London flats set for 10% dip as supply exceeds demand
Are co-pilots on short-haul flights necessary?
Ryanair boss Michael O'Leary wants to use just one pilot per flight as part of his drive to save costs at the budget airline
We still need to curb casino banks, says Vince Cable
Hollywood roles help LEGOs star performance
Ryanair boss aims to axe 'unnecessary' co-pilots
Ryanair chief Michael O'Leary will seek permission from aviation authorities to have just one pilot on shorter flights
Ryanair boss Michael O'Leary wants to use just one pilot per flight as part of his ongoing drive to save costs at the budget airline.
O'Leary said he intends to write to aviation authorities for permission to use only one pilot per flight because he believes co-pilots are unnecessary in modern jets, the Financial Times reported today.
The airline boss, who has previously considered standing tickets on flights, as well as charging for the use of toilets, conceded that two pilots would be needed on long-haul flights, but said on shorter trips that flight attendants could do the job.
In an interview he said the second pilot was only there to "make sure the first fella doesn't fall asleep and knock over one of the computer controls".
He backed up his comments by adding that trains were allowed to have one driver even though this could conceivably cause a crash in the event of a heart attack. He said: "It could save the entire industry a fortune. In 25 years with over about 10 million flights we've had one pilot who suffered a heart attack in flight and he landed the plane."
But industry experts have labelled the proposal "unwise". A spokesman for the British Airline Pilots Association said: "This is just a bid for publicity. His suggestion is unsafe and his passengers would be horrified."
O'Leary frequently courts controversy with his attempts to cut costs at Ryanair. This year he raised the baggage charge for the summer holiday season and, following the volcano ash cloud crisis, initially capped the level of compensation to passengers. He later bowed to EU pressure and agreed to pay out costs to customers affected by the eruption.
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
Ask Tom
This week, Lonely Planet's Tom Hall offers expert advice on experiencing Bolivia's salt flat, New Zealand for New Year and malaria-free exotic breaks
I have been looking for a location I once saw on a travel programme. It's one of the most extraordinary places in the world. I'm not sure what country it's in but, in an attempt to describe what I saw, I would say it's a desert location maybe - the ground reflected the sky so although you are walking on a solid surface it appears as though you are in a state of limbo.
Adyam Markos
The near-unanimous verdict of colleagues who I consulted about this was that the place is Bolivia's Salar de Uyuni. This is the world's largest salt flat, covering an area of just over 4,000 square miles and sitting at an altitude of 12,000ft (3,657 metres), and when covered with water becomes one giant mirror. This is when many of the other-worldly photos you may have seen will have been taken.
Gap Adventures (08444 10 10 30; gapadventures.com) offer a 25-day Andes to the Atlantic Experience from 16 September-10 October 2010 for £1,589. Highlights include La Paz, Salar de Uyuni, Potosí, Sucre, Santa Cruz, the Pantanal wetlands, Iguazú Falls and Rio de Janeiro. The price includes a three-day 4WD excursion to the Salar de Uyuni and a two-day wildlife excursion to the Pantanal, transport, accommodation, some meals and local guides.
There are other places where you might get a similar visual effect – the Bonneville salt flats in Utah, where world land-speed records are usually attempted and the Etosha salt pan in Namibia.
I am flying with Continental Airlines from London to Cartagena (Colombia) via Newark and Bogota. The return flight departs from Cartagena and goes via Panama City and Newark. Since booking the flights, I have decided that I would like to sail from Cartagena to Panama and, therefore, approached the airline to cancel the first leg of the return journey and requested that I depart from Panama City instead.
The airline have confirmed that it will cost £75 plus the difference in ticket price (currently £100) to change the flight. Are they able to charge this even though I will be flying fewer air miles? What happens if I don't change anything but just try to check in in Panama?
Alexa Whitehead
Continental's terms and conditions say that they will "reroute a passenger at the passenger's request and upon presentation of the ticket or portion thereof then held by the passenger plus payment of any applicable fees, charges, and fare differentials." What this means is that there are charges for any changes to an issued ticket, provided the change was made after 24 hours from the time of your booking. These will usually reflect any change in fare and taxes, plus an administration charge from the airline. In this case, the latter fee is £75.
Since the cost of a fare is determined by more than how far the plane has to fly, and varies according to the date of travel and how busy it is when you book, it is possible that you are trying to fly on a shorter but more expensive flight. Therefore while this fee seems illogical the airline can charge more. As many readers will know, you could be in a worse position as many airlines would under these circumstances only be able to cancel your ticket and issue you with a new one.
