Iguana relaxing

Chilling out in Puerto Escondido, Mexico. Trying to emulate the local iguanas, who can bask on a rock motionless for hours, it seems. Myself, I need regular infusions of Corona and Sol to keep me going. Pass the lime.

Boarding pass

Went on my first flight with OpenSkies last month. Being based in London, there hadn’t been much occasion to use the service before. But heading out to New York for a Board meeting, I decided to take the time to make a quick detour via Paris.

The service was excellent in every way. Great seats, food and wine and good service on the ground too. Of particular note was the friendliness and professionalism of crew. Overall, superb.

For more information pop over to the OpenSkies website on https://www.flyopenskies.com/splash

Tailfins

We finally secured approval this week for an immunised deal with our alliance partners American Airlines and Iberia. It has been a long time coming. The final step was to secure approval from the US Department of Transport, which was granted last Tuesday evening, fourteen years after we first attempted to get a deal approved with American.

Better late than never.

M4 Hell

Britain is famous for falling apart at the first sign of snow and this week we really lived up to expectations. For some reason, nobody had bothered gritting the roads before the snow started falling. Perhaps whoever is in charge had engaged Michael Fish as a special weather advisor? Whatever the cause, the SE descended into a frozen wonderland of stationary and abandoned cars. It took me five and a half hours to get from Hounslow to Wokingham and others I have spoken to fared even worse. But I did get home eventually and I suppose if everything worked like it does in Switzerland, we would all be bored and the papers would have nothing to write about.

Shanghai smog from my hotel window

I was away from the UK for 61 hours on my recent trip to Shanghai, travelling out via Tokyo and back via Helsinki. This somewhat less than direct itinerary meant that I spent more than half the elapsed time at airports and on aircraft, giving me only one afternoon and an evening in Shanghai… by no means sufficient to do justice to this most dynamic of world cities.

It is four and a half years since I was last there, and a lot changes in China in that time. What was most noticeable to me was how much worse the smog was. A reminder perhaps of the downsides of China’s enormous and rapid economic development.

Or maybe I was just there on a bad day.

BA1, ready to depart

I was at London City airport this morning to see off the first BA flight to New York. It took me over an hour and a half to get there from my office near Heathrow. Which is the point really – if you live or work on the east side of London, that’s how much advantage you get from using this new service compared to flying from Heathrow.

Lobby feature

We realised that it had been some time since we had escaped for a dose of sun and relaxation by the pool. With only a five day slot in our collective calendars, we were somewhat distance and time zone constrained and settled on a few days in Dubai. It had been over 10 years since we had been there as a family and a lot has changed in that time. We expected big and brash and Dubai delivered… with golden knobs on. We expected hot and got 44°C. We expected some of the best hotels in the world and got palatial rooms, fantastic food and an attached water park, complete with ziggurat. What we didn’t quite expect was how expensive the place has become, for example the cheapest bottle of wine on the menu was £40 and a beer was £8. Ouch.

Where is everybody?

It has been great to exchange the business pressures of surviving the credit crunch for the task of trying to stay upright whilst skiing an expanse of fresh powder. Although I must admit that there are some similarities to the two challenges, on the whole it has been a pleasant escape. However, it was impossible to avoid being constantly reminded of the world’s problems. Whether it was the ease of getting a table in the restaurants or the length of the queues for the lifts, there were signs everywhere of the downturn, even though this must have been one of the busiest weeks of the year. What has certainly not helped is the weakness of the pound: suddenly everything is 30% more expensive for us Brits, and Val d’Isère was far from cheap to start with. At least the shops were running sales, so Amanda and Laura got some rather nice new ski jackets with a 30% discount. That made me feel better, almost.