travellers must…
BRUSSELS: All European Union member states were urged by the European Commission today, to start easing COVID-19 travel restrictions and re-open borders to visitors from ‘safe countries’. The EC wants travel restrictions on EU common borders lifted next week, and Europe’s ID check-free travel area to be up and running again by the end of June. Once that has happened, a ban on nonessential travel to the continent can also gradually be eased. The European Union executive says the list of countries with access should be based on three criteria: countries should have COVID-19 under at least as much control…
LONDON: If the UK Government keeps its recently imposed mandatory 14-day quarantine for new arrivals in place for the rest of the summer, the country will lose £20bn and 2.9 million jobs, according to the World Travel & Tourism Council. Visit Britain estimates that restrictions on entering the UK could see the number of foreign tourists fall almost 60pc this year The quarantine requirement, which was imposed on Monday, could be challenged in court by British Airways, easyJet and Ryanair, and business travel organisations have suggested to ministers that it could quickly be replaced by on-the-spot Covid-19 testing. The WTTC…
ABU DHABI: In a world first, Abu Dhabi Airports has partnered with Meta Touch, a ground-breaking UAE company, to deploy new touchless technology across 53 elevators at Abu Dhabi International Airport (AUH), helping to prevent cross-infection from interacting with elevator buttons and enable a Covid-19-free airport environment. The new technology, Tchk (Touch-less Keypad Technology), was designed and manufactured by Meta Touch, a start-up based at the UAE University Science and Innovation Park (UAEU SIP), which develops innovative solutions designed to support health and safety. Tchk is a touchless control panel that allows users to command an elevator without physically pressing…
DUBAI: Emirates resumed its flight operations from Pakistan, operating flights from Karachi and Lahore to Dubai. The first scheduled flight from Islamabad will take off on Thursday. The resumption comes after over two months of travel restrictions imposed globally due to the Covid-19 outbreak. Emirates is operating 14 weekly flights to Dubai, including seven from Karachi, five from Lahore and two from Islamabad using its modern Boeing 777-300ER aircraft. “We are extremely pleased to resume services successfully from Pakistan, and thank the authorities for the arrangements and their assistance. Emirates has implemented a comprehensive set of measures at every step…
MADRID: Spain will open up land borders with France and Portugal on June 22 and also aims to start welcoming tourists to some islands and other areas that have the coronavirus under control around the same time, a minister said on Thursday. Frontiers with France and Portugal have been shut to everyone but Spaniards, cross-border workers and truck drivers since a mid-March lockdown to curb what was then one of the world’s worst coronavirus outbreaks. But with its rate of deaths and infections sharply down, Spain is among nations trying to gradually restore freedom of movement in Europe’s usually border-free…
NEW DELHI: India will throw open shopping malls, restaurants and places of worship that typically attract large crowds next week, officials said, even though coronavirus infections are rising at the fastest daily rate than at any time in the past three months. Anxious to jump-start an economy crippled by COVID-19 and put millions of people back to work, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government is dismantling its vast lockdown of the 1.3 billion population imposed in March. Strict guidelines will accompany the loosening of restrictions on Monday, however. Hotel guests will be tested for fever, masks will be compulsory at all…
BEIJING: Endless theme park queues and sold-out ticket booths never looked better as China’s “cooped-up” consumers are stepping out again after the COVID-19 outbreak has been largely brought under control domestically. Hotel bookings have returned to about 50 percent of normal levels, while airlines have generally resumed operations at more than half of their capacity, based on information from industry leaders. According to the Government Report, China will extend the exemption of value-added taxes for the tourism industry until the end of the year, and will support the recovery and development of tourism as part of efforts to shore up…
KARACHI: The Civil Aviation Authority has given permission to repair the main runway at Lahore’s Allama Iqbal airport, according to a notification. The 18-L runaway at the airport has been closed for all the flights and the airlines have been told to use run away 36-L instead. The work on the main runway will start on June 4 and it will reopen on August 4 for domestic and international flights, the CAA said. In a very surprising way, the CAA also instructed the airlines to curtail the number of passengers in order to reduce the weight of planes. It warned…