UK Airport Strike Called Off

Baggage handlers and cabin crew at Stansted, Gatwick and Manchester airports have called off a series of 24 hour strikes.

Strikes were due to take place on bank holiday Monday and 29th August at the london airports, and on the 27th August at Manchester airport. This weekend is one of the busiest holiday weekends of the year, so the strikes would have been sure to cause a great deal of disruption for travellers.

A separate strike is still going ahead at Stansted airport involving over 30 security scanner operators. This will take place on Monday, although Stansted airport have issued a statement stating that the strike would cause "minimal, if any" disruption.

Suffolk Council To Oppose Stansted Flightpath Changes

Suffolk Council is opposing plans to change aircraft routes and holding areas over Suffolk, for flights landing at Stansted Airport. It is also opposing the plans for a second runway at the north essex airport.

Current proposals by the National Air Travel Services (NATS) would see flights as low as 3000 feet over parts of West Suffolk. The council would like instead to see flights held over the North Sea, to preserve the tranquility of the Suffolk countryside.

Flights to Poland contribute to UK airport traffic growth

Flights to Poland accounted for 20% of the growth in traffic at UK airports last year, according to figures published by the Civil Aviation Authority.

The total number of passengers passing through UK airports in 2007 was 241 million, up 2.4% on the previous year. This equates to an extra 5.6 million passengers, of which 1 million came from Poland.

Transatlantic flights experienced an increase of 0.7 million passengers, rising from 21.7 to 22.4 million, reflecting the weakened position of the dollar.

Heathrow Airport handled the largest number of passengers, with 68 million passengers passing through the gates, or 28% of the total. Gatwick Airport handled 14.6%, Stansted Airport 10%, Manchester Airport 9%, and Luton Airport 4%.

Luggage Advice over Christmas Period

Stansted Airport is advising passengers about restrictions on hand luggage and hold baggage during the festive period. The one bag rule on hand luggage still applies to the majority of airlines at Stansted,and any Christmas presents taken on as hand luggage must fit within the standard restrictions which cannot be any larger than 55cm tall, 40cm wide and 20cm deep.

Gifts must be unwrapped so the items can be clearly identified when being security screened.

Plans for Stansted scrapped in favour of Heathrow development

The Government has abandoned its plans for the new runway at Stansted Airport, and is instead concentrating on almost doubling the number of flights at Heathrow and will today present a new plan to build a third runway there by 2020.

Ruth Kelly told The Times that it was much more important to expand Heathrow than Stansted because of the economic benefits of adding capacity at Britain’s hub airport. This reverses the Government’s White Paper in December 2003 which stated that Stansted should gain a new runway before Heathrow.

Arrests made for thefts from passengers' luggage at Stansted

The number of thefts from passengers' luggage by baggage handlers has led to an enquiry by Essex police. An investigation by "BBC Inside Out" in the East found 22 handlers have been arrested since December 2006. A former worker for the handling company Swissport told the BBC that a colleague went through every bag on every flight.

On Wednesday the last offender was jailed for eight months.

Stansted Airport to fly to JFK in New York

London Stansted Airport has announced it will operate flights twice daily to JFK Airport in New York from April 2008. This is a direct result of American Airlines' decision to up its daily flight service.

London Stansted launches sew sevice to Munich

Stansted Airport hosted the launch of a new service provided by short-haul carrier Air Berlin to Munich.

It is the eighth direct connection provided by Air Berlin between Stansted and Germany with flights also available from the London hub to Berlin, Dusseldorf, Hanover, Nuremberg and Leipzig.

Stansted Express services set to increase in 2008

Passengers at Stansted Airport next year will be offered more transport services to Liverpool Street station with the Stansted Express adding 13 extra services in a new timetable that will begin on January 2nd.

There will be a daily service travelling from Stansted to Liverpool Street at 00:30 as well as additional departures from Stansted at 01:00 and 01:30 on Monday, Friday and Saturday mornings.

These changes are designed to ensure that passengers with arrivals and departures early in the morning or late at night have the option to travel seven days a week.

Christian Slater launches American Airlines operation at London Stansted

American Airlines is the the world's biggest air carrier and they touched down at Stansted airport for the first time today, marking the beginning of a new economy and business class link to New York JFK.

Hollywood actor Christian Slater attended the launch ceremony and cut the ribbon to mark the start of the service. The new American Airlines service will operate on a daily basis but a second daily flight is due to be addedd next spring.

This route is one of many new ones at Stansted with Eastern Airways flying to Manchester, Ryanair launching to Billund in Denmark, easyJet flying to Madeira and TACV launching a connection to Cape Verde.

Swissport job cuts at Stansted Airport

Ryanair's decision to reduce its flights from Stansted by 20% over the winter months means the amount of staff Swissport now require to supply ground handling services to the airline will decrease. This could possibly result in up to 60 redundancies.