Virgin Atlantic has announced that it will withdraw flights to and from Kenya in the face of rising costs and a dip in visitor numbers.

Increasing fuel costs paired with rising APD – or Air Passenger Duty – were the main factors in Virgin Atlantic’s decision to discontinue all flights between the Kenyan capital Nairobi and London from September 24 onwards.  The carrier’s chief commercial officer, Julie Southern, commented that, in spite of the efforts of Virgin Atlantic employees, external factors such as the rising costs of fuel and aviation taxes in Britain have been matched by insufficient passenger numbers over the past five years in contributing to the decision.

Recent civil unrest and an ongoing threat of piracy from areas close to Somalia led to many tour operators that offer trips to Kenya reporting a slump in business this year. Although Sir Richard Branson has always had strong links to Africa, much due to him owning a retreat in the heart of Kruger National Park in South Africa, the mogul had threatened to pull his airline out of Kenya, a former British colony, after civil unrest in 2008 that was caused by the controversial outcome of a disputed election.

Then, Sir Richard warned the heads of Kenya’s tourism board that he would not hesitate in cutting Virgin Atlantic’s connection to the country. The last flight from London Heathrow to Nairobi will  leave the UK on September 23 while the last flight from Nairobi to London Heathrow will depart a day after.

A travel firm and regular organiser of guided walks around Gran Canaria is currently investigating after the death of a 78-year-old female during a hill walk in temperatures nearing 40C.

Wendy Richardson, aged 78, suffered from a suspected heart attack just 40 minutes into a guided tour on Sunday and a matter of days after certain areas of the Canary Islands had to be issued with heatwave warnings. A further two women aged in their 60s were on the same trek, which was meant to last two hours, and had to be airlifted to hospital.

The victims were being lead by a guide employed by specialist tour firm HF Holidays, which is based in Hertfordshire. They were collectively participating in a walk to Presa del Salto del Perro’s reservoir in the southern reaches of Gran Canaria.

Earlier, an orange weather alert advised people to make sure that they avoided strenuous exercise throughout the high temperatures. Separately, another Brit, Mr Willoughby Chaffey, aged 74 years old, had been hiking on the popular Spanish holiday at the weekend when he reportedly fell to his death in a ravine whilst trekking with his wife near the northern town of Barranco de Azuaje.

In recent days, temperatures have been hitting 40C in some parts of the Canaries with the authorities having to issue weather warnings at various points of last week. Representing HF Holidays, a spokesman commented that the company is conducting its own investigations as it attempts to ascertain further information.

Thousands of Ryanair customers, set to travel this weekend, have been advised by the airline to make use of web-check in services before Friday night - or face having to pay extra once they arrive at the airport.

The budget carrier’s website is to be closed for routine maintenance as of 10pm on Friday night and will not be opened until the early hours of Sunday morning, meaning that passengers will then be unable to print their boarding passes off. Ryanair insists that all of its passengers print off their own boarding passes no earlier than a fortnight before but no less than just four hours before they are scheduled to depart.

Fliers are charged £60 if they must be issued with a boarding pass by Ryanair staff at the airport. The airline has insisted that passengers will be contacted by email, with anyone that is due to fly either on Saturday or Sunday encouraged to make sure they they check in before 4pm Friday night.

The website closure might affect football fans that will be heading to Munich to watch the UEFA  Champions League final contested between Chelsea and hometown club Bayern Munich on Saturday evening. Ryanair said that the changes are to improve its website’s speed while passengers will be able to receive regular text alerts whenever severe disruptions to flights occur.

The service is to initially become available on the airline’s new Airbus A330s that will fly from London to New York. By the end of the year, the service will be available on at least 17 planes covering 10 routes.

AeroMobile, part-owned by Panasonic, will provide all in-flight mobile access. Virgin is to charge passengers roughly the same as the amount that would have to paid under usual roaming charges.

