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Telegraph
4 days ago
- Telegraph
‘You lived on Lays crisps, sex and sambuca': Why the 1990s was the greatest decade for holidays
In 1999, I boarded an Alitalia flight to Bangkok with my friend Tanya, a copy of Lonely Planet's Southeast Asia on a Shoestring, and the password for my new Hotmail account. I remember the air thick with fumes from Marlboro Reds chain-smoked by Italian passengers, and being chatted up by a man in a shark's tooth necklace who invited us to a Koh Pha Ngan guest house co-owned by his 'cool friend' Jed. The summer before, I'd flown to Pisa to visit a friend on her year abroad while studying languages at Manchester University. Caroline, fuelled by cheap Chianti and cappuccinos, was sleeping her way through the lower ranks of the Italian military. On that trip, I was romanced by the son of a campsite owner near Siena, where I stayed in a €7 tent, attempting to erect it by using my wedge flip-flops to hammer in the pegs. Both experiences, I now see, were typical of the 1990s – the ultimate era of low-cost, carefree travel. European budget airlines such as easyJet and Ryanair had arrived, but hadn't yet become the penny-pinching outfits they are today. Thomas Cook, Teletext Holidays and Lunn Poly offered decent all-inclusive packages at bargain prices (£99 was typical for a week in Tenerife – including half-board accommodation and flights – in 1994, the equivalent of £240 today). Trailfinders' round-the-world package deals could get you from the UK to San Francisco, Sydney, Singapore and back again for £784 in 1998 (about £1,600 today). Noel Josephides, the travel industry veteran and head of Greek specialist Sunvil, agrees that the 1990s were a sweet spot for travel – after the liberalisation of European airspace, but before the arrival of swingeing air taxes and social media-driven overtourism. 'In the 1990s, you suddenly had quick access to destinations that were still untouched by mass tourism,' he says. 'Then, in the 2000s, came the free-for-all of volume tourism – and the party was already over.' Tim Riley worked for Trailfinders in the Nineties and now runs the insurance company True Traveller. Smoking flights aside, he says, life at 35,000 feet was a pleasure three decades ago. 'Seat selection was free, meals were served in economy as part of your fare, and very few carriers charged for checked baggage,' he explains. 'Best of all, we used travel agents who knew what they were doing, so you didn't have to navigate a dozen confusing websites.' 'The only search algorithm you needed for a great holiday was a high-street travel agent called Carol,' says Seamus McCauley of travel firm Holiday Extras. 'Everyone could just rock up and walk onto a plane without any proper planning or preparation – so there was no need for 'airport dads'.' 'I've got £20, where can I go?' Megan Lomax remembers phoning travel agents via ads in her local paper and saying: ' I've got £20 – where can I go? ' In 1992, the London-based web designer, now 56, ended up in Seville with her husband, Guy, 59, less than 24 hours after making the call. 'We arrived during the Easter processions,' she recalls. 'We had a map, another couple didn't, and we made friends on the spot – and are still close 30 years later.' Andrew Middleton, 66, from Hampshire, was a frequent business traveller in the Nineties and also recalls the ease of getting around. 'It wasn't unusual to catch an early flight, do a full day's work in an office in Europe, then return on an evening flight,' he says. 'There were also more perks to being a frequent flyer back then: I remember the higher quality of snacks in the business lounges – and once stepping off a flight from Paris carrying 12 bottles of champagne, thanks to being known by the cabin crew.' Lomax's experience of forming a lifelong friendship speaks to another hallmark of Nineties travel: human engagement. Without smartphones and translation apps, tourists had to rely on paper maps, ask locals for directions in halting Greek, and raise their gazes while dining – chance meetings that often led to holiday romances, marriages and even business opportunities. It was an era of printed documents, traveller's cheques, and capturing the moment for posterity – when you could be bothered to put down your smouldering ciggie – with a disposable camera or a roll of 35mm film. 