Don't risk turning up at Panama City and trying to board the plane there. Chances are you'll be marked as a no-show in Cartagena and not be able to get on the plane, or have to buy a new ticket to do so.
My boyfriend and I are planning a three-week trip away, either at Christmas and New Year or the first three weeks of January 2011. We were planning to go to New Zealand but the flight prices look too steep. Do you have suggestions for somewhere equally as stunning, with good weather but flight prices at around £700 mark rather than the £1k prices we've been seeing for NZ?
Mollie Lewis
Early and mid January is not a cheap month to travel, as it coincides with the summer holidays in the southern hemisphere. If you can postpone your trip until the start of February, you will find airfares drop dramatically. A £1,000 return fare to Auckland in January isn't a bad price. I took a sample of fares across January on Expedia going from London to Auckland. While I was quoted upwards of £1,250 for early January departures, as soon as I searched for February dates the price was as low as £850 with Royal Brunei Airlines, going via Dubai and Bandar Seri Begawan.
Alternatives will have similarly inflated airfares in January, and nowhere has quite the same combination of attractions that New Zealand has. I found some £831 fares to Melbourne, Australia with well-regarded Qatar Airways, from where you could pick up a cheap flight with the likes of Jetstar (jetstar.com) to Hobart or Launceston in Tasmania. The island is green and very scenic and there are some superb hikes including the South Coast Track. Tasmania (discovertasmania.co.uk) is also home to some wonderful beaches and wineries and has a fascinating colonial history. I was lucky enough to visit a few years ago for the Guardian and there are some suggestions in my article. There's not three weeks' worth of things to do here so consider spending a little time exploring Victoria (visitvictoria.com), possibly following the Great Ocean Road. If the flight has to come in at under £700 you could get an open-jaw flight into one Central American city and out of another. One option is to fly into Guatemala City and out of Tegucigalpa in Honduras, visiting Mayan temples, Belize's beaches and Honduras' Bay Islands.
Note that parts of Christchurch's central business district are currently off limits following the earthquake, but that the rest of the city and the South Island is operating as normal, including Christchurch airport. See newzealand.com for daily updates.
Since it is generally advised that pregnant women shouldn't take anti-malaria pills, where can a pregnant woman go for one last exotic beach/snorkelling/exploration holiday? Central America would have been great, but for the mosquitos.
Joel
Assuming that you don't want to risk visiting areas with even a limited risk of malaria transmission, this rules out a huge swathe of the world, mostly between the tropics and neatly counting out most of the places that fit the bill, based on what you're after. Most, but not all. Much of Brazil, except for Amazonian areas, is malaria-free, and there are huge swathes of coast that would be suitable for you including the beautiful archipelago of Fernando de Noronha, areas of which made Gavin McOwan's top 10 beaches last year. Cuba also has no risk of malaria. Voyager Cuba offers tailor-made trips (voyagercuba.co.uk). Lastly, one of the most fashionable destinations of the past few years is Oman, whose mix of upmarket resorts, historic cities and some excellent snorkelling and diving fit the bill. Destination Oman (destinationoman.com) can give you some more ideas.
Tom Hallguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
Acquisitions see half-year sales soar at Alliance Pharma
Troubled Thorntons set to name new chief executive
Foster's turns down $2.5bn bid for wine business
Richemont luxuriates in a 37% revenues leap
Dana: £240m buy puts firm above Korean bid
Cape profit jumps 17.5% as it restarts dividend payments
Barratt says housing market remains tough
House prices have stabilised, says Halifax
BP blames American company for Gulf oil spill
Country diary: St Ives, Cornwall
The procession of bards wends its way through narrow streets in St Ives. From the Guildhall they pass St Ia's church, whose pillars are garlanded in hops, the lifeboat station, harbour, cafes, ice-cream and pasty shops, art galleries, gift shops, holiday lets and crowds of bemused visitors, en route to the Island, the site of this year's Gorsedd. There, yntra deu vor (with sea on each hand) the gathering of blue-robed bards attracts spectators perched on rocks and grass below the chapel of St Nicholas. This chapel was used as a watch house and landmark by fishermen before the War Office set about demolishing it in 1904; protests led to its restoration in 1911.
