Road Warrior - who will get Cuban air routes? Turkey’s new airport, hotel cancellation fees, DUB tops passenger satisfaction results

US carriers vie for 10 Cuban air routes, biggest airport in the world for Istanbul, Hilton tries cancellation charges.

Dublin Airport: rated number one for passenger service in the 15-25 million passenger category
Dublin Airport: rated number one for passenger service in the 15-25 million passenger category

110 air routes from US to Cuba to be decided The battle for Cuban air routes begins with the announcement that there will be 110 flights a day to the Caribbean island from the United States.

Twenty of those slots will be to Havana, with the balance to nine other airports around the island. Carriers American, Delta, United, Jetblue, Southwest and Spirit will all vie for routes.

Airlines had to submit a detailed proposal with flight numbers, aircraft type, cargo capacity and city ranking by March 2nd.

General tourism is not yet included in the categories for travel to Cuba.

READ MORE

President Barack Obama will visit Cuba on March 21st and 22nd.

Hotels set to bring in cancellation charges Cancellation charges are coming to the hotel industry. Hilton tried a pilot scheme in November, charging customers $50 for late cancellations, and they hated it.

Chief executive Christopher Nassetta said the company implemented the programme in "a really blunt-force way" to gauge customer reactions.

“Customers hated it, but that’s not really surprising,” he said, during the company’s fourth-quarter earnings call. “We knew they would, but we did get some nuanced intelligence out of the experience.”

In other words, expect cancellations fee at some time in the future when Hilton has figured out how to implement them and watch other hotel companies follow suit. Dublin Airport rates top in passenger service Dublin Airport has been rated number one for passenger service in the 15-25 million passenger category. It beat 14 other airports in the results announced by the Airports Council International.

"A few short years ago, Dublin Airport was rock bottom in its peer group of airports surveyed in ACI's service quality rankings," according to airport managing director Vincent Harrison.

"Since then, we were determined to improve our customers' experience of the airport and we have done that every year to get to this top spot." Turkey plans to build world's biggest airport Turkey plans to build the biggest airport in the world on a site about 40km from Istanbul. Istanbul Yeni Havalimani is expected to handle up to 90 million passengers in its first years. It will also put Istanbul on the map as the largest hub airport too.

The first phase will cover 11 million square feet. It is also expected to have the largest duty-free shop in the world. Turkish Airlines has expanded hugely in recent years and will continue to grow to fill this new airport.

Turkish Airlines has two flights a day from Dublin to Istanbul, with 86 per cent of the passengers travelling to onward destinations on the network.