'We had to stand on our own two feet' If we spoke to the locals more in the 1990s, we often neglected friends and family back home. I sent just two round-robin emails from internet cafés during a three-month trip to Thailand and Cambodia – and what pompous correspondence it was, full of overblown musings. Alexandra English, 45, from Reigate, took a round-the-world trip aged 19 in the late 1990s and also remembers being out of touch with her parents – an idea that's unconscionable to today's tethered parents and teens. 'I did have a mobile phone, but my shampoo leaked in my bag and it had died by the time I got to Australia,' she recalls. 'Nobody panicked – they just waited for me to turn up weeks later. I had to stand on my own two feet.' This being the 1990s, sometimes those freedoms curdled into – well – a little too much fun. It was the era of Loaded lads and ladettes, of sex-, sun- and sangria-fuelled Club 18-30 holidays, with tabloids full of lurid tales of young Britons heading overseas to booze and bonk. Club 18-30 ran sexually suggestive poster ads, created by Saatchi & Saatchi, with taglines like 'Beaver Espana' and 'Girls. Can we interest you in a package holiday?' (accompanied by a photo of a man in white boxer shorts). The Advertising Standards Authority banned them in 1995. Catherine Warrilow, 46, enjoyed holidays to Malia in Crete in the late 1990s. 'You picked the party town you wanted to go to, went to Thomas Cook and booked two weeks in the sun,' she says. 'It included your flights, a ropey apartment and transfers – and if you were a smoker, you'd book the back rows of the plane so you could chuff away. You lived on Lays crisps, romance and sambuca, and somehow managed to party all night, every night.' Martin Deeson, 58, one of the founding editors of Loaded magazine, recalls bad behaviour, flowing booze and free flight upgrades. 'The best blag of all was the one for Virgin Atlantic,' he says. 'Briefly, it was possible to check in through a secret door in the underground car park at Heathrow, through which you emerged directly into the upper class lounge.' Nostalgia aside, perhaps we should all ditch our devices, talk to the locals – and be a bit more, well, Nineties – as we travel this summer.
Yahoo
28-06-2025
- Automotive
- Yahoo
Former Ferrari F1 Chairman Joins McLaren Group Holdings, Claims 'Heart Will Always Remain Red'
The former Ferrari Chairman Luca di Montezemolo has been added to the McLaren Group Holdings board as a director. This move comes 11 years after di Montezemolo stepped down from the role of Ferrari Chairman, where he helped lead the Italian team's highly successful years with Michael Schumacher. The role is focused on the British auto companies' road cars, and the proud Italian businessman is adamant that he will not find himself working with the F1 team in any meaningful way. Di Montezemolo told the Italian outfit Ansa that his work with McLaren was in Autos and 'not in the racing sector.' "My heart is and will always remain red," di Montezemolo told Ansa. "I have become a member of the board of directors of McLaren Automotive, which produces road cars and does not deal with Formula One." Since leaving Ferrari, the 77-year-old has been took over the Italian airline Alitalia and worked towards a failed attempt to bring the Olympics to Rome in 2024, joining the Italian National Olympic Committee in 2015. The Italian businessman was a guest of McLaren at McLaren Auto's second home track in Bahrain earlier this year. The Bahrain Grand Prix saw a McLaren winner for the first time, with Oscar Piastri taking his second win of the season, moving within three points of his teammate, Lando Norris, for the championship lead. Piastri would take the lead the following Grand Prix and has held it since, with the duo controlling the Drivers Championship and Constructors Championship so far. In McLaren's structure, the two sectors are loosely tied with share ownership between the groups. McLaren Group Holdings owns shares of McLaren Group Limited, which is the majority owner of McLaren Racing Limited, which includes the F1 team. You Might Also Like You Need a Torque Wrench in Your Toolbox Tested: Best Car Interior Cleaners The Man Who Signs Every Car Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Daily Mail
12-06-2025
- General
- Daily Mail
