Category: Travel

ANKARA (AA): Turkish-German carrier Sun Express will offer a record high capacity of 6.4 million seats inits international flights for summer 2019. The airlines will also significantly expand its flight frequencies between Turkey and Europe, it said in a statement.

Antalya-based SunExpress was founded as a joint venture of Turkish Airlines and Germany’s Lufthansa in 1989. The carrier flies to 90 destinations in more than 30 countries. SunExpress CEO Jens Bischof said that the company will operate direct flights from 16 points in Turkey to 36 destinations in Europe with adding new routes in the upcoming summer.

He remarked that the carrier offered 5 million seats to the touristic regions of Turkey last summer season.

“We will now continue to support Turkish tourism to get back to record breaking numbers in 2019,” said Bischof. The statement also said that the company will also start connecting Dalaman and Bodrum to Europe by March 2019.

The carrier will add new Anatolian destinations to its flight network as direct scheduled flights to Anatolia is the fastest growing market of SunExpress. Pointing the importance of Turkish customers living in Europe, Bischof said: “Compared to last summer, we will offer 30 percent or almost 1 million more seats to this beautiful part of Turkey.”

SYDNEY (CNN): Flying home for the December holidays can be a stressful experience, with passengers carrying gifts for their nearest and dearest as well as their own luggage.

Now Australian airlines have announced a renewed push to enforce hand luggage weight limits at the busiest time of the year.

Both Virgin Australia and Qantas have told domestic passengers that their hand luggage will be weighed at various points in the journey to ensure that it complies with seven-kilogram (15-pound) limit.

Budget airlines such as Tigerair Australia and Jetstar already weigh hand luggage for all passengers.

“As an industry, we’re seeing many passengers trying to bring everything but the kitchen sink on domestic flights which is causing flight delays as well as safety issues for cabin crew, ground crew and passengers,” said Paul Woosnam, General Manager Ground Operations at Virgin Australia, in a statement to CNN.

A Qantas spokeswoman told CNN that regular fliers have told the airline that passengers need to be reminded about the cabin baggage limit

Qantas rolled out a system of stricter checks from late November, while Virgin Australia announced that it would step up enforcement from December 10.

“We’re seeing injuries to our cabin crew caused by closing overhead lockers full of heavy baggage, shifting bags in overhead lockers to assist guests finding space and assisting passengers with lifting their bags into the overhead compartments,” said Woosnam.

“We also want to get our passengers away to their destination on time, and more and more we’re seeing flights being delayed due to cabin baggage issues.”

The drive to improve compliance is supported by the Australian Civil Aviation Safety Authority, which says that “preventing non-compliant hand luggage from entering an aircraft is an important safety role of ground and cabin staff.”

Virgin Australia’s standard allowance includes up to 30 kilograms of luggage, including a checked bag of up to 23 kilograms and a seven-kilogram cabin bag. Each passenger is also allowed a laptop bag, suit bag or handbag.

Domestic Qantas passengers flying in economy class can check in a bag weighing up to 30 kilograms, plus two cabin bags weighing up to seven kilograms each.

The airlines will be putting on extra ground crew as part of the push over the holiday period.

“Christmas is an incredibly busy time of year for us so we do encourage anyone traveling over the holiday period and beyond to familiarize themselves with the carry-on allowances to help get them to their destination safely and on time,” said Woosnam.

ANKARA (AA): Turkey spent 44 billion Turkish liras ($12 billion) for cultural activities in 2017, with 19.4-percent rise from the previous year, the nation’s statistical authority said on Friday.

The government expenditures amounted to 64.2 percent of sum while the rest — 35.8 percent — was spent by private bodies, according to the Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat).

“The ratio of cultural expenditures to gross domestic product remained same in 2017 compared to 1.4 percent in 2016,” the TurkStat said.

General government cultural spending reached 28.3 billion Turkish liras ($7.8 billion) last year, up 26.1 percent on a yearly basis.

The institute said that the cultural expenditures for household increased by 8.7 percent year-on-year to reach 15.3 billion liras in 2017.

Most of the household expenditure was made on television-TV broadcasting with 31.2 percent.

It was followed by books, newspapers and magazines with 14.7 percent, and wired/private TV broadcasting service charges with 12 percent. Data processing equipment got 10.9 percent, while stationery and drawing materials had 10.1 percent and cinema, theater and concert 5.6 percent share.

Cultural goods exports up 28.9 percent

Turkey’s exports of cultural goods rose 28.9 percent from 19.1 billion Turkish liras ($6.3 billion) in 2016 to 24.7 billion Turkish liras ($6.8 billion) in 2017, according to data.

Cultural goods’ share of Turkey’s overall exports was 4.3 percent last year.

Handcrafts took the lion’s share of Turkish cultural good exports in 2017 with generating 17.9 billion Turkish liras ($4.9 billion) of revenue.

 

 

DJIBOUTI (AA): Tourism only contributes 3 percent of GDP in the small Horn of Africa country of Djibouti, and more investment is needed to boost this figure, Djibouti’s top tourism official told reporters on Thursday.

Although Djibouti has a lot to offer tourists, with its sandy beaches, pristine coral reefs, and cultural and historical attractions, dramatic investments in infrastructure facilities are needed to draw visitors and diversify the economy, Osman Abdi Mohammed, the head of Djibouti’s National Tourism Office, said on the sidelines of the second Djibouti International Trade Fair.

With the resumption of Air Djibouti passenger flights in 2016, the 2018 inauguration of the new Addis Ababa-Djibouti Railway, the construction of two new international airports, and the modernization of the current airport, the country has taken important steps to develop its international connectivity, he said.

Djibouti’s economy depends largely on providing port services to its larger neighbor, Ethiopia, which has a population of over 100 million, over 100 times the size of Djibouthi’s.

According to Mohammed, within five years his office plans to increase the number of tourists coming to Djibouti from the current annual figure of 140,000 to half a million.

He added that the government is speaking with Ethiopia about harmonizing the two countries’ tour operation systems.

Separately, high-profile Djibouti officials attended the inauguration of a modern recreational facility by an Ethiopian investor on Thursday.

Tadios Tafesse, the owner of Kuriftu Resorts, said there was a good opportunity for Djibouti and Ethiopia to cooperate in the tourism sector.

 

ANKARA (AA): Turkish airports hosted nearly 197 million passengers on both domestic and international flights in January-November this year, the airport authority reported on Thursday.

The General Directorate of State Airports Authority (DHMI) said the number of passengers passing through Turkish airports in the 11-month period climbed 9.7 percent on a yearly basis.

Official figures showed that 46.7 percent of the total passengers travelled on international flights.

Among 56 airports in the country, Istanbul’s Ataturk Airport on the European side was the most active one with some 63 million passengers — nearly 18 million passengers on domestic flights and 45 million passengers on international flights.

The second busiest airport was Istanbul’s Sabiha Gokcen Airport on the city’s Anatolian side with around 31.5 million passengers, marking a 9-percent hike over the same period.

The airports in in the Mediterranean holiday resort city of Antalya (30.7 million), the capital Ankara (15.6 million), and the Aegean province of Izmir with 12.5 million passengers followed Istanbul’s airports.

DHMI also said that total aircraft traffic in Turkish airspace — including overflights — surged 6 percent to reach 1.87 million flights, while a total of 3.54 million tons of freight — baggage, cargo, mail — was carried in the same period.