At the airport . . .

TRAVELLING is one of life's great adventures, but it can also bring its fair share of headaches. Like getting a taxi that can be counted on to be clean, driven competently and coming along with a fair price. In Birmingham, England, Beaufort Airport Taxis Birmingham have all those areas covered the company recently announced the launch of their new website, designed to be even easier to navigate, find out information and book Birmingham taxi appointments online. 

They even offer a professional “meet and greet” service, where the driver will wait for their passenger holding a sign with their name making finding them as easy as possible.

Taxi transfer service is available from Birmingham Airport to all UK airports including Heathrow Airport, East Midlands Airport, Gatwick Airport, Manchester Airport, Luton Airport, and Stansted Airport.

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On the runway . . .

BIRMINGHAM Airport has been named the world’s most punctual airport in 2016 by air travel intelligence company OAG.

With over 100,000 scheduled flights from Birmingham Airport last year, the most punctual route was to Dublin, boasting an on-time score of over 95 per cent. The UK airport beat contenders from countries such as Japan, Brazil, America, Germany and Australia to claim the global crown.

On receiving the award, Birmingham Airport’s Chief Executive, Paul Kehoe, said, “To be crowned the world’s most punctual airport in 2016 is a tremendous prize, particularly in the busiest twelve months in our 77 year history.

“This achievement is a result of a team effort by the seven thousand employees and 140 companies operating at the airport - from the ground handlers to bus drivers, fuellers to caterers, and cleaners to office staff."

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Birmingham unveiled as UK base for Jet2

JET2.COM and Jet2holidays have announced Birmingham as their eighth UK base. 

They will launch 15 destinations for summer 2017 from the airport – Alicante, Crete, Faro, Fuerteventura, Girona, Gran Canaria, Ibiza, Lanzarote, Majorca, Malaga, Menorca, Paphos, Reus, Rhodes, and Tenerife.

Flights to Alicante, Faro and Majorca will be daily and the first will take off on March 30 to Faro and Malaga.

Alan Cross, head of trade for Jet2holidays, said Birmingham’s summer programme would also be extended into the winter 2017/18 period.

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Up in the air . . .

BLUE AIR has announced a thrice-weekly flight service from Birmingham to Cluj, the second largest city in Romania, which will start in December with fares from £19.99 one-way including taxes and charges. 

BRITISH AIRWAYS is offering 16 direct flights a week from Berlin-Tegel to London City Airport. ‘With up to 11 London flights a day – London City, Heathrow and Stansted – we are complying with demand to and from Berlin,’ says Katja Selle, at BA.

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Up in the air . . .

SPANISH airline AlbaStar has launched twice-weekly flights between Birmingham and Palma de Mallorca. The route will operate on Wednesdays and Saturdays.

William Pearson, Birmingham Airport’s aviation director, said: ‘We are very pleased to be welcoming Alba Star, our twelfth new airline in the space of just over a year, to Birmingham Airport. 

Birmingham Airport recently reported that it handled more than one million passengers in May.

EASYJET will operate three additional routes from London Luton this winter … to Tenerife, Lanzarote, and Toulouse. It will operate twice a week to Lanzarote and Tenerife and four times a week to Toulouse.

PASSENGERS travelling to Melbourne, Australia, from the UK will have another direct option with Emirates announcing that flights EK408 and EK409 will begin operating as non-stop services from Dubai in October.  

The current service from Dubai to Melbourne operates via Kuala Lumpur in both directions. The flight changes will save passengers approximately two-and-half hours in travel time in each direction.

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Iberia launches Birmingham-Madrid flights

BIRMINGHAM AIRPORT has announced the launch of Iberia Express services, offering four weekly flights to #Madrid.

Iberia Express will operate the return flights on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays, and Sundays.

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New summer routes to French regions from Birmingham

FLYBE has expanded its 2016 summer programme from Birmingham Airport with the introduction of three routes to regional #France: Nantes, Rennes-Saint-Jacques, and Limoges. 

• Flybe will operate five times a week to Nantes – the historic port city on the Loire River in western France. 

• The service to Rennes-Saint-Jacques – the capital city of Brittany – will operate four times a week. 

• Flights to Limoges – a town in west-central France known for its art and history – will operate twice a week. The Limousin region is a popular destination for fishing, horse-riding, golf, and mountain biking. 

Seats on all the three routes are available for booking at www.flybe.com from £32.99 including taxes and charges.

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Picture Credit: Nantes by Martin Stiburek - Own work. Licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons 

Monarch expands summer schedule

UK AIRLINE group #Monarch has announced the addition of #flights and #holidays to its summer 2016 schedule. The expansion includes two new routes: Manchester, London Gatwick and Birmingham to Lisbon, and Birmingham to Madrid. 