Why the Air India flight crashed: Expert Julian Bray has advised on the deadliest calamities. Now he examines the footage to reveal 'weird' inconsistencies and a horrifying possibility
All plane crashes horrify us at a visceral level – but yesterday's Air India disaster is in a league of its own. Flying is meant to be the safest form of travel, so when a near-total calamity such as this takes place, it speaks to our darkest fears. These days, of course, videos filmed on mobile phones often compound the terror – and the fate of Flight 171 has been revealed on brief, grainy footage, shared across social media, showing the plane's slow descent into a gigantic fireball. So what really happened? Can any lessons be learned – and not just by the airline industry, but by passengers such as you and me? Julian Bray is an aviation-security expert who has advised on some of the deadliest air disasters of the past 40 years. He is a former consultant to British Airways and Alitalia (he also revised several editions of the Italian carrier's official safety manual). He says: 'The Boeing Dreamliner is automated to the nth degree. It is a highly advanced aircraft, with multiple back-up systems, which is why I would look beyond mechanical failure.' Bray has analysed a number of competing theories... Did the pilots make a terrible error? On take-off, a pilot will typically lower the plane's flaps to generate more 'lift'. But footage of yesterday's crash appears to show that the Air India flight's flaps are still level with its wings. Without the flaps deployed, the plane could not have climbed fast enough, and some have suggested that the pilots might have forgotten to deploy them, leading to disaster. 'It is weird that the flaps seem stuck,' says Bray. 'They would have been tested on the runway as part of the pilots' pre-flight inspection. Not only do pilots walk around the plane to physically inspect its hatches are secure, but inside the cockpit they undergo a raft of procedures carefully designed to check everything.' So could the pilots have forgotten to deploy the flaps? No, insists Bray. 'Each stage of take-off is part of a meticulous procedure monitored by the captain and first officer.' Some have argued that the website FlightRadar24 appears to show the plane starting its run too far down the runway, where it would have had only 1,900 metres to take off instead of the required 2,800 metres – raising the possibility that the pilots started the take-off run too late. Again, Bray is not convinced. 'The pilot had 8,000 hours of experience and the co-pilot 1,000 hours. Air India has a pretty good safety record. Pilots get licensed to fly for only six months – after that they get put on a flight simulator and have to be recertified all over again.' That the aircraft still had its wheels down when it crashed is also unimportant, Bray believes. These are not usually raised until an airliner reaches 1,000 ft. The Air India plane never made it more than 400ft above the ground – 625ft above sea level. Could it have been mechanical failure? If something on the aircraft is not working, the captain can order the flight to be grounded. The fact that Flight 171 took off suggests to Bray that something sudden and unexpected must have happened immediately after take-off. The pilot's distress call of 'Mayday... no thrust, losing power, unable to lift,' confirms a catastrophic failure, says Bray. 'You wouldn't lose power, or thrust or the ability to change direction without a major problem further back in the aircraft,' he explains. Could the plane have hit a flock of birds? Bird strikes remain a serious risk for airliners. Last December, a Jeju Air Boeing 737-800 suffered a bird strike while coming into land at Muan International Airport in South Korea. After the pilots aborted the landing and attempted a second one, the plane's landing gear failed to deploy, causing the aircraft to overshoot the runway and collide with a concrete structure that housed landing lights. Of the 181 people on board, 179 were killed. Bird strike was also the cause of the forced landing of a jet in New York in 2009, the so-called 'Miracle on the Hudson', when pilot Chesley Sullenberger – later played by Tom Hanks in a film about the incident – earned praise for his cool handling of the situation. But, Bray points out, neither engine of the Air India flight appears to be smoking as the plane went down – if they had been, it would point to a bird strike. He adds that Ahmedabad airport has bird-scarer technology, which detects birds resting on the airport site and emits distress calls from loud speakers mounted on vehicles to scare them away, as well as using hawks to keep bird numbers down. So could a hawk have been sucked into the engine? Unlikely, says Bray: a bird strike affecting one engine wouldn't have been sufficient to cause this crash. 