According to several travel operators and opposition parties in the UK government, the recently deployed electronic border controls, ‘e-Borders’, are not reliable.
Ministers had earlier informed the public that the e-Borders system will check 95 per cent of passenger activities by the end of 2010, but ferry companies and Eurostar told Sky News that they have not agreed a deal with the UK Border Agency yet over the electronic screening system.
The UK Government informed that e-Borders is the country’s forefront to keep the country secured from terrorism and illegal immigration. The advanced system works by electronically checking the details of an [...]

A young Singaporean man was yesterday sentenced by a local district court to serve 42 months behind bars following investigations into an alleged car hire scam.
22-year-old Allen Tan Wei Loon pleaded guilty to eight charges, mainly involving cheating and fraud, and was also banned from driving for the next four years after it was discovered that he had been driving without any insurance cover or a driver’s license. The court heard how Loon cheated around S$134,000, the majority of which has already been repaid.
The scandal followed Loon’s response to an advertisement placed online by Ms Lim Lay Lan offering her [...]

Based from Wiltshire, a gang of four men travellers, thought to be liable for half of the UK’s caravan thievery that happened between 2004 and 2007, is now in jail. The stolen caravans are worth over £700,000.
All in their 20s, Martin Ward, Charlie Ward, Martin McDonagh and John McDonagh were sentenced by Winchester Crown Court to serve between four to nine years in jail. The men, arrested last October 2007, were found in custody of stolen caravans, motor homes, cars, cash and jewelleries. There were about 19 police forces utilized for their arrest.
After a three-month long trial, they had all [...]

The North Gauteng High Court in South Africa has ruled that a pair of holidaymakers travelling from the UK who were arrested and detained by local authorities are to receive 90,000 Rand compensation for their ordeal.
The two travellers, one who was hospitalised on his return to the UK, were unlawfully arrested in Beitbridge, where they were held in deplorable conditions for around 11 hours.
Siyananiso Mashava, a Zimbabwean, and Ian Murrell, from Australia, had been holidaying in the republic in August 2007, having travelled there for a holiday from their UK home. Judy Jody Kollapen advised the court that the pair [...]

Two passengers have died onboard a Mediterranean cruise ship after the vessel was hit by a massive wave measuring some eight metres in height.
The two men, one Italian and one German, died after abnormal waves struck the Louis Majesty, part of the Greek Louis Cruise Lines, on Wednesday. There were around 1,800 people on board at the time of the tragedy, including 1,350 passengers and an additional 580 crew. The deaths occurred as the freak waves crashed over the side of the ship, smashing a series of windows in the boat’s public area. Six others were injured in the same [...]

Association of British Travel Agents (ABTA) recently called on the public’s attention to contact their MPs to dispute on the government’s intention to raise the Air Passenger Duty (APD) or widely known as flying poll tax starting 1 November.
Under the scheme, the amount of tax to be paid will depend on the length of time a passenger takes, which eventually makes huge difference on long haul flights. Consequently, the increase will have direct hit on families that have travel plans to Africa, the Americas, the Caribbean, Asia and Australia.
As an example, a family of four travelling to Nigeria, Pakistan or [...]

Hertz Global Holdings, the largest hire car organisation on the planet, has revealed that its fourth quarter loss has dropped dramatically from the dark times of a year ago. This time last year, the car rental industry was embroiled in a bitter fight to stay afloat as the effects of the global recession weighed heavily on operating costs.
The latest results were above most analyst projections for the period, as were the average earnings per share.
Hertz, which is based in New Jersey at Park Ridge, announced that the fourth quarter loss was just $30.9 million, an equivalent of $0.08 per share. [...]

About 3,500 British Airways (BA) workers, including 1,000 pilots, are ready to work as plane stewards to help ease the potentially disastrous effects of a planned strike by cabin crew. With so many pro-management staff prepared to intervene, it is expected that the UK’s national carrier will still be able to operate limited flight service even if 12,000 of its cabin crew will join the walk out.
 
BA staffs are striking over their jobs, pay and work conditions. Last week, the High Court ruled that the airline had not violated any contract by reducing the number of cabin staff on several [...]

Indian police officers recently questioned two British nationals at a hotel near the Delhi Airport on the grounds of monitoring air traffic communications between the airport’s traffic controllers and pilots.
The Britons have been guests at the Radisson Hotel over the weekend. Upon check-in, they have specifically requested a room that overlooks the airport’s runway.
The men had been found in possession of highly powered binoculars, laptop, cameras and radar-scanning equipment. The Britons, named Steve Ayres and Stephen Hampton, told the investigators that they were not spying and merely like plane spotting, a kind of hobby that is not popular in India.
Rajan [...]

A Greek flight attendant who worked at an Iranian domestic airline has been expelled following a disagreement with a number of in-flight passengers as to the proper name for the Persian Gulf.
An employee with local Kish Airlines, the attendant reportedly engaged in a heated verbal debate during a flight from Tehran to Kish last Friday. The attendant is also alleged to have threatened the passengers with arrest according to local police authorities.
The row stemmed from the airline’s in-flight monitor screen display showing that the Gulf waterway in question was named the Arabian Gulf. Passengers brought the matter to the attention [...]