Yet another wacky, crazy and potentially dangerous dim idea from Michael O’Leary Ryanair Boss intended to save money.

It has been reported that Ryanair the Dublin based airline, is considering scrapping Co-Pilots who are vital for passenger’s safety in the event of the Pilot not being able to fly the plane.

Ryanair boss Michael O’Leary intends to train Flight attendants (Cabin Crew), to be able to fly and land the planes, in case of an emergency and  the Pilot is rendered incapable to fly.

No matter the amount of so called training the Cabin Crew are given, to get them ready to fly and land the planes, it Can not be compared to the experience and skill of a co-pilot. This is backed up by British Airline Pilots’ Association (BALPA) they said that the idea of scrapping co-pilots was “unwise and unsafe”.

It takes nerves of steal, and years of experience to be able to fly and land passengers planes with hundreds of lives, especially in an emergency, where many people will  already be in a panicked state of mind.

The idea from Ryanair boss Michael O’Leary to scrap co-pilots is not the first wacky money saving idea but maybe the most dangerous, and its not goinfg to be the last, previously he suggested charging passengers £1 to spend a penny and introducing seatless planes with passengers hanging on to a handrail during take-off and landing.

I think Michael O’Leary feels invinsable because he has taken a once ragged 15-seat Embraer Bandeirante turboprop aircraft Ryan Family one plane airline flying between Waterford and London Gatwick Airport, to become one of the worlds largest airline, now he thinks he can reinvent everything about air travel.

Love found in a hostel

Single life is not as carefree as it used to be, gone are the days of late nights and not caring. When you get to a certain age you have to say to yourself, that’s enough, get a hold of yourself. That’s what I did two years ago. I was in Amsterdam chilling out, and on the way back to the youth hostel I saw a really cute girl. I went to say Hi and give her the same old chat up lines, she wasn’t interested at all.

So defeated I went back to the Hostel early, well before midnight anyway.

The Amsterdam hostel had a lounge and games room so I decided to stay up and chill out there. Well to cut a long story short, the girl I tried to chat up as staying in the same hostel in the same mixed dorm room, I apologised for the cheesy lines and we started to chat.

We both had a few days left in Amsterdam and we were inseparable after that night.

It may sound strange but that Hostel was the place I found the love of my life, and can you believe I almost stayed in a private room in a nearby hotel, the only reason I didn’t was because it was too expensive. People say things happen for a reason and in this case I must agree.

So if you want to find love or social network the old way, I mean face to face, then book your next holiday accommodation in a hostel, you never know who will be sharing a dorm with you.

Africa is not a country, it’s a continent of 54 Unique and varied countries!

If you live in UK, USA, Europe or Asia, would you be referring to the Country or the continent you live in?

It sounds like an easy question to answer and it is, you are referring to the Continent Right. So why is it that when most people refer to Africa they refer to it as if it’s just a city.

If you said to someone I went on Holiday to Asia or Europe the first question they would think and most probably ask is which country and city, because there are many different countries and even more cities to visit.

But when some mentions Africa the same question is not asked.

To me it’s very annoying and totally unfair.

It’s not just in everyday conversation between friends but also its ingrain in the media, take for example the Coke add for the World cup, they refer to  as an African player who started the trend of celebrating after a goal and Not Roger Milla the Cameroon player.

On the news the reporters often say that they are reporting or speaking from Africa, and not South Africa, Nigeria or Ghana or whichever country they are in.

Reporters don’t ever say here I am Reporting from Europe, they will always say the country and usually even the city they are in.

This is just another way the developed world is sublimely trying to lump together and undermine the African Continent and the 54 countries that make up this great continent.

In know there is one question that some people may be thinking and the answer is NO, I am not of African decent, I just can see clearly that there is an imbalance in the way that Africa is portrayed.

Now that this has been brought to your attentions keep your eyes and ears open and see what I am talking about, you may be surprised at what you hear and see.

54 Countries in Africa

Algeria, Angola, Benin, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Central African Republic, Chad, Comoros, Congo Democratic Republic of the, Congo, Republic of the, Cote d’Ivoire, Djibouti, Egypt, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Gabon, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Kenya, Lesotho, Liberia, Libya, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Mauritania, Mauritius, Morocco, Mozambique, Namibia, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, Sao Tome and Principe, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Somalia, South Africa, Sudan, Swaziland, Tanzania, Togo, Tunisia, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe

Is this a Bike Rental revolution in London

London has followed in the foot steps of other cities such as Amsterdam, Paris and Cardiff and now Londoners and visitors can rent one of 6,000 rental bikes.

