Road Warrior: The business of travel

Irish airports take off

Irish airports must be the envy of the world's airports with their winning streak at the prestigious aviation event, the World Routes Awards. Despite moving into a higher category, 25-50 million passengers, Dublin has again taken first prize, the second time in three years. Shannon Airport has won the under four million passengers category for the second time in three years. Cork Airport in the same category has been highly commended for the past two years. The awards are nominated and voted on by airlines and recognise outstanding achievement in marketing in the past year. Last year the Destination Marketing category was won by Tourism Ireland. Congratulations to all three airports.

Trump under attack

Trump Hotel Collection will have to pay fines of $50,000 following a delay in telling customers that their computer systems had been cyber attacked. In May 2014 an attacker infiltrated the Trump systems and deployed malware to collect sensitive customer credit card data. In May 2015 banks investigating hundreds of fraudulent credit card transactions tracked the last legitimate ones to Trump hotels and this was the root of the cyber attack. It was four months later before Trump Hotels notified their customers and it was for the delay that they were fined. An investigation revealed malware installed in hotels in Chicago, New York and Las Vegas. The company has strengthened its security measures.

Sky-high wifi

The race to provide Internet to aircraft seats will be heating up with the entry of French aircraft company Thales announcing that they are joining in. The current frontrunner in this lucrative market is Gogo which, despite almost complete market dominance, is still not making a profit. Thales, usually associated with aircraft interior design, in-flight entertainment and seating, says it is to launch a satellite-based wifi service Thales Flyt with operator SES. Plans are to operate over Europe starting next summer, with a new satellite in place from 2020.

Waiting on security

The long lines at security in American airports that disrupted travel for much of the spring may be likely to reappear if Congress cannot agree a budget. Additional staff was hired to improve the TSA lines, but may be cut as early as October 1st if the additional staffing is not included in the 2017 budget.

Strabane on the radar

