Gozzylous Blog

British Airways has given some hints to Brtons and its guests on how to enjoy their holidays for the year 2015. The Shetland, Scotland Fire Festival, Europe’s largest fire festival, celebrated at Up Helly Aa and held every last Tuesday in the month of January is top of the airline’s recommended tourist spots. “Crazy holidays conjure images of abseiling off Table Mountain or jet boating in New Zealand rather than visiting good old Blighty, but the Barmy Brits do have some wild attractions of their own. “We Brits are not as dull as some might think and there are plenty of exciting, adventurous and just plain mad things to do in the UK”, says Kola Olayinka, British Airways commercial manager for West Africa . When planning your holidays for 2015, Olayinka said it’s worth bearing in mind that the Saxon bits of the Anglo Saxons trace their ancestry back to the original mad marauders, the Vikings, arguably the pioneers of adventure tourism. The locals dress up in...

Indications emerged over the weekend that no fewer than 232 staff of the Nigerian Airspace Management Agency, NAMA, would be disengaged before end of this+- year. Staffers to be disengaged are those who have put in the maximum 35 years service and those who have reached the mandatory 60 years age of retirement, according to civil service rule. National Mirror gathered that most of those to be affected are professionals and technical staff of the agency. However, stakeholders and professionals are worried that there is no adequate preparation for their replacement by management of the agency. About four of NAMA’s staff would be affected by the tenure policy of maximum eight years for staff who have reached level 17 in service. Besides, apart from NAMA, investigations showed that other agencies like the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria, FAAN, the Nigerian Meteorological Agency, NIMET, and the Nigerian College of Aviation Technology, NCAT, Zaria, will also lose hundreds of staff wit...

Southwest Airlines has been hit with a record $1.6 million fine for keeping passengers trapped on the tarmac for hours at Midway Airport in Chicago. The airline failed to clear 16 aircraft off of the runway in a timely fashion on the evening of January 2, 2014, according to the Department of Transportation. Regulations require that flyers must be let off a plane within three hours of landing. A bad winter storm was a major factor in the delay. But the DOT says that Southwest’s crew scheduling system also malfunctioned, leaving the airline without enough crew members to clear the arriving flights. “We are disappointed that the government would seek additional money,” Southwest (LUV) said in a statement, “after the enormous penalties imposed on Southwest by Mother Nature during the January 2014 winter storms.” The airline said it has since made made “significant investments” in its operations to prevent such delays from happening again. It also paid $269,000 to flyers affected by the...

Domestic airline operators are groaning over the loss of about N2 billion in just three days last week due to cancelled flights occasioned by bad weather. A source close to one of the major airlines, who did want his name mentioned, told our correspondent that the inclement weather disrupted flights to most Northern and South-South airports for several days last week. At least, a hundred flights were cancelled nationwide during the period, with an average ticket going for about N20,000 per passenger. Most of the airlines operate Boeing 737 aircraft with about 150 sitting capacities for both business and economy classes. The airlines are also decrying the capacity of the navigational equipment installed at all the airports in the country, alleging that they have become ineffective in the present weather condition. Our correspondent gathered that flights to Port Harcourt, Uyo, Benin and Asaba in the South-South were mostly affected, while flights to Kano, Abuja, Ilorin, Kaduna, Bauc...

Arik Air, West and Central Africa’s largest carrier is resuming flight services to Cotonou, Benin Republic and Douala, Cameroon from Monday, January 19, 2015.   Flight services between Lagos, Nigeria and Cotonou/Douala were suspended last year in the wake of the outbreak of Ebola Virus in some parts of West Africa.   A statement from the airline disclosed that Arik Air will be operating four weekly flights from Lagos to Cotonou and Douala on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays.   Outbound flight departs Lagos at 11:15 am (local time) and arrives in Cotonou at 11:45 am (local time). The flight leaves Cotonou later at 12:30 pm (local time) to arrive in Douala at 2:00 pm (local time).    From Douala, the inbound flight departs at 2:45 pm (local time) and arrives in Cotonou at 4:15 pm. The flight thereafter leaves Cotonou at 5:00 pm and arrives in Lagos at 5:30 pm.   Arik Air’s Managing Director, Mr Chris Ndulue commente...