Travel Wires

Maxed out

Dozens of Norwegian Air passengers got the fright of their lives, thinking they were flying on the grounded Boeing 737 Max 8 jet. Travellers from Gatwick to Malaga and others on several Southwest Airlines flights across the US freaked when their safety information cards were headlined “Max 8”. No, said the airlines, they were on the Boeing 737-800: “Our safety cards display the two models since passenger safety instructions on both aircraft are the same.” Time to get some new ones printed?

Fast forward?

Almost 20 years after Concorde was grounded, supersonic travel could again become a reality with new passenger aircraft in the later stages of development. Aerion’s AS2, a sleek, 12-passenger business plane developed with Boeing, has been flight-certified and is due to fly in 2023. It will cruise at Mach 1.4 (1625kp/h) and run on biofuels. Spike Aerospace is developing an 18-passenger jet and the Boom Supersonic is a 55-seater with Concorde-style wings. It’s attracted 76 pre-orders and a $15 million investment from Japan Airlines. The new fleet faces the same issues as Concorde: fuel-thirsty and banned from going supersonic over land to prevent sonic booms affecting those living under the flight path. Promoters say these problems can be overcome and three-hour flights between London and New York are possible.

Foot traffic

Our 10th Great Walk — the first designed for hikers and mountain bikers — will open on December 1. The 55km Paparoa Track runs from Blackball to Punakaiki on the West Coast. DoC says people will be able to book from June. Paparoa is being built in conjunction with the Pike29 Memorial Track, taking walkers and riders to Pike Valley’s memorial site and interpretation centre. That track will open when efforts to re-enter the mine have been completed.

On board

TripAdvisor has added cruise ratings and reviews to its UK and US sites, allowing would-be passengers to read reviews of voyages, compare prices and book a sailing from a database of more than 70,000 options. Which is not altogether a surprise: TripAdvisor owns the authoritative and wellresearched Cruise Critic site featuring ship and cruise reviews written by journalists. Cruise Critic will continue to operate independently of TripAdvisor. Based on its own 2018 data, 32 per cent of TripAdvisor users have cruised and 44 per cent are cruise shoppers.