The UK’s flaghsip carrier, British Airways, currently offers its passengers an in-flight text service and internet access on just one route between London’s City Airport and hubs in New York, although in-flight calls are not permitted.

Neither Virgin nor British Airways’ service can be utilisted during flight take-off or when the plane is landing. Also, US laws mean that all mobile phones and other electronic devices have to be turned off at least 250 miles from American airspace.

Due to limited bandwidth, only a small handful of lines can be available at any given time. Although AeroMobile is currently working on upgrading its services, only the most basic internet access is possible at present.

Reputable airlines such as Australian flagship carrier Qantas, Emirates, and Germany’s Lufthansa are included in the nine non-UK travel giants that already offer a AeroMobile service, but Virgin will be the first British carrier to deploy it.

The BAA has advised London Heathrow passengers not to make any changes to their travel plans today, in spite of a 24-hour walk-out that has been planned by vital airport border staff.

Fliers arriving at Heathrow have unfortunately experienced delays of anything up to three hours in recent weeks as a result of a border staff shortage, with it widely-feared that today’s walkout will spell further disruption. In a row over planned pension reforms by the government, thousands of immigration staff will go on strike at Heathrow and a string of other major UK hubs.

In a bid to prevent mass panic, a spokesperson representing BAA said that no delays are currently being experienced at immigration and contingency plans remain in place to guarantee that the rest of the day will see minimal disruption. In a statement, BAA said that the Home Office has given assurances that the mentioned contingency plans have been tried and tested. It also advised passengers not to change their plans.

The UK’s flagship carrier, British Airways, which is also the sole airline operating in Terminal 5 at Heathrow, has said that it is to continue with its normal flight schedule in spite of the planned strikes.  A statement released by Manchester Airport said that Britain’s second-largest hub is working in order to minimise disruption for fliers, who are asked  to assist staff by making sure that they have all of their travel documents ready for inspection at immigration.

A £50m holiday village for Chinese tourists, proposed for the heart of the Welsh countryside, was shelved today after inspectors deemed the plans “inappropriate”.

Thousands of wealthy Chinese visitors were expected to flock to the proposed hotel, which was to have 100 rooms, and holiday homes that were to be built on a rural site. Although the UK already attracts over 100,000 tourists from Chinese shores each year, the resort would have been the first-ever holiday centre purposely built for the inhabitants of the world’s largest country.

The plans for the shunned resort, which was to be constructed in Llandeilo, Carmarthenshire, are now on hold after the Design Commission for Wales put together a report for the Welsh Government that detailed how the plans are unacceptable. The report read that the plans are inappropriate and have no reference to any local typologies and materials.

It was also said that the proposed buildings were bland and disparate and designed to appeal to foreign clients regardless of site and location – which does not do any justice to the kind of quality that is appropriate for the site in Llandeilo, it said.  The planned resort was to include health spas and a swimming pool constructed around a Grade II listed tower, which has been at the site since the 1870s.

Additionally, signs in both English and Mandarin, the most commonly-spoken language in China, were to be made, while staff were to be trained on Chinese customs. Chinese travel brochures were also set to advertise that the site was merely three hours away from London – the UK’s main attraction  for foreign tourists.

UK Border Force officers, currently struggling to handle immigration queues of anything up to three hours, are now facing daily checks on uniform, hair and fingernails before they are allowed to begin their shift.
 
Internal emails that ended up in the hands of the British broadsheet press show how managers at various ports of entry around the country are now being instructed to make sure all members of staff meet strict appearance standards. Already, it has been noted that the emails are to heap additional pressure on Home Secretary Theresa May, as well as her immigration minister, the under-fire Damian Green, over the crisis that has embarrassingly engulfed the Border Force this year.

Numerous critics have blasted the Border Force and suggested that it is nearing a meltdown, with fliers facing lengthy delays entering the country not just at London Heathrow but also other hubs such as Stansted and Coquelles – northern France’s Eurotunnel terminal. Later this week, even worse delays will be expected as the Immigration Service Union, representing 4,000 vital frontline Border Force members of staff, will stage strikes over pensions.

