Travel

Philippine Airlines (PAL) has finalised a purchase agreement with Airbus for nine A350-1000 long-haul aircraft. The A350-1000s will be deployed on nonstop services from PAL’s Manila hub to North America, including to the East Coast of the United States and Canada. The new aircraft will join two A350-900s already in service at the airline. PAL’s A350-1000 fleet will be able to accommodate 380 passengers in a three-class layout, including business class, premium economy and economy class. Unlike PAL’s A350-900s, the new A350-1000s will have ten seats per row in economy across a 3-4-3 configuration. The previous A350-900 fleet was more comfortable in the back. It featured a 3-3-3 layout. “This order will see PAL operating one of the youngest and most modern widebody fleets in Asia. We selec...

Hamish Harding, an aviation tycoon and ardent explorer, made it his quest to probe the heavens as well as the depths, landing him a place in Guinness World Records and ultimately leading him to a fateful plunge to the wreckage of the Titanic some two and a half miles below the surface of the Atlantic.The submersible craft in which he was traveling with four others lost contact with its mother ship on Sunday. After a five-day multinational search, the company that sponsored the voyage, OceanGate Expeditions, said on Thursday that all five were dead. The U.S. Coast Guard said that debris from the craft was found on the ocean floor on Thursday morning, about 1,600 feet from the bow of the Titanic.Mr. Harding was 58.About one hour and 45 minutes into the descent on Sunday morning, the Titan, ...

Rail union RMT has announced three strike dates in July “after train operators failed to make a new pay offer”. The union said that 20,000 of its members across 14 train operating companies (TOCs) are set to walk out on July 20, 22 and 29. This follows the strikes which took place in May and June from train drivers’ union ASLEF, with the latest industrial action a result of a long-running dispute over pay and conditions. RMT’s general secretary Mick Lynch, commented: “This latest phase of action will show the country just how important railway staff are to the running of the rail industry. My team of negotiators and I are available 24/7 for talks with the train operating companies and government ministers. “Yet quite incredibly neither party has made any attempt whatsoever to arrange any...

A few hundred yards from the entrance to CityPark, the splashy new soccer stadium in downtown St. Louis, another urban landmark looms: a cluster of hour-glass-shaped sculptures called “Pillars of the Valley,” by the local artist Damon Davis, that pays tribute to some 20,000 residents of a Black community that was forced from this location in 1959 to make way for a freeway. Standing amid its pillars on a recent afternoon, I leaned in close to read a former resident’s inscription in the stone: “What we lost in the destruction of our Mill Creek Valley neighborhood was a community we relied on to survive.”Pillars of the Valley is one of several sites on the new Brickline urban walking trail, or “greenway,” that highlights the city’s Black presence. St. Louis loves its greenways. Two decades a...

Urban air mobility provider Volocopter has confirmed that its eVTOL (electric vertical takeoff and landing) services are on track to launch in time for the Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games. The company made the announcement at the Paris Air Show alongside its Paris-based partners, Groupe ADP and the French Civil Aviation Authority. The French capital is set to be the first European city to offer the company’s VoloCity air taxi, an eVTOL with two seats (a pilot and a passenger), a 35km range and speeds of up to 110km/h. The electric air taxi will be fully battery-powered and will fly at heights below 500m in Paris. According to the company, the VoloCity will be inaudible from ground level in urban environments – the company ran a week-long test campaign which revealed that Volocopt...