An airport in England has started charging airline passengers to “kiss and drop” zone outside its main terminal.
All drivers, including taxis, will have to fork out STG1 ($A2.07) for spending up to 10 minutes in the drop-off zone at Luton Airport, north of London. It’s the first of it’s kind in England, but isn’t likely to be the last. This comes after the airport recently introduced other charges, ranging from baggage trollies to the ability to jump security queues and needing plastic bags for your liquids in your carry ons.
As you can imagine, these new fees haven’t been all that popular, but the airport has defended the fees as something it needs to do to keep the airport running smoothly and within its budget constraints. Not everyone needs to pay these fees though. While the charge to “kiss and drop” isn’t excessive, it can be avoided altogether – the free carpark is only a two minute bus ride away. With that in mind, is this fee really a money making scheme, or just another luxury that a passenger can pay for?
After all, we don’t all need to fly first class. Do we?
My long haitus on the site has been the result of a 2 week holiday back to the States. Back to visit family, to visit my 2 week old neice, and to further plan for my upcoming wedding in September. It was a good trip; no a great trip, but it was a whirlwind of a trip nonetheless. Two weeks of nonstop activities has me longing for a holiday from my holiday. It’s good to be home though. It’s very good to be home. While I miss my friends and family, and always will, I’ve realised that Australia fits me. It’s a really good fit actually. Fifteen minutes into my drive from the Los Angeles airport, I remembered why I was always frustrated on Southern California highways. Fifteen minutes into a shopping experience at a local mall in San Diego, I remembered why an economy of scale has its positives and negatives. Fifteen minutes after I left, I remembered that I’m 7,000 miles away from my closest friends and family.
Living overseas has always been an adventure, but after returning home for the first time since leaving 18 months ago, I’ve been able to refresh my thoughts and truly understand and remember why I was so excited and jazzed about moving to another country. More specifically, Australia.
The majority of my trip was spent in San Diego, however between my partner and I, we had trips to Los Angeles (Disneyland), San Francisco, and Las Vegas. Each of these locales, although all quite different from each other, had traits that very similiar; traits that I wouldn’t have otherwise noticed had I not been out of the country for the past 18 months.
Especially in Las Vegas, where excess is the norm, everything (and I mean everything/everyone) was in excess. Drinking, gambling, food ($9 Prime Ribs) were abundant. You couldn’t help but be surrounding by an uneccesarily large amount of everything, everywhere you went.
While life would be different in any country, and each have their positives and negatives, this past trip has shown me that my decision to live in Australia was a good one. It’s one that has more positives than negatives associated with it, and although it has put me 7000 miles away from a great number of people that are important to me, I know that the ones that are truly great friends and great family members we’ll see on a pretty regular basis. To be honest, between Skype, Vonage VOIP, and email, I talk to my parents on almost a daily basis, and my closest friends almost every other day. The world is getting smaller. Maybe that’s a good thing? Fifteen years ago, Australia would have felt a lot further away, more isolated.
Either way, I love it here.
I can’t necessarily vouch for what their flight service is like, but if it’s anything like their customer service, I’d think twice before booking. Here’s why:
V Australia was scheduled to start flying daily from Sydney to Los Angeles in January 2009. Due to Boeing strikes and other shortcomings, this had to be pushed back to late February. No worries, we were travelling back to the States in early March. So, with that said, we booked a return airfare from Sydney to Los Angeles on V Australia, hoping that everything we’ve heard about Virgin, V Australia’s parent company, was in fact true. Even with fares that were a bit more expensive than Qantas and United (I will never fly United again, after flying Air New Zealand and other competitors), we felt good about our decision, and looked forward to the smooth flight across the Pacific on their new Boeing 777 airplane.
Fast forward to this past week. We received a message on our answering machine from a representative asking us to call back and reference our booking number. That’s never a good sign. Finally, after sitting on hold for a good 1/2 hour, we’re told that our flight has been changed to a day earlier. Yep, not good. When asked why, the representative said they hadn’t received the number of planes needed from Boeing to make daily flights from Sydney to Los Angeles possible. Ok, so while this was out of their hands, the way they dealt with the problem was not. They knew this was going to be a problem, all the way back in December, yet failed to contact us until now. Why? Because we booked at a higher fare than what was currently being offered.
We were told by the customer service representative that because it was just a time change, we’d unlikely be able to apply for a refund. Now I can understand changing the departure time by a few hours, but an entire day? That causes issues with work, getting the dog to the kennel, and otherwise arranging trasportation to the airport. Sorry, not good enough. We were then referred to a ‘customer service’ number, where they could ‘theoretically’ authorise a refund. So we called. No answer. We were asked to leave a message and they’d return our phone call within 24 hours. OK, not ideal, but good enough.
Three days later, we received a phone call, after spending a total of 3 hours on hold. After explaining the situation, and how it had become such an inconvenience, we were offered a full refund. While no apology was made, nor any form of compensation or compramise from V Australia, we were at least able to rebook on another airline. You’d think they’d make more of an effort to keep customers, especially with Delta entering the LA to Sydney market later this year. But on top of all the other hardship that we were put through, our refund will take 21 days. Why should we wait, when the mistake was not our fault?
Ultimately, it all worked out for the best. We were able to find seats on a Qantas flight for the appropriate days, and even managed to save $600 over the previously booked fare. While that’s all well and good, it has convinced me to steer clear of V Australia. Based on my experiences, I believe you should too. Just try to have a look around to see what else is out there first, if you’re thinking of V Australia.
As a matter of current events, a Ugandan woman gave birth over Canada recently on a flight to Boston, USA. Makes you wonder why it’s so hard to get a Visa or citizenship in todays world, yet you can “automatically qualify for citizenship if you’re born in almost any given country.
“A Ugandan woman gave birth to a healthy baby girl on a plane from Amsterdam to Boston while flying over Canadian airspace, making the child eligible for Canadian citizenship, US media reported on Thursday.Little Sasha was born Wednesday at 1400 GMT to the applause of other amazed Northwest Airlines passengers, as their plane flew over Halifax, Canada…”