Inland and out to sea is hazy and dull but this shore is brightened by fleeting sunlight, which glistens on the adjacent Porthmeor beach while also enhancing the blueness of the circle of bards and reflecting on their copper regalia. Today's ceremony includes the introduction of a recently forged sword, carried in two halves by a Breton and a Cornish bard, and presented whole to the delegate from Wales to symbolise links between the three Celtic countries. Before the sound of harp and pipes heralds the bards' arrival, people gather around stalls selling books about Cornwall's history and language. The Guild of Cornish Hedgers displays photos of old walls, hedge banks and stitches (remnants of medieval strip fields) which contribute to distinctive landscapes; there are references to dialect words still associated with traditional hedge-building like batter, ram, rab hard and tob off. Tros an Treys, a group of dancers dressed in red and black perform a serpent dance, and the local concert band's music mingles with the sound of waves and gulls.
Virginia Spiersguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
Feel the heat: Paris Métro to warm flats
A zero-carbon heating initiative in Paris plans to harness hot air generated by underground travel to warm up nearby homes
Warmth generated by sweaty passengers as they commute on the Paris Métro may be used to heat a block of low-income flats located near the Pompidou Centre in the city centre. This could slash the building's energy bill and carbon footprint by a third, according to the property's owner.
The temperature in nearby Rambuteau Métro station stays at a toasty 14-20C degrees all year round thanks to the heat generated by passengers, trains and other machinery. Paris Habitat-OPH, the owners of the building, plan to use the underground heat to warm up water as it courses through pipes. It will then be pumped to the surface into an underfloor heating system in the block of flats.
"It's a huge source of free, zero-carbon heat so it couldn't make more sense," said Dr Patrick James, a researcher at the University of Southampton's School of Civil Engineering and the Environment. "I guess the only problem will be if there's a train strike in the winter, in which case they'll need a back-up source of heat."
The UK is currently considering similar projects. "By 2016, all new residential buildings will need to be zero carbon, so people are definitely starting to think about innovative ways to heat buildings," he said. Heating accounts for roughly two-thirds of the average UK home's carbon emissions.
Normally, it would be prohibitively expensive to hook up a building's heating system to a subway. "You'd have to dig up roads and it just wouldn't be cost effective," said Dan Phillips, head of sustainability at environmental engineering firm Buro-Happold. It only works here because the flats are connected to the subway by an old stairwell which can house the new pipes bringing the heated water to the surface.
Engineering companies will be invited to bid for the contract by the end of the year and Paris Habitat-OPH hopes to start construction in 2011.
Paris is not the first city to attempt such a feat. Heat generated by Central Station in Stockholm is used to heat an office building. And in Oslo, heat is captured from sewerage and used to heat the city.
- Carbon footprints
- Carbon emissions
- Climate change
- Ethical and green living
- Rail transport
- Paris
- Rail travel
- Green building
- Energy
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
Deadly flood threat hangs over French Alpine village
Scientists are racing to prevent a build-up of water under a glacier on Mont Blanc from flooding the village of Saint-Gervais
Viewed from up here, the world of man appears very small and vulnerable. The Tête-Rousse glacier, hovering between sky and earth at an altitude of 3,200 metres, dominates the scene splendidly. It is a magnificent panorama of infinite horizons, the perfect silence interrupted only by sound of the climbers' crampons as they start the ascent to Aiguille du Goûter, the normal route up Mont Blanc. Facing us, the Aravis range and the Chablais Alps break up the horizon, while in the valley below, tiny chalets appear to be clinging to the mountainside.
But the serenity is deceptive. In the core of the glacier lies a silent threat that could, without warning, destroy the village of Saint-Gervais below. Trapped under the glacier lies an enormous 65,000 cubic metre pocket of water – the equivalent of 20 Olympic swimming pools – that could burst and surge down on to the village below. "It's impossible to predict when that might happen," said Christian Vincent from the Grenoble Laboratory of Glaciology and Geophysical Environment. He is here to carry out a regular temperature check at Tête-Rousse.
The 75 metre-deep glacier covers 8 hectares of a rocky basin. Early this summer, several boreholes were pierced with a high-pressure hot water drill and special sensors introduced on to the bedrock. Using a snow shovel, the scientist clear the markers that show where these were placed and note down the temperatures. "Precise knowledge of a glacier's temperatures is vital to understanding how these water pockets are formed," Vincent explains.
