A flute before flight
N EED a drink before boarding an international flight? Passengers travelling through Heathrow Airport in London certainly seem to — they get through 800 000 glasses of champagne a year and eat 240 000 oysters.
They also get through 1.5 tons of caviar, 25 000kg of salmon, 250 000 pieces of sushi and 630 000 steaks.
Breakfast is the most popular meal with 5 million eggs and 4.5 million rashers of bacon consumed annually.
The Daily Mail says the statistics come from South African-born author Robert Wicks, who went behind the scenes at the airport, which employs 76 000 people.
BETTER TO BEIJING
TRAVEL BUYER reports that SAA has made improvements to its flight schedule to and from Beijing. Flights now leave four hours earlier from Johannesburg, with flight SA288 from Johannesburg departing on Mondays at 8.30pm, arriving in Beijing at 4.45pm. On Wednesdays and Thursdays, it will depart at 8.35pm and arrive in Beijing at 5.05pm. Flight SA289 from Beijing to Johannesburg will depart on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays at 11pm, arriving in Johannesburg at 8.15am. China is the fourth-largest inbound tourism market to South Africa as well as the local tourism industry’s fastest growing market, with about 134 000 arrivals in 2013.
YACHT STAYCATION
THOSE unwilling to splash out on chartering a superyacht can now stay overnight on one for £180 (R3 212) in the London Docklands.
Britain’s first “superyacht hotel”, the 120m Sunborn Yacht Hotel London, is now permanently moored in the Royal Victoria Dock, just east of Canary Wharf. It is scheduled to open on May 19. Its Land’s End restaurant will serve Mediterranean food, and the gym features a 12-man sauna. It will cater mostly to business travellers, with rates for standard rooms at about £400 (R7 100) a night at peak conference times.
EGYPTIAN BOMBS
A BOMB blast in Heliopolis in Cairo killed one policeman and wounded three others last Friday, shortly after two suicide bombers struck in the Sinai Peninsula in attacks that killed two people and wounded nine.
The British Foreign Office says there is now a high threat from terrorism, and it advises against all travel to north and south Sinai, with the exception of the airport and area within the Sharm el Sheikh perimeter barrier.
PANUS ANGELICUS?
BRITISH supermarket chain Morrisons has apologised for using the famous 20m-high Angel of the North statue near Gateshead in England to sell bread.
An image of a baguette was projected onto the angel’s massive 54m outstretched wings.
The Angel of the North was erected in 1998 and is now one of the most famous pieces of public art in the UK.
"I'd rather the Angel is not used for such purposes, but it's out there," the statue’s creator Anthony Gormley told the Guardian.
AN APP FOR THE ROAD
MOTORISTS driving the 400km of the N4 highway between Gauteng and Botswana, and the N1 between Pretoria and Bela-Bela, can now be entertained by a new audio app containing more than an hour’s worth of fascinating storytelling.
Written and produced by travel writer Peter Delmar, the free Platinum Road app (available for Apple, Android and Windows smartphones and tablets) consists of 17 factual stories, narrated by Radio 702’s David O’Sullivan, relevant to particular places on the N4 and N1.
Once downloaded, the app, sponsored by Bakwena, can be used without incurring any data costs. The app uses a device’s GPS to trigger stories at relevant points, even “in the middle of nowhere”.
HOT TICKET TO VEGAS
LAST week a British woman in her 20s was handcuffed in front of her parents after being caught having sex in an aeroplane toilet with a male passenger she had just met.
They were on an 11-hour Virgin Atlantic flight from Gatwick to Las Vegas, when they disappeared to the aircraft toilet. Other travellers soon complained of hearing noises from inside the cubicle.
When cabin crew confronted her, the woman became belligerent and was handcuffed to a chair.
Last year, Virgin America launched a new service that allows passengers to send drinks, a meal or treats to fellow passengers in a move which many said encouraged mid-air flirting.