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4 main airports getting virtual fences
After the thwarted terror plot at John F. Kennedy International earlier this month, officials at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey revealed details about an ongoing project to erect virtual fences around its four main airports: JFK, LaGuardia, Newark Liberty and Teterboro. Designed by Raytheon and modeled after a fence around the Ben-Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv, Israel, it’ll be equipped with sensors, video motion detectors, thermal imagers and closed-circuit television. It will transmit information to a central Port Authority police station and a command post at each airport. The project, begun in 2006, will cost $138 million and be completed next year.
Airport Check-in: An ‘automated convenience store’ coming to DFW
Dallas/Fort Worth International will begin testing a retail concept familiar to Europeans and Asians but almost unknown in the USA: a mega vending machine with something for every kind of traveler. Shop24, a New Zealand company, will install its first airport unit on July 11 at DFW’s Terminal A near Gate 29. The 13-foot-wide “automated convenience store” will offer more than 200 items, including meals, phone cards, condoms, diapers, curling irons, coloring books, umbrellas and blood pressure monitors.
Tool allows fliers to book via mobile devices
Travel Weekly (free registration) reports that a new tool “for business travelers now enables them to book air, hotel and car reservations from mobile devices.” The TripSync mobile booking tool, produced by a company called Portaga, integrates “with Microsoft Outlook, enabling groups of travelers at a corporation to view and coordinate itineraries through the e-mail calendar,” according to Travel Weekly. The TripSync tool will soon switch from the Sabre global distribution system (GDS) to Galileo for inventory access.
Finnair to offer texting, e-mail on some flights
Starting next month, passengers on Finland’s Finnair will be able to send mobile text messages and e-mails on some of the carrier’s flights to Asia, The Associated Press reports. “The service will become possible on satellite telephones provided at each seat of the airline’s new Airbus A340 aircraft, to be delivered in June. It will first be available on routes from Helsinki to the Japanese cities of Tokyo and Nagoya, and Shanghai. Passengers will be able to read and answer messages and mail sent from the ground. Each sent or received message will cost $2, the Finnish carrier said. Passengers will be able to call each other during flights,” AP writes.
Airbus approved for onboard cellphone system
European planemaker Airbus said Tuesday it had received approval from European aviation authorities for an onboard mobile phone system.
In a statement, Airbus said it was the first aircraft maker to win approval from the European Aviation Safety Agency for an on-board system for cellphones that use the European GSM technology.
Passengers will be able to make and receive calls and send and receive e-mails and text messages once the system is in place, Airbus said.
Cabin crew will be able to engage a "voice-off" mode which only allows SMS text messaging and e-mail services, Airbus noted.
The service will first be available on Airbus' single-aisle planes for short-haul flights in western Europe, following the granting of airworthiness certification.
The service has already been tested by a couple of European airlines.
"This certification is Airbus' first response to the growing market demand for on-board connectivity," Rainer von Borstel, Airbus senior vice president for cabin and cargo customization, said in the statement.
"It paves the way for the subsequent worldwide deployment of cellphone services and Internet based services across all Airbus aircraft types," he added.
OnAir, a joint venture between Airbus and SITA, an information-technology company serving airlines, will act as the service provider for a range of connectivity services.
The announcement came as Airbus is pulling in plane orders at the Paris Air Show this week in a boost to the struggling planemaker and its parent company European Aeronautic Defence and Space Co.
U.S. regulators ban cellphone use aboard planes because of potential interference with the aircraft's electronics.
Contact Les, at: lesmcclure@comcast.net
| July, 2007 | |
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