Airport Toys With New Idea To Reduce Parking Problems

by Chris Owen on

At Boston’s Logan International, airport parking is a problem. Laws prevent building more parking facilities. To discourage overflow at existing lots, parking fees were raised sky high. Still, the demand is there and something had to be done about it.

“Logan has tried various ways to curb parking demand and wean passengers from driving to the airport,” said David Mackey of Massport, the state agency that operates the airport, reports MSNBC.

In March, transport officials tried raising airport parking fees to an all-time high of $27 per day while cutting fees to $7 a day at suburban lots that provide direct bus service to the airport. That had little effect.

Building more parking is not an option; the airport is barred from building new parking garages by environmental laws. Still, annual passenger traffic has risen 15.1 million in 1980 to 28.9 million last year and something had to be done.In a three-month pilot program that starts Wednesday, Boston Logan will become the first major airport in the United States to offer free transportation to and from downtown. It is an effort to cut cars both on the road and in parking lots at the fourth-busiest passenger hub in the Northeast.

“We don’t know of any other place where you can travel for free on the transit system coming from the airport to downtown,” said Virginia Miller, a spokeswoman for the American Public Transportation Association.

During the pilot program, the city will waive the $2 fare on the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority’s Silver Line buses that take passengers from the airport to South Station in central Boston.

That’s good news for everyone really; compared with private vehicles, public transportation produces on average 95 percent less carbon monoxide per passenger mile.


[Flickr photo by by carrotmadman6]

Airline Launches Teddy Bear Check-Ins For Children

by Jessica Festa on

Fact: Each month, London Gatwick Airport receives up to 30 forgotten stuffed animals. That’s one airport alone. The loss of a furry friend can be devastating for a child, and unfortunately, the chaos of travel leads it to happen way too often.

To help combat the problem, Thomson Airways has created the “teddy bear check-in.” The program allows kids to check in their stuffed animals at the airport’s front desk. Each furry friend will receive a special boarding pass, which can be exchanged for a “Very Important Buddy” (VIB) tag at the gate. The idea behind the unique check-in is for children to pay closer attention to their toys when flying.

“As a family-friendly tour operator, we like to make a fuss of children travelling on our holidays, both in resort and on their flight,” says Carl Gissing of Thomson Airways. “We know that kids will love checking their toys in and taking home the VIB tag as a souvenir.”

While we’re not so sure this will really help cut back on the amount of lost teddy bears, it is a fun idea.

Do you think this service will help kids keep track of their toys when flying?

Israel Border Protection Searches Tourist Emails

by McLean Robbins on

Najwa Doughman, a 25-year-old architect and University of Virginia graduate living in New York City, arrived in Israel on May 26 with a friend, Sasha Al-Sarabi, another UVA grad working in finance in the same city. Doughman was visiting Israel for the third time, Al-Sarabi for the first. But it turned out neither would see the country beyond the walls of Ben Gurion Airport.

As Doughman chronicles on the Israel-focused blog Mondoweiss and as Israel focused publication Haaretz reported, the women’s trials began about an hour after landing, when Doughman was asked her father’s first name. Both Doughman and Al-Sarabi’s parents are of Palestinian descent and were expelled from Haifa and Akko in 1948.

Sad as it is, it is rather commonplace to be detained at the Israel airport (21 activists were barred in mid-April), particularly for those of Palestinian descent, although less so for young American-born women on vacation.

She writes of being heckled and searched repeatedly by guards, stating that one guard inquired repeatedly as to her motives for entering the country:

But you have been here two times already. Why are you coming now for the third time? You can go to Venezuela, to Mexico, to Canada. It is much closer to New York, and much less expensive!

Two notable instances came out of the interrogation, however – the first that Doughman claims that she was forced to log into her Gmail account and allow security to run searches for words like “Israel,” “Palestine,” “West Bank” and “International Solidarity Movement.” The second is that Doughman claims that the American Embassy was less than sympathetic to her plight and simply urged her to leave the country on the next available flight. She wrote:

If we were two American citizens in a Syrian or Iranian ‘facility,’ would the American embassy’s reaction be the same? Would Obama himself not have made a statement by now, demanding our release? If we were Americans of Polish or Chinese descent, would we have been treated this way? American citizens are usually given a three-month visa upon arrival. Why were we an exception? There are a lot of things wrong with a lot of systems, but when we are funding one with billions of our tax dollars, this means that we are supporting it.

A sad situation indeed, if the events in fact occurred as described.

What do you think, readers? Has anyone else had a similar experience?

Sustainable Travel Agents Make Impact, Educate

by Chris Owen on

Sustainable travel aims to yield a net beneficial gain, or render at least neutral, every aspect of the travel process. When rating elements of a travel plan, from booking flights online to hotel operational policies, everything is considered. At one time, sustainable travel was the domain of tree-hugging environmentalists, out to get travel suppliers. Now, Earth-friendly travel agents are making it their mission to educate consumers.

Andrea Dixon and Lindsay Batchelar founded Green Motion Travel in 2010, making sustainable tourism the prime focus of their Canadian travel agency. Batchelar, an experienced travel consultant, and Dixon, with a masters in Tourism, were frustrated that the research on sustainability never trickled down to consumers.

“A big part of Green Motion’s work is providing information about options available for travel choices,” Batchelar told Travel Market Report.

The two met five years ago when their sons entered kindergarten together. Initially, Green Motion Travel devoted resources to educating potential clients about key sustainability concepts. Explaining how those concepts could be applied to the travel experience, Green Motion circulated handouts with titles like “What to Ask Before You Book,” and “Sustainable Tourism While You Travel.”

They also sent questionnaires to travel suppliers and ranked them according to each supplier’s commitment to sustainable tourism. The results yielded a relationship with hotels, tour operators and other service providers eager to offer green travel options.

“It took a long time to find out which companies are committed to sustainability. So many are trying to be environmentally friendly and want to promote their effort, which is great,” said Dixon.Now with more than double the manpower, Green Motion Travel’s mission continues to educate and promote their website. There, visitors can easily make transportation choices that suit their evolving needs and criteria.

So what is trending in the sustainable tourism world?

“We are seeing a growing number of our clients choose rail over flying when the option is presented by us. In Canada, our rail network is decent in the Ottawa-Toronto-Montreal corridor. It is these types of trips that are hardest on the environment when flying, so every convert to rail – which also avoids airline security hassles – is a benefit,” said Dixon.

“Tourism can never be neutral,” says the Green Motion Travel website. “It will always have an impact but the key is to try and make the impact as positive as possible.”


[Flickr photo by The Brit_2]

Barcelona Airport’s Cleaning Crew Protests … By Throwing Trash

by McLean Robbins on




Protesting pay cuts, workers at Barcelona‘s El Prat airport retaliated using their most powerful weapon – trash. Cleaning crew members, as part of a two-day protest that began May 29, threw piles of paper all over the airport grounds coating ticket counters, baggage belts and more with trash.

The crew members work for a company that has a contract with the airport and are protesting cuts in both pay and benefits. The company, AENA, announced 1.3 million euro budget cuts.

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