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Thu 23 Jul 2009 |
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Etihad coming to Cape Town |
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Etihad Airways, the national airline of the United Arab Emirates, announced this week that they will soon be launching flights to Cape Town.
Launching at the end of September ahead of the peak summer season, Etihad is hoping to attract a share of the expat market in Abu Dhabi, as well as the obvious European tourist trade and World Cup visitors. I flew the airline a year or so back and was extremely impressed. As with all Middle Eastern carriers the planes are brand-spanking-new, service is exceptional and on-board comfort is some of the best of all the (many!) airlines I've flown recently.
The Cape Town leg will be an extension of the Johannesburg route; stopping off in Joburg for an hour or two to allow passengers to disembark, before continuing on to Cape Town.
More airlines = more ways to explore the world. What's not to love! |
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We're pretty sensitive to cultural differences here in South Africa (some would say too sensitive), but it was interesting to see that Australia has announced plans to stop tourists climbing Uluru, the giant red rock sacred to Aborigines and formerly known as Ayers Rock.
Officials say the move was partly due to safety reasons (30 tourists have died making the arduous climb), but also because of long-held complaints by the local Aboriginal community that it was degrading for one of their most hallowed sites.
Community spokesperson Vince Forrester said Aborigines had wanted the climb banned for over 20 years: "You can't go climb on top of the Vatican, you can't go climb on top of the Buddhist temples and so on and so forth". Fair point… |
I loved this story that popped up on the newswires on Friday...
A Canadian musician says he saw ground handlers from United Airlines deliberately mishandle his treasured Taylor acoustic guitar at Chicago's O'Hare airport as he and his band were heading off on tour.
After much back-and-forth with the airline – who refused to pay any compensation – he decided to take his revenge by writing a song and posting it on YouTube. Predictably, it's become an Internet hit and a public relations disaster for the airline.
Read more about Dave Carroll's "United Breaks Guitars" over here... |
Finally, the decision's been made… stingy, rude and terrible at attempting foreign languages (don't you love the irony), the French are the world's worst tourists.
A survey carried out last month polled 40 000 hotels across the globe and asked them to rank tourists from 27 countries based on nine criteria, from their politeness to their willingness to tip.
Zut alors… the French came out worst. Clean and tidy, polite, quiet and uncomplaining… Japanese tourists came top of the crop for the third year running.
Read more about it here.
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About the only disappointment on my trip to Australia was the incredibly cramped economy class on Qantas... easily the most uncomfortable long-haul economy I have flown, I'm afraid to say.
I'm a fairly tall guy, but hardly exceptional and I could barely fit into the seats. If the entertainment console box wasn't blocking my way, when I put my feet under the seat in front of me a hard metal bar ate its way into my shinbones. What a wonderful way to spend 14 hours!
I simply love the irony too, of forcing passengers into tiny seats... and then showing them the healthy flying tips with ways to reduce deep vein thrombosis caused by inadequate movement for long periods!
The saving grace of the flight there and back was the excellent service from the cabin attendants... ever-friendly, never a sour face and happy to help make the flight more comfortable. Which was a super-human ask given the seats, but kudos to them for their efforts.
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Or just a sign of commercialism heading south? Refuse to shop at Melissa's nowadays: overpriced and average
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