The new tough stance has been demanded by the new chief of the Border Force, Brian Moore, who has underlined how important it is that staff always appear smart at a string of private “roadshows”. Any employees failing to comply with appearance standards set by the Force will either be sent home or made to work away from all immigration desks.

A man who died after plunging 160 feet from a Cornish cliff was attempting to take photographs, it has emerged.

Harry McCabe, aged 54, lost his footing while walking along the cliffs at Mullion, Cornwall, on Friday night. He was with his wife Samantha, aged 44, and their two children, both aged 12.

It is believed Mr McCabe, holidaying in the region with a friend, was attempting to take a photograph somewhere along the cliff but was on the wrong side of the fence when he fell. Eyewitnesses said how Mrs McCabe immediately ran through the doors of the Mullion Cove Hotel, a matter of yards away, and raised the alarm at around 19:00.

The accident occurred  after a week of miserable torrential rain, which made the paths incredibly slippery in an area that is popular with walkers.  The rescue attempt was made by Falmouth Coastguard  and the RNAS Culdrose helicopter, which took Mr McCabe to Truro’s Royal Cornwall Hospital.

Mr McCabe, who is also believed to have two adult daughters from a previous marriage, was unfortunately pronounced dead on arrival. With no suspicious circumstances surrounding the incident, Devon and Cornwall Police have already revealed that they are treating Mr McCabe’s death as accidental.

Last night, grieving relatives of Mr McCabe were comforting one other at their family home in Basingstoke. Understandably, they were far too distressed to give any comment on the passing of their beloved relative.

The popular Kenyan resort of Lamu has now been declared relatively safe for UK holidaymakers to visit. 

The Foreign Office amended its advice for Kenya earlier on in the week and is now warning against anything but essential travel to the coastal areas that are within 60 kilometres of the border the country shares with Somalia. This represents a significant relaxation of the previous advisory that had suggested all coastal areas under 150 kilometres of Somalia must be completly avoided.

The move means that the resort of Lamu is now once again open to everyday travellers. Fuzz Dyer, the owner of the Manda Bay resort close to Lamu Island, understandably welcomed the newsand said that the Kenyan economy  has been hit hard by the Foreign Office’s previous warning.

Indeed Dyer was correct, as visitor numbers to his homeland have fallen by almost two thirds since 2011. He added that security measures now in place and are supported by the whole of Lamu’s population – regardless of whether they are local fisherman, hoteliers or police officers.

The original warning was put in place by the Foreign Office after several attacks in Lamu last year. In October, an armed gang kidnapped a disable woman. Before this, a British citizen, Mr David Tebbutt, was shot dead in Kiwayu, just 30 miles to the north of Lamu. His wife, Judith, was only released in March of this year after being abducted and held hostage.

British Airways is to resume its flights to the capital of South Korea, Seoul, after over a decade of not flying to the destination.

The flagship carrier will re-launch its service on December 2, which is when it will start operating at least six flights per week between London Heathrow Airport and Seoul, using slots that were acquired from IAG’s purchase of Bmi. BA scrapped flights to Seoul in 1998 and cited “economic reasons” for the move.

There was a brief return to the Korean Peninsula last year, though, after Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster. Airline staff had to stay overnight in Seoul until it had been deemed safe enough for them to again stay in Tokyo.

Drew Crawley, BA’s commercial director, commented that the airline has seen a growth in the amount of customers that wish to travel to South Korea for either business or pleasure. Crawley added that Seoul is a vibrant city that has a strong economic base and that flights to the UK will bring Korean tourists to London while in-turn helping the UK’s flailing economy.

According to Britain’s Foreign Office, roughly 100,000 Britons pay South Korea a visit each year. In Seoul, attractions such as the “Great Gates” are always high on the itineraries of tourists while those with less of an interest in Korean history head to semi-tropical Jeju Island.