The danger may be invisible but it is real enough. One such disaster remains in Saint-Gervais's collective memory. In 1892, 80,000 cubic metres of water that had collected in a sub-glacial cavity burst through the ice "cork" that was holding it in. A torrential flow of water tore down rocks and trees in its path and buried Saint-Gervais in mud and debris, leaving 175 dead.
According to the current mayor, Jean-Marc Peillex, far greater damage would be caused now, "due to urbanisation and the large number of tourists visiting the glacier". As many as 900 houses could be swept away.
The alarm was first sounded in 2007, when the thickness of the ice was measured by radar. "Nobody thought there might be water under the glacier," Vincent said. "But the images showed something abnormal about 10 metres above the bedrock."
In 2009 this was confirmed by proton nuclear magnetic resonance, a technique similar to a medical MRI scan. It proved that an enormous pocket of water – or possibly several pockets – was locked deep inside Tête-Rousse. The reason for the water collecting lies in climate warming. But paradoxically – grassroots science being more complex than theoretical models – this has led to a cooling of the lower part of the glacier. The probable process, as described by Vincent, is that the water from thawing in the upper part of the glacier trickles down on to the bedrock though micro-fissures until it finds an outlet.
In the case of Tête-Rousse, the warming observed over the past decades has reduced the thickness of the snow cover (the firn, which provides thermal protection), and to a greater extent in the lower part of the glacier than in the upper part.
As a result, during a recent cold snap, the thinner spur of ice below cooled more rapidly than the ice at the glacier's summit (there being a difference of more than 2C between the two), resulting in the formation of a dam that blocked the water trickling down from above. However, being unable to find an outlet, the water has accumulated and now the pressure is rising – and threatening to burst like a pressure cooker.
A scientific report issued in July by three Grenoble laboratories concluded that it was necessary to pump the water out the sub-glacial cavity as soon as possible. A warning system, costing $640,000, was immediately set up. Two metal cables were placed across the glacier, which, if broken, would trigger a siren in the valley below. The nearest inhabitants have been informed about the 17 rallying points on high ground, and would have 10 minutes to reach the nearest one if the alarm sounds.
The pumping of Tête-Rousse began last month. Powerful boring machines and pumps were transported by helicopter to the glacier. The water will be pumped out within a month and gradually released. The whole operation will cost $2.5m, 80% of which will be paid for by the French government and the European Union.
Is that the end of the story? "In a year or two we will have to check if the pocket is filling up again," says Vincent. "If that is the case, we will have to consider boring a permanent channel to drain the water." Models show that the water collected in just two years.
Reservoir formation under glaciers is a rare phenomenon. But with global warming these risks are increasing, such as the collapse of surface ice and, with the receding permanent snowline, the formation of proglacial lakes whose natural barriers will give way, up there between earth and sky.
Keeping the lights onIn Chamonix, climate change is also a reality for EDF, the French electricity giant. The Mer de Glace glacier has been retreating fast in recent years and is threatening the sub-glacial water intake in the Les Bois hydroelectric power plant.
When this plant came on stream in 1973, the intake took place 200 metres under the ice. In spring 2009, it was out in the open, and, to make matters worse, covered by a mass of glacial rock and sediment following a number of storms.
EDF now has to maintain electricity production while carrying out the work needed to adapt to the new circumstances – and keeping the Les Bois plant "at the highest level of environmental integration".
Not without reason: the 12km Mer de Glace is the longest French glacier and something of a national treasure.
The stakes for the Haute-Savoie region are considerable. The Bois hydroelectric plant produces 113m kWh per year, mostly during the thaw, which is the domestic consumption of 50,000 inhabitants, or a town the size of Annecy.
However, the glacier has been retreating at a rate of about 30 metres a year since 2003. "And the pace has increased in the past few years," said an EDF official. At the Rochers de Mottets level, for instance, ice thickness has been falling by between eight and 10 metres a year since 2004.
"We anticipated this situation, and after some research, we decided to move the intake upstream in the glacier under 100 metres of ice, which won't change anything to the scenery or the tourism business," said EDF, before launching the $19m project. Work started in 2008 on an underground channel to divert the water permanently to the new intake area – no easy matter under such difficult geographic and climatic conditions. The installation is due to come on stream in the spring.
Meanwhile, a temporary solution was found by digging a channel a few dozen metres long to emerge below the glacier. That will provide sufficient water to feed the plant until 2011.
This article originally appeared in Le Monde
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