'The plane could have taken off with one engine,' he says. 'It would have been a bit bumpy, but the pilots should have been able to perform a 'go-around' and fly back to the airport.' Could it have been pilot suicide? This risk was brought home in March 2015 when a Germanwings Airbus A320 slammed into a hillside in the Alps, killing all 150 people on board. The co-pilot, Andreas Lubitz, was later revealed to have suffered suicidal tendencies, while a heart-rending cockpit recording revealed the pilot hammering on the door and begging the co-pilot to open up. Suicide has also been suggested as an explanation for the mystery of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, where an airliner bound from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing in 2014 disappeared from radar screens and, it is believed, turned around and crashed in the southern Indian Ocean. However, yesterday's disaster, notes Bray, occurred at a stage of the flight when both pilots would have been at the controls and it would have been hard for one to crash the plane without a struggle. Could it have been a bomb? In June 1985, one of Air India's Boeing 747s en route from Montreal to Heathrow went down in the Atlantic, blown apart by a bomb planted by Sikh extremists and killing all 329 on board. While Flight 171 clearly didn't explode mid-air, Bray is concerned by a puff of smoke that appears to come from the plane as it was taking off. One possibility he raises for further investigation is that a device might theoretically have been planted in a highly sensitive location, which did not destroy the fuselage yet succeeded in severing the wires and systems that allow pilots to control the wing flaps and rudder. A plane like the Dreamliner has multiple emergency systems, says Bray, but a bomb planted in the right place could cause the pilots' total loss of control. However, it must be stressed that there has been no suggestion of terrorism from officials either in India or the international investigators, including from Britain, who have rushed to the scene. Alternatively – and more innocently – he says, a consignment of batteries on board might have spontaneously caught fire – the dangers of so-called 'thermal runaway' in lithium batteries are well-known. Is it still safe to fly? This is a question that many will be asking as we approach the summer holidays. And, certainly, readers could be forgiven for wondering whether flying has recently become more dangerous. Already, 2025 has seen several deadly crashes in developed countries, including a commercial disaster in Washington DC that killed 67 people after an American Airlines flight collided with a military helicopter. Meanwhile, Boeing has suffered a raft of serious accidents recently, including a terrifying 'gaping hole' emerging in the side of the fuselage of a flight from Oregon to California in January 2024, with passengers using the on-board wifi to say goodbye to their loved ones. In 2018 and 2019, two Boeing 737 Max jets crashed in Indonesia and Ethiopia, killing a total of 346 passengers and crew. But despite these disasters, statistics show that flying is the safest it has ever been. Since 1970, the global fatality rate for air travel has fallen from 4.77 per million passenger journeys to just 0.05. When you take to the air, you now run just one hundredth of the risk of being killed as you did half a century ago. According to the International Civil Aviation Organisation, accidents on commercial flights – which can be as small as an aircraft being damaged and needing repairs – have fallen from 4.8 per million departures as recently as 2008 to just 1.9 per million in 2023. Statistics from the US National Transportation Safety Board show that between 2007 and 2023, flying was, mile for mile, by far the safest form of transport. Little comfort, of course, to the devastated families of the victims of Air India Flight 171.
