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New flights from Wonderboom

Wonderboom Airport is to introduce scheduled flights to Cape Town and Durban from October by an airline that has not yet been named, but is believed to be Interlink Airlines.
New weather equipment is also scheduled to be installed, while new fire-fighting equipment is on order, with the first fire engine already having been delivered.

Plans for a scheduled service were first mooted as far back as 2007 when the city council called for expressions of interest. This was followed by a call for more a more detailed business plan, with Interlink emerging as the preferred carrier.

The Tshwane City Council, which owns the airport, is spending R165,5m upgrading Wonderboom’s infrastructure in preparation for the new service. The development includes expanding the apron to provide parking for more and larger aircraft and putting a luggage carousel in place.

However, Hendrick Kleynhans, the project leader at the airport, refused to confirm the chosen airline, saying the council was still negotiating a service-level agreement with the selected carrier.

He said the intention was to create a secondary airport for the Pretoria market in the way Lanseria catered for the West Rand of Johannesburg. “For many people living in Pretoria, OR Tambo International Airport is too far away and congested, and we will offer a viable alternative. We estimate that between 25%-30% of the passengers that use OR Tambo live in Pretoria.”

Kleynhans said the airport would be able to cope with 450 departing and 400 incoming passengers an hour once the upgrade was complete.

Future plans include expanding the runway to allow the airport to handle larger aircraft such as a Boeing 737-800, a project that is likely to cost upwards of R600m. “That includes buying up additional property, the widening and lengthening of the runway, taxiways and the security fencing,” said Kleynhans.

Next year, Wonderboom is likely to see a surge in traffic during the Soccer World Cup. Many airlines are likely to use the airport to park aircraft, with OR Tambo unable to cope with the volume of idle aircraft during the first few week of the tournament.

The airport is also likely to be used by Fifa for its own aircraft and other charter operators. Wonderboom had also built taxi and bus facilities in preparation for next year.



Cheap flights for Australian work visa holders

A UK travel agent is offering £10 one-way flights to Australia to help more young people fulfill their dream of a working holiday in Australia.

To mark the 30th birthday of student travel specialist, STA Travel, the firm is offering £10 one-way flghts to Australia for those who have the correct Australian visa, with services to Sydney, Perth, Melbourne, Adelaide and Brisbane all included in the offer.

STA Travel Group Managing Director, John Constable, says there are plently of opportunities for young people who want to work in Australia for a year on a temporary basis. He says, “The £10 Pom is an opportunity for Brits to experience all that an Australia visa has to offer from working at a vineyard in Margaret River to learning to surf on Bondi Beach. There’s never been a better time to escape the UK and head Down Under.”
STA Travel says that more young people are travelling or moving to Australia temporarily to escape the doom and gloom in the UK. It says 24% of 18-34 year olds are currently planning to travel in the next 18 months. Backpackers continue to chose Australia as a destination for a working holiday with the number of working holiday Australian visas granted this year rising 21%.

The £10 tickets for those with a working holiday Australia visa who  went on sale at STA branches in London Victoria, Southampton, Manchester, Birmingham, Glasgow, Bristol, Leeds and Belfast from 8am on 4 July.



Taiwan refuses flights with China
July 6, 2009, 12:46 pm
Filed under: air travel, flights, main, news, travel | Tags: , , , ,

The statement came after Beijing proposed late last week that Taiwan allow planes to fly over its restricted airspace, to increase the cross-strait flights and meet the growing passenger demand.

Taiwan’s Defence Ministry cited security concerns Monday in rejecting China’s call to open restricted airspace over the Taiwan Strait to address growing passenger demand. “Before the Chinese communists formally renounce the use of force against Taiwan and put aside their military deployments targeting us, it is unlikely we would change the current flight routes,” said the ministry in a statement.

Taiwan and China, rivals since of a civil war in 1949, launched direct flights on July 4 last year as relations thawed. They later agreed to increase the number of direct flights from 108 to 270 a week. But industry officials say it is not enough to cope with the surging demand.

Wang Yi, director of the mainland’s State Council’s Taiwan Affairs Office, recently called on the island to allow cross-strait flights over the restricted zone to increase the number of routes.

But the Defence Ministry rejected the request, saying the zone located over the central part of the Taiwan Strait is for training of the Taiwanese air force.

According to the ministry, the restricted zone gives its air force more time and space to react in the event of a cross-strait conflict.



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Norway flights give medical tourism wings

IT IS the overland of impressive fjords, Vikings – and now cut-price medical communication.

A group of Norse doctors win in Edinburgh tomorrow to woo scrutiny tourists from Scotland with the human of no inactivity nowadays and the smallest MRSA communication range in Accumulation.

The body, from a confidential clinic in the south-western inshore municipality of Haugesund, hope to furnish on yesterday’s commence of a twice-weekly way from the English top by no-frills airway Ryanair.

It is believed to be the no. Norwegian clinic to direct Scotland in the fast-growing reality of scrutiny business.

The sort of Land grouping travelling abroad for handling is mentation to know multiple to 100,000 since 2005 and may stretch 150,000 this period, with tot defrayment topping £200 million. Newest period, benefit in the topic led to Kingdom’s prime eudaimonia business direct in London.

Norway is a congenator beginner to the activity, occupation for fewer than 1 per cent of visits from Kingdom, according to a scrutiny lowest gathering by the Direction Foreign website. Hungary accounted for the celebrity’s share – 45 per centime – followed by Cyprus with 11 per cent and six per coin for Bharat.

Medical tourists are most likely to be in their 50s, with dental treatment and cosmetics surgery the most popular procedures, and lowly costs the predominant incentive.

Nevertheless, infertility communication is prospective to be the most nonclassical of a chain of services offered by the Haugesund clinic, which also let eye dealings and hip replacements.