Once all the usual personal and credit card information is provided you can rent a bike, if you’re going on a short trip of less than 30 minutes then its free to use the bikes, any time longer than that up to a couple of hours then you pay an additional fee which is quite expensive, and for any time longer than a couple of hours the traditional bike rental option is a much better choice.

To use the cycles there are two fees that need to be paid
1.    Access Fee that allows you to use the Cycle scheme for a certain amount of time depending on how much you pay.
£1    24 Hours Access is
£5    7 Days Access is
£45  Annual

2.    Usage Charge – This fee is determined on the time between picking up and returning a Cycle
FREE  Up to 30 minutes
£1        Up to an hour
£4        Up to one and a half hours
£6        Up to two hours
£10      Up to two and a half hours
£15      Up to four hours
£35      Up to six hours
£50      Up to 24 hours (maximum)

Other Charges
Membership key - £3 each to release the cycles easily and quickly. You will need to pay the £3 Membership key fee for each key you request (up to 4 keys)

One thing that must be remembered is to leave enough time to find a parking space in one of the bike rental bays otherwise you will be stuck with a hefty £150 let return fee, and a definite no, no is to leave the bike outside a shop while you nip in for some bread and milk, because if the bike is damaged or stolen you will liable to pay up to £300 to cover the loss or damage.

All in all the new London Barclays Cycle Hire is expensive compared to normal bike rental services and public transportation, but if you fancy a quick ride and can get somewhere and park your bike within 30 minutes then its worth a try for free, well it will £4 (24 Hour Access Fee £1, Membership Key £3)

What is quite ironic is that even on the Transport for London website they even state:
“To hire for more than a couple of hours it might be cheaper for you to use a company that specialises in hiring for longer periods.”

It is even cheaper to hire a car for 24 Hours then a London Cycle which would be £54 (24 Hour Access Fee £1, Membership Key £3 and £50 for 24 Hour Usage Fee)

To give you an idea of how expensive the London Cycle hire actually is, £54 for 24hours could hire you:
Smart Car £29.99
Ford Fiesta £41.98
VW Polo £48.99
Ford Focus £48.99
VW Golf £50.98

And it’s worth remembering that the cars can carry more than one person, and there’s no sweat and getting wet in the rain.

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Virgin Atlantic Flight, due to travel from London to Newark, was diverted to Bradley Airport.

About 300 travellers were forced to spend over 4 nightmare hours on the tarmac at Bradley Airport USA, with no food, drink or air conditioning, after their flight from London to Newark, New York, USA was diverted due to bad weather.

 According to the passengers, almost as soon as the Virgin Atlantic flight landed at Bradley airport USA, the planes generator shut down which meant that the Air Conditioning on the plane failed to work, the heat began to rise in the planes cabin, sending the temperature up to 100 degrees.

The 4 nightmare was made worse for some passengers as the sweltering heat caused some people to faint and one male traveller was taken to hospital for dehydration.

The 3 hour limit on passengers being kept on the tarmac on a plane in USA did not apply to this Virgin Atlantic flight, as the law does not apply to non US carriers.

What travel critic finds difficult to understand is why passengers have to be kept in these inhuman conditions that are not even fit for animals.

Even if the air conditioning on the plane was working and there was sufficient food and water, it’s still not good enough to have been kept for hours on the plane, passengers paid to travel from London to Newark Airport, not to be kept on the tarmac in the wrong airport.

But on this Virgin Atlantic plane there was no Air conditioning on the plane, and not sufficient food and water, the passengers should have been let off the plane much quicker without waiting for them to suffer and start falling ill before they did something.

Travellers are charged for everything, and it’s become a fact of life that there are a lot of extra charges for travellers and tourists to pay now days, from the most obvious ones like baggage charges on budget airline flights and room service in Hotels. To the hidden ones that might be missed unless you’re looking carefully at your bills.

Some of the most overlooked service charges are in Hotels, small amounts of money that can quickly add up, but can also be easily missed unless you check your bill carefully before paying on Check Out and checking the terms and conditions before checking in.

As a norm you should be informed of the cost of things before they are charged, but sometimes this is not the case, what some hotels do is to say some items and services are chargeable and are to be paid for on check out, this means they are not required to list every single thing that is chargeable, because technically you have been informed that there may be additional charges, the problem with this is you don’t know which items and services are free and which are chargeable

Some of the things to look out for are Service charges for tea/coffee facilities in the room, welcome basket and when you take towels to the pool and don’t return them.

Talking about pools one fee that most people would not expect are called Resort Fees, this is a daily fee automatically added to your bill in some hotel resorts accommodation, for things that you might expect to be complimentary, like access to a pool or fitness centre and daily newspapers supplied. You need to check if there is a Resort Fee before you check in and dispute it then, because after check in, most hotels will not waive or reduce the resort fee.