Yahoo
09-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
‘Who wept for these people?' Francis's papacy was defined by compassion for refugees
On a glorious spring day almost a decade ago, an Airbus A320 took off from Mytilene airport on the Greek island of Lesbos. For what seemed like an age, a small group of bystanders, including officials and the media, watched in disbelief until the plane veered left over the sun-speckled Aegean Sea and its Alitalia livery could no longer be discerned. On board was Pope Francis, who had spent barely five hours on Lesbos, then at the centre of the refugee crisis on Europe's eastern fringes. The whirlwind tour had been replete with symbolism but it was the pontiff's fellow travellers who had caused such surprise. Moments after the head of the Roman Catholic Church had entered the aircraft, 12 refugees had also appeared, cheerfully making their way across the runway with expressions of stunned relief, their first taste of freedom after incarceration in the island's notorious 'reception' centre. 'The pope has desired to make a gesture of welcome regarding refugees, accompanying on his plane to Rome three families from Syria, 12 people in all, including six children,' said a spokesperson from the Holy See. 'Two families come from Damascus, and one from Deir ez-Zor. Their homes had been bombed. The Vatican will take responsibility for bringing in and maintaining [them].' It was 16 April 2016. Francis had assumed the papacy three years, one month and four days earlier. By the time of his visit to the Greek outpost more than 1 million people had traversed Lesbos on their way to Europe, mostly from Syria but also from other parts of Asia and Africa. The island had become synonymous with the biggest mass movement of men, women and children since the second world war; its rocky shores and sandy beaches covered with hundreds of thousands of lifejackets and broken rubber boats – the detritus of survival and death. Local officials had lost count of those who had perished in its waters. 'Before they are numbers, refugees are first and foremost human beings,' the pope told assembled dignitaries, who included the ecumenical patriarch, Bartholomew I, the leader of the world's Orthodox faithful, before throwing a wreath into the sea to commemorate those who had lost their lives to it. The oldest child of Italians who migrated to Argentina, the former Jesuit priest had, from the start, made the defence of refugees a cornerstone of his papacy, ensuring in July 2013 that his first pastoral trip outside Rome was to the remote island of Lampedusa. The tiny rocky strip had emerged as a magnet for smuggling rings bringing people across the Mediterranean from north Africa. In what would be described as a spur-of-the-moment decision, Francis elected to visit the island in the wake of migrant deaths in a fatal crossing. Residents who cried 'viva il Papa' as he was whisked round in an open-topped Fiat voiced incredulity that the Catholic leader would choose to travel to the farthest reaches of Italy for an official tour dedicated solely to migrants and refugees. But the pilgrimage had a goal. For Francis it amounted to the symbolic embrace of something much wider; the beginning of a pontificate that deliberately sought to minister to the marginalised and poor. In Lampedusa – as in Lesbos three years later – the pope was as determined to express compassion for the living as for those who had died embarking on perilous journeys. 'Who wept for these people who were aboard the boat?' he asked during an open-air mass after tossing a wreath into the sea in their memory. 'For the young mothers who brought their babies? For these men who wanted to support their families? We are a society that has forgotten how to cry.' Later he would confide that the tragedy in Lampedusa had 'made me feel the duty to travel' in an effort to not only highlight the plight of refugees but 'encourage the seeds of hope that are there'. It was a theme that the progressive reformer would revisit when, as the first pontiff to address the US Congress in 2015, he invoked his family's own immigrant background as he appealed to lawmakers to embrace, rather than fear, refugees. Europe, he repeatedly said, had a moral obligation to support the countries from which migrants hailed. In December 2021 Francis again travelled to the fringes of the continent on a five-day tour that took in Cyprus and Greece. Despite the 'small flocks' of Catholics in both countries, he felt another trip was needed not only to allow him 'to drink from the ancient wellsprings of Europe' but to focus on those landing on their shores. Before he flew to Cyprus he had promised to relocate 50 vulnerable asylum seekers to Italy. But five years after stunning Europe's political elite by flying back to Rome from Lesbos with 12 refugees, it was clear that migration policies, globally, had hardened with governments resorting to increasingly violent methods, including pushbacks, to keep arrivals at bay. While migration remained 'a humanitarian crisis that concerns everyone', the Mediterranean, Francis lamented, had become a 'desolate sea of death', because Europe had failed to heed the lessons from history. Related: 'He felt our pain': Catholic church in Gaza grieves Pope Francis's death 'Please let us stop this shipwreck of civilisation,' he pleaded in an address before the Greek president during a second lightning trip to Lesbos. 