Editor’s blog

TAM Airlines Adds London-São Paolo First Class

By admin on February 4, 2010

Brazilian carrier TAM Airlines has introduced a new first class cabin on its daily services between London Heathrow and São Paulo Guarulhos.

TAM’s new first class cabin on the daily Boeing 777-300ER service between the UK and Brazil provides just four flat sleeper seat units. The aircraft has a further 56 seats in business and 302 in economy.

On board entertainment includes individual 23-inch screens offering 24 video channels that are programmed monthly with the latest film releases, as well as classics from the archives, TV programmes and documentaries. Cameras on the fuselage allow passengers to view what is in front and below the Boeing 777 from take off to landing.

First class passengers living or working within 65 miles of London Heathrow can book a complimentary, chauffeur driven transfer to-and-from the airport, and at any destination airport outside Brazil. At a cost, first class passengers can also book a fast helicopter transfer to-and-from São Paulo’s Guarulhos Airport and the down town airport of Congonhas. Prices start at around £280.

All first class passengers have access to TAM’s first class lounges in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, as well as the carrier’s partner first class lounges at London Heathrow and other international destinations. Passengers are fast tracked through immigration at Heathrow Airport, both on arrival and departure. In São Paulo passengers can take advantage of the TAM first class check-in area.

At the start of 2010 TAM launched a series of new menus on its international services, devised by Brazilian chef Helena Rizzo, responsible for the award winning São Paulo restaurant, Mani.

First class options include filet mignon with poached pear and yogi tee-aromatised olive oil, lamb ribs with rosemary and artichoke and tomato caponnata, chicken fillet stuffed with Earl Grey tea and mushrooms with jasmine rice and pak choi. Dessert options include apple pie with farofa doce (a sweet peanut concoction crumbled into a fine powder) and topped with cinnamon fudge.

Posted in Editor's blog | Tagged airlines, Brazil, TAM | Leave a response

Air New Zealand Unveils Lie-Flat Economy Seats

By admin on January 26, 2010

Air New Zealand has revealed plans for lie-flat economy seats plus innovative premium economy and business class offerings.

Chief Executive Officer Rob Fyfe said its first new Boeing 777-300 ER, which the airline is scheduled to receive in November, will redefine the long haul travel experience.

‘Air New Zealand is putting the magic and romance back into flying,’ he said. ‘For the past three years we have been designing a new long haul experience that will reignite the passion of today’s travellers.’

‘For those who choose, the days of sitting in economy and yearning to lie down and sleep are gone. The dream is now a reality, one that you can even share with a travelling companion – just keep your clothes on, thanks.’

The ‘Skycouch’, a specially designed row of three seats, has been engineered to create a lie-flat, flexible space all the way to the seat-back in front, providing a place for the kids to play, or the holy grail of economy travel – a flat surface for adults to relax and sleep.

Twenty-two sets of Skycouch seats will be available, being the first 11 window rows in the Economy Class cabin.

For two adults travelling, purchasing the Skycouch will be based on buying two seats at standard prices with the third seat at approximately half price. Full airfare details will be announced when it goes on sale from late April.

Air New Zealand’s Premium Economy cabin has also had a makeover.

‘Most airlines’ Premium Economy offering leaves travellers with economy-style food and service. By complete contrast, our new Premium Economy cabin with uniquely Kiwi designed Spaceseats will offer unparalleled comfort and legroom with new shared-meal experiences more familiar in tapas restaurants or bistros than at 35,000 feet,’ said Fyfe.

Air New Zealand’s Business Premier cabin has also been enhanced with a complete on-demand food and beverage service.

Fyfe said: ‘Being able to order a steak, medium rare in Business Premier, a pizza for two in Premium Economy or a late night snack in Economy, whenever you want, will be a very cool experience. New oven technology that will cook food from scratch rather than simply reheating and a new digital in-seat ordering service will make this truly the first time real food has been served at 35,000 feet.’

The 340 seat 777-300 aircraft will be configured with 246 in Economy (including 66 seats creating 22 Skycouch combinations), 50 in Premium Economy and 44 in Business Premier.

The first routes to offer travellers the next generation of long haul travel will be on selected NZ5 and NZ6 services between Auckland and Los Angeles from December followed by dedicated return services on NZ1 and NZ2 between Auckland and Los Angeles and through to London from April 2011.

Air New Zealand expects to also refit its fleet of eight Boeing 777-200 aircraft from mid next year, with all Asian, North American and UK services to have the new product by around 2012.

http://www.airnewzealand.co.uk/

Posted in Editor's blog | Tagged airlines, New Zealand | 1 Response

Online Check-in Wins Innovation Vote

By admin on January 6, 2010

Results from a poll conducted on behalf of the Business Travel & Meetings Show have identified online check-in as the ‘innovation of the decade’.

Wi-Fi, flat beds, notebooks and Eurostar make up the remainder of the top five – all of which are recognised as having immeasurably improved business travel since 2000.

The poll surveyed 2,400 corporate travellers and found they were also keen to see faster security, check in and immigration processes as well as supersonic aircraft, carbon free travel and Wi-Fi on planes.

British Airways, Virgin Atlantic, Emirates, Singapore Airlines and Lufthansa were voted the top five favourite airlines.

BA also topped the customer service category, followed by the same four airlines in a different order: SIA, Lufthansa, Emirates and Virgin.

Lufthansa was rated the world’s greenest airline, followed by SIA, KLM, Qantas and Virgin Atlantic.