Another fee that is very tricky, is a new type of mini bar in some hotels. As some people like to remove all the expensive mini bar items supplied by the hotel and keep them to one side, they then refill the fridge with cheaper drinks and sweets from the local shop, the only thing you need to be careful about is now some hotels have a new type of mini bar with pressure sensitive points where all the items are kept in the min bar, as soon as you life the items up they are automatically charges to your room even if you replace them later.

An Extra cost that a lot of people disregard is tipping the Bellman when checking in or out, the thing is that most people are just being lazy and could have taken the bags them self and saved their money, another tip to avoid paying a bellman is to make sure you have a suitcase with wheels and a shoulder bag, then you can easily carry your own luggage.

In conclusion, there are a lot of things that can easily bump up the cost of your Flight, Accommodation and Holiday so here are some top tips to save money

Flights

Check what is including in your flight ticket before you book and pay, take into account, taxes, baggage charges, are meals and drinks included, do you have to pay for pillows and blankets onboard, are ear phones free, because after all the added charges it may be almost the same cost to pay for a normal airline rather than a budget airline.

Accommodation

When deciding on what type of accommodation to stay in on holiday remember that sometimes a budget Hotel, Guesthouse or Youth Hostel might be a better option to a 3 star or above rated hotel, as you are not going on holiday to stay in an expensive hotel room.

Food

If you’re the type of person that gets the munchies at night, or during the day, its always best to plan ahead and stock up with your own snacks from a local shop, of crisps, nuts, sweets and drinks or whatever you like, its easy to keep a bag of goodies in your room or with you during the day to stop yourself buying expensive things from the hotels mini bar or near tourists sights where things are always more expensive, after all who likes to pay $5 USD for a can of drink or £3.50 for a bottle of water, when you could have bought at least 4 for the same price if you had gone to a local shop.

Luggage

Always travel light, I know it sounds easier that what is actually is, but here’s a helpful tip; pack your suitcase in advance, then unpack it and think whether you really need everything you packed, remove what is not necessary, usually you will find that some things are not needed, this stops excess baggage charges and bellman tips, as you can easily carry your lighter luggage on your own.

Be aware

When away from home you should use your common sense and be aware of what is going on around you even more than at home, everyone wants to relax and unwind on holiday, after all you have worked hard and everyone deserves a break, but you also don’t want to be taken advantage of, or pay through the nose for everything.

Using your Common Sense is the key to a happy, enjoyable and cost affective holiday.

By Hostels247.com Travel Blog

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The Planned BA cabin crew Strike Action due to begin at Mid Night Tonight has been stopped by a High Court injunction by BA in London.

The reason being, that the Trade Union Unite did not inform all their voting members about the results of the ballot that was taken to decide whether to strike.

All voting union members of unite should have been  informed the total number of votes, and the breakdown for number of votes for Strike action, the number of votes against strike action and the number of spoilt ballots, in this case not all the voting members were informed of results of ballot.

The courts therefore ruled that strike action was not legal and stopped the cabin crews planned strike action and put high court injunction to prevent 5 day strike action.

This is the 2^nd time courts come to aid of BA and stopped strike action by BA cabin crew. All Industrial action taken by members of a trade union, needs to comply with the law.

In this case they did not comply and the strike action has been stopped due to a technicality, unions must abide by the law and follow all rules, just like employer must comply to duty of care of its staff.

BA said they are delighted with the courts ruling

The Trade Union Unite is going to launch an appeal tomorrow about the ruling of the courts stopping the strike, stating it is the right of the BA Cabin Crew to take strike action.

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The long awaited launch of www.hostels247.com new website has finally gone live today, Monday 3 May 2010.

The new user friendly easy to navigate hostels247.com website, looks fresh and clean and has all the usual information and eye catching pictures, to help our customers navigate the site with ease, the inner workings of the site has been greatly improved and that’s were the most exciting new things have happened, to make booking hostels and budget accommodation easy.

The New colour scheme of blues and greys, with accents of red and yellow, is easy on the eye and doesn’t distract from the key features of the pages which are the search box, which has been improved to make finding your accommodation easier and faster.

Once you search for your hostel, bed & breakfast or budget hotel accommodation from the search box, the results page has clear easy to understand green boxes for accommodation with availability, at the top of the results page and closer to the bottom red boxes for hostels and budget hotels accommodation that are sold out for the selected dates.

Clicking on the hostel or budget accommodation that you have chosen takes you straight to the accommodations listing page with the availability chart already open so you can see the room types and prices for each room. Customers are now able to book multiple rooms, and also see the total price and 10% deposit due before you go to the confirm booking page, this is a new feature on the site and of course there is No Booking Fee when booking with hostels247.com and no additional fees to use Credit or Debit cards.

To change the dates or the number of nights stay there is no need to click backward or go to another page because on top of the availability chart there are drop down menus to change the arrival date and the number of nights stay.

The secure online booking page to pay the 10% deposit has also been redesigned to be more stream lined and user friendly. The Booking details are located on the left of the page and then on the right is the requested Personal and Payments details required to confirm the booking.

The new www.hostels247.com site combines new eye candy design, colour and user friendly features, with high tech innovative back end workings, making booking hostels and budget accommodation easy, hassle free and a pleasure rather than a chore.

by hostels247.com news   group accommodation

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If you don’t like the colour orange and crowds, then 29 & 30 April, is not the best time to travel to, or to be in Amsterdam or anywhere in Netherlands!

Across Holland people are celebrating Koninginnedag, which is Dutch for Queens Day, the time everyone in Netherlands celebrates the Queens birthday, and its also day of national unity and “togetherness” for Dutch people.

During the celebrations people wear something orange and the cities are also decorated with orange balloons and banners, this is done reference to the colours of the House of Orange-Nassau, its also referred to as the Orange craze

Queens Day celebration is the premier event in Netherlands and attracts millions of people from all over Europe and the World every year.

The tradition started on 31 August 1885, on the birthday of Princess Wilhelmina, later Queen Wilhelmina. Since 1949, after the ascension of Queen Juliana, Queen’s Day is Queen Juliana’s birthday on 30 April. Although Queen Beatrix’s birthday is on 31 January, she officially celebrates her birthday on 30 April.

The largest celebrations for Queens Day takes place in Amsterdam, every year the city is packed with locals and tourists all enjoying the festivities, the streets of Amsterdam are turned into one of the biggest street parties, with Music, dancing, and performers to rival the best carnivals worldwide.

Amsterdam hostels, Bed & Breakfast, Guesthouse and hotels accommodation are always fully booked for a long time in advance and all the restaurants, bars and cafes are packed.

No matter where you go in Holland during the Queens Day celebrations, from Amsterdam and Rotterdam, to Utrecht, Eindhoven and Edmond, orange can be seen everywhere.

Queens Day celebrations have a similar atmosphere to a carnival, with the streets packed with revellers dressed in orange and many bars and clubs organising special parties and events

If you want to join the celebrations next year be sure to book your travel and accommodation well in advance, unless if you enjoy sleeping outside.

By Hostels247.com Blog

Rumors are flying that Google could be preparing to purchase one of the most influential travel software firms in the world.For all those wondering about the importance of another rumored Google purchase of a firm largely unknown by the general public - this time of travel software firm ITA - perhaps the size of the deal is an indicator of the potential impact.

Reports suggesting that Google is in talks to purchase ITA have given a figure of $1 billion (€747 million), not far behind the $1.65 billion (€1.23 billion) price tag the search giant paid for YouTube.

Of course, Google doesn’t just throw that sort of money around - while most consumers will have never heard of ITA, the company powers some of today’s household names and a reported 65 percent of online airline bookings.

So if you’ve ever used Fly.com, Hotwire, Orbitz, or TripAdvisor for price comparison, chances are you’ve used ITA’s software. If you’ve booked direct from carriers such as Continental, American Airlines or Alitalia, the prices were probably generated by ITA software. And crucially, if you’ve ever searched for a flight on Microsoft’s Bing - well, ITA was probably behind that too.

Owning the Cambridge, Massachussets-based ITA would instantly elevate Google to one of the leading players in the travel “meta-search” market, which is rapidly becoming travelers’ preferred way to book tickets.

At the most basic level, the deal would give the search giant the information that it needs to offer instant fare information next to search results for flights, in much the same way as hotel prices have now been integrated into Google Maps.

But the software that ITA produces could potentially be used for much more. It offers the ability to plan trips based around event listings in select cities, for instance, potentially integrating with Google’s other offerings such as Google Calendar to allow full travel “packages” to be sold.

It can also process booking changes, seat selections and online check-in for airlines (both online and through mobile devices), giving Google the chance to provide richer information on departures for travelers through its portal and location-based offerings.

Airlines use ITA software to track their spare seats and calculate pricing accordingly - potentially this information could be integrated with other Google services such as AdWords to ensure that flights are fully booked, every time, before departure.

Speaking at a travel technology summit in London on April 20, the Google UK Managing Director said that Google has no intention of being a “travel agent or tour operator.”

But with such powerful travel technology potentially joining its arsenal, it seems likely that Google is set to be a prominent player in travel.