'I ask every man and woman, all of us, to overcome the paralysis of fear, the indifference that kills, the cynical disregard that nonchalantly condemns to death those on the fringes.' In Cyprus he went further, condemning the 'slavery' and 'torture' often suffered by refugees. 'It reminds us of the history of the last century of the Nazis, of Stalin,' he said as startled local officials looked on during a prayer service held for immigrants in Nicosia, the island's war-split capital. 'And we wonder how this could have happened.' In the face of such 'cruelty', Francis allowed his language to become more forceful. In 2024 he dubbed the 'systematic work' of governments to deter migrants a 'grave sin.' Earlier this year he rebuked the Trump administration for its migrant crackdown, saying its mass deportation plans amounted to a major crisis that would 'damage the dignity of many men and women'. In an extraordinary step, he berated the vice-president, JD Vance, a Catholic convert – who he would go on to meet on Easter Sunday hours before his death - for his theological defence of deportations. On the peripheries of Europe, the migrant crisis may have somewhat waned, but in Lesbos and other places where people continue to arrive, albeit in smaller numbers, locals and newcomers are now bonded by the knowledge that with Francis' passing they have lost one of their greatest champions yet.
India.com
25-04-2025
- Politics
- India.com
Meet the only person in the world who can travel to any country without a visa, he is..., uses private plane called..., not Trump, British king
(AI image) Vatican City: Is there any person who can go to every country in the world without a visa or passport? Generally, in the world, the kings of Britain and Japan do not need to carry a passport to go anywhere. But there is one person who can travel anywhere in the world at any time without a visa and no country will stop him. This special right or privilege is granted to only one person in the world, who is the head of the world's smallest country and is also considered the leader of the Catholic Christian faith, that is, the Pope. The Pope is regarded as having the most unique and special status. Pope Francis has travelled to more than 50 countries where no visa was required. The Pope generally does not need a visa in most countries of the world. As the head of Vatican City, he is an internationally recognized diplomatic figure. He often holds a diplomatic passport or special status under which he can travel without a visa. The Pope holds a diplomatic passport from the Vatican, which allows him visa-free travel to most countries. When the Pope makes an official visit to a country, the host country usually grants him special exemptions. There may be formalities in some countries for special security or political reasons, but generally, visas are not required for the Pope. Wherever he goes, he is a state guest. The Pope is the head sovereign of Vatican City as well as the spiritual leader of 1.3 billion Catholics. His status is distinct from any other king or diplomat, as the Vatican is a religious and diplomatic entity that has full sovereignty under international law. When the Pope visits a country, he is granted the status of a state guest, under which visa and passport regulations do not apply. The Lateran Treaty (1929) between Italy and the Vatican granted the Vatican the status of an independent state, which provided the Pope with full diplomatic immunity. The Vienna Convention (1961) also recognizes the Pope's special status under international treaties. Countries like China and Russia have sometimes placed political conditions on papal visits, but technically visas are not required. The British monarchy does not have this privilege either. The British monarchy is one of the most prestigious diplomatic institutions in the world, but their status is not as special as that of the Pope. The Pope's status is both religious and diplomatic. The Pope is recognized as a religious leader in any country. The Pope has the facility to travel around the world. He does this using his private plane 'Shepherd One.' Although this is not a special or permanent aircraft, the plane that the Pope uses for international travel is referred to as Shepherd One. The name 'Shepherd One' is inspired by the Pope's role, as the Pope is considered the 'Shepherd of God's flock' in the Catholic Church. Shepherd One is usually provided by Alitalia (Italy's national airline) or the main airline of the host country. This aircraft is generally a Boeing 787, Airbus A330, or similar large, long-haul aircraft, specifically configured for the Pope's travels.