Some 82 per cent of business travellers don’t want mobile phones to be allowed on board.

Intercontinental was voted top hotel group – ahead of Marriott, Four Seasons, Hilton and Radisson. The top reason for choosing hotels were location, cost, bedding, air conditioning, free Wi-Fi and a good quality restaurant.

Show event director David Chapple said: ‘Innovations in technology, infrastructure and services have all contributed to make it easier, more comfortable and more enjoyable than ever for professionals to both travel and do business effectively.’

The Business Travel & Meetings Show is in London from February 9-10. www.businesstravelshow.com/

Posted in Editor's blog | Tagged Business travel | Leave a response

Moctezuma Aztec Ruler Exhibition In London

By admin on September 23, 2009

Compelling, enlightening and appalling are all words that would be appropriate to describe the British Museum’s latest blockbusting exhibition – Moctezuma Aztec Ruler, which is on show in the historic Reading Room until 24 January.

Moctezuma reigned from 1502-1520 – at which stage he was famously deposed by Hernan Cortes and his Spanish conquistadors. His empire was a place of great artistic innovation, but it was also a place of savagery and horror. The exhibition explores both this duality and that within the character of Moctezuma himself – an all-powerful, deified, expansionist warrior who was ultimately duped and overthrown by a relatively small Spanish force.

Exhibition curator Colin McEwan says: ‘Our aim is to focus on Moctezuma in many aspects – as a politician, an administrator, a battle-hardened military commander and the head of a theocracy.’

Throughout the exhibition the emperor is referred to under his Spanish name Moctezuma, not the anglicised Montezuma. Nor is the word Aztec generally used. ‘The people that we refer to as the Aztecs never called themselves the Aztecs,’ says McEwan. ‘They called themselves the Mexica. That’s the name the Spanish would have known them by and the name from which the word Mexico derives.’

Step inside the Reading Room and some of the more alarming realities of the Mexica empire rapidly become clear. A grim-looking stone eagle with a cavity on its back would once have been a receptacle for human hearts – sliced from the chest cavities of sacrificial victims. Background sounds combine the whispering of the wind, a distant trumpet and a mournful bird cry… to add to the feeling of being atop a high temple, but also to contribute a certain tragic quality to the whole show.

To become a prisoner of the Mexica would certainly have been bad news. The people’s religion taught that the sun needed to be fed with human hearts if it was to keep rising and items on show include a drum featuring a hogtied prisoner that would have been played in the presence of captives, an evil-looking ceremonial knife with a obsidian blade and a beautiful mask of the god Tezcatlipoca which features turquoise inlaid on a genuine human skull (belonging originally to a man of about 30 years old, we are told).

The exhibition goes on to explore Mexica society and Moctezuma’s administrative innovations before turning its attention to the evil omens that were recorded as heralding the arrival of the Spanish.

What the Mexica made of the invaders we can only guess. The emperor supposedly thought Cortes was the god Quetzalcoatl come to reclaim his kingdom. A Spanish horse’s armoured headpiece, a rapier and breastplate look suitably alien and dramatic – solid and otherwordly compared to the naturalistic lines and colours of the Aztec items.

Moctezuma: Aztec Ruler is in the British Museum’s Reading Room until 24 January 2010.

www.britishmuseum.org

Posted in Editor's blog | Tagged London, Mexico, Moctezuma Comments Off

Costa Rica Tops Happy Poll

By admin on August 5, 2009

Costa Rica is the happiest place in the world, according to the UK’s New Economics Foundation (NEF). The country has a goal of building a new economy, ‘centered on people and the environment’.

NEF ranks nations using the ‘Happy Planet Index’, which seeks countries with the most content people. In addition to happiness, the index considers the ecological footprint and life expectancy of countries.

‘Costa Ricans report the highest life satisfaction in the world and have the second-highest average life expectancy of the new world (second to Canada),’ the organisation reported.

The nation also has an ecological footprint that means that the country only narrowly fails to achieve the goal of consuming its fair share of the Earth’s natural resources.

This year’s survey, which looked at 143 countries, featured Latin American nations in nine of the Top 10 spots.

The runner-up was the Dominican Republic, followed by Jamaica, Guatemala and Vietnam.

Britain ranked 74th and the United States 114th, because of its consumption and ecological footprint.

The bottom ten HPI scores were all suffered by sub-Saharan African countries, with Zimbabwe bottom of the table.

No country successfully achieves the three goals of high life satisfaction, high life expectancy and one-planet living.

www.neweconomics.org

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Big Mac Index Offers Money Clues

By admin on July 21, 2009

The Economist magazine’s latest Big Mac index suggests your money is likely to go furthest in mainland China and Hong Kong and to disappear most rapidly in Norway and Switzerland.

The index is based on the idea of purchasing-power parity (PPP), which says currencies should trade at the rate that makes the price of goods the same in each country.

If the price of a Big Mac translated into dollars is above $3.57, its cost in the US, then a currency is dear; if it is below that benchmark, it is cheap. So, Hong Kong ($1.72), China ($1.83) and Thailand ($1.89) seem very competitive, while most European countries do not. The price in Switzerland comes in at $5.53 while in Norway it’s an eye-watering $6.15.

A Big Mac in Australia is a competitive $3.37 and in New Zealand it’s $3.08. The UK, meanwhile, has seen prices fall making it more competitively priced on the burger front ($3.69) and hopefully bringing better news for manufacturers and exporters.

http://www.economist.com/markets/bigmac/

Posted in Editor's blog | Tagged Exchange rates, Money Comments Off