Every Friday, we help you navigate the week’s most important and interesting travel news stories.
Every Friday, we help you
navigate the week’s most important and interesting travel news stories.
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Amazing things that should happen more often
India’s
Kumbh Mela festival, the largest gathering in the world, happens only once
every 12 years and kicked off this week in Allahabad. On the first day of the
55-day Hindu festival, an estimated 8 million people bathed at the merging
point of the Ganges and Yamuna rivers. For more about Kumbh Mela see
the full story. [BBC]
Health and
wellness is predicted to figure as a major trend in tourism this year.
Many hotels, international chains and boutique properties already have plans in
the works to enhance their fitness, spa and general wellness offerings to
appeal to health-conscious travellers. [Reuters]
“Armina
Babayan, Armavia Passenger, Has Baby Aboard Flight To Armenia” was a
real headline published earlier this week. The new mother named her
child after the flight attendant who helped with the delivery. While giving
birth at 30,000 feet likely is not an expecting mother’s ideal scenario, this
is still a sweet story. [HuffPo]
New
app Find. Eat. Drink. lets you ignore the advice of wannabe reviewers from
sites like Yelp in favour of learning where
industry professionals go on their days off to stuff their gullets.
[Gizmodo]
Ready for takeoff
All set to go, but too soon to tell what’s ahead
The
US Transportation Security Administration will remove all 174 of its remaining
airport body scanners after concluding it couldn’t meet a
congressional deadline to make naked passenger
images more generic. [Bloomberg]
A British Airways
employee who was told to remove her crucifix at work for policy reasons
has won a lawsuit against the airline.
Europe’s top court ruled that BA discriminated against the employee when they
sent her home from work after she refused to take off the necklace. [Associated
Press]
Turbulence
Hold on folks, we’re in for a rocky ride
The Regional Transportation
Authority has filed a lawsuit against United
Airlines for running a “sham” business. The agency claims the
airlines lies about where it purchases fuel to avoid paying tens of millions of
dollars in sales taxes. [AP]
Two Japanese
airlines grounded their Dreamliner aircrafts after one of
the planes had to make
an emergency landing when a light went off warning of smoke in one of the
plane’s electrical compartments. The EU and US quickly followed their lead and decided to take their 787 Dreamliners out
of service. Meanwhile, that’s not stopping Boeing from continuing with production of the 787s.
[FastCompany] [BBC] [Associated Press]
Air pollution in
Beijing is hitting an all-time high, surpassing what is considered a
“hazardous” level. The Wall Street Journal published a slideshow of photos
from the smog-smothered city. [WSJ]
Oops. What was
supposed to be a less-than-145km trip for one Belgian woman turned into a 1450km road trip across five
countries when her GPS led her astray. She had taken to the road to pick up a
friend about 145km away. [HuffPo]