Monarch also said that an additional Airbus A320 aircraft will be based at Birmingham Airport for summer 2016. This brings the total number of aircraft flying for Monarch to 35, with nine based at Birmingham.

The new flight services from Birmingham to Madrid will commence on June 17, operating thrice weekly, while the new Birmingham-Lisbon route will start from June 20, with four services per week. The fares start from £79 for both. The Manchester-Lisbon route starts on May 5, while Gatwick-Lisbon will start on May 3, both operating three flights per week with fares starting from £69.

Following the launch of flights from London Luton earlier this month, a new route from Manchester to Tel Aviv will start on April 19, operating thrice weekly with fares starting from £110.

The extended summer 2016 schedule also includes additional services to several of the airline’s most popular destinations such as Malaga, Alicante, Majorca, and Tenerife.

www.monarch.co.uk.

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Germany’s top attractions

WHEN thousands of international visitors from 40 countries have voted online to decide Germany's Top 100 attractions, South-West #Germany took the No l spot, and had a total of five in the top 11. 

Here are three of them:

Europa-Park – Germany’s largest theme park – in Baden-Württemberg was voted the best attraction. Visitors in December will see thousands of Christmas trees throughout its 13 European-themed areas. 

With eight Michelin stars, the Black Forest village of Baiersbronn claims to be Germany's culinary capital.

Baden-Württemberg has 60 palaces, castles, and monasteries, many of which are become backdrops for traditional Christmas markets, one of the best of which is at Schloss Bruchsal.

There are bonfires, plus guides who lead tours of the 18th century palace. 

There are daily flights to Stuttgart Airport from Birmingham, London Heathrow, and Gatwick, and frequent flights from Manchester and London Stansted. 

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Picture Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/69460501@N04/16414500499">Bad Urach, Residenz Schloss</a> via <a href="http://photopin.com">photopin</a> <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/">(license)

Birmingham Airport to exhibit world-acclaimed sculptor’s works

SOME of the world’s smallest sculptures by the internationally-acclaimed sculptor, #WillardWigan, will be on display at the landside All Bar One Bar and Restaurant at #BirminghamAirport.

Following Wigan’s successful tour in the US and Australia, and after being featured in promotion of the Hollywood blockbuster Antman, some of his works – sculptured within the eye of a needle, or on the head of a pin – will be on display in Wigan’s hometown of Birmingham.

Wigan says: ‘As a child, I was always told that as a dyslexic black boy growing up in the Midlands, I would amount to nothing. I wanted to show the world that ‘nothing’ does not exist. I created artwork of such minute proportions that they are not visible to the naked eye. The smallest things often have the largest impact. I believe my artwork expresses the same. It is a privilege to exhibit my work in my home town, at Birmingham Airport.’

His work includes an interpretation of da Vinci’s, The Last Supper, Cinderella and her ugly sisters and stepmother in the eye of the needle, and Prince Albert on the head of a pin.

A collection of 16 sculptures will be on display at Birmingham Airport for a limited time, each one being housed in a microscope viewing unit.

Richard Gill, Birmingham Airport’s head of commercial, added: ‘This is an interesting and different exhibition which I am sure will appeal to passengers both young and old. The pieces are unique and quite incredible.’

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Picture Credit: worldwide web

Up in the air ….

SPAIN’S low-cost carrier, Vueling Airlines, has launched a service between Barcelona and Birmingham Airport. Vueling will initially operate three weekly services, rising to five a week during the peak summer months.

William Pearson, Birmingham Airport’s aviation development director, said: ‘The carrier will add more than 27,000 seats to Barcelona from Birmingham and give passengers a choice of more than 140 destinations on the Vueling network across Europe, Africa, and the Middle East.’

#Flights are on sale now with a lead-in fare of €54.99 (£39.57) via vueling.com and ba.com or travel agents.

WESTJET has started flights to the UK from its hub in Halifax, Nova Scotia.
To mark its first service to Britain, WestJet worked with the world’s last dedicated hand-crafted tartan mill, D.C. Dalgliesh in Selkirk, Scotland, to design a commemorative tartan in the airline’s distinctive blue and teal corporate colours. In addition to producing neck ties, cufflinks, and scarves, WestJet decaled two aircraft with the same tartan.

AIR FRANCE has confirmed that it will operate an additional weekly Paris-Havana flight from October 2015, increasing its service to 11 weekly departures to Cuba during winter 2015.

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Picture Credit: www.westjet