The Week In Travel

Sights are set on running zero-emission commercial flights from Rotterdam as early as 2025, it has been revealed this week. The project, courtesy of a collaboration between Rotterdam-The Hague Airport, Shell, and sustainable aviation firm ZeroAvia, will see the development of new hydrogen-electric aircrafts at the Netherlands-based airport. The plan is for demonstration flights - to establish routes to other European airports within 250 nautical miles of Amsterdam – to be carried out by 2025.

In the UK, airport security rules will be eased for the first time since 2006 with passengers set to be able to travel with larger quantities of liquid in their cabin bags in just over a year. The UK government has imposed a deadline of June 2024 for airports to install new screening technology which will also enable passengers to keep liquids and electricals in their bags to streamline the process.

Staying in Europe, it has been revealed by IATA this week that just short of two billion passengers passed through European airports last year. Whilst this number (1.94 billion) was twice that of 2021’s total, it still fell short of pre-pandemic numbers by around 20%.

Across the pond, a $1.3 billion expansion plan has been revealed to be in the works for Sacramento International Airport. Improvements will include a new $140 million pedestrian walkway connecting Terminal B to Concourse B, giving passengers the option to walk to their gate rather than accessing the airport’s train system. Works will begin next year and are expected to be completed in 2027.

And finally, Kingsley Burnett from New York was set for the trip of the lifetime after securing a bargain price for a flight to Australia. He was undoubtably confused then, when he touched down in the same country he took off from, in the small town of Sidney, Montana. Rather than the Southern Hemisphere sun and views of the Opera House he was expecting, Kingsley was treated to snow covered mountains and highs of 2C. “It’s a matter of acronyms,” Kingsley protested, “S-Y-D as opposed to S-D-Y, somebody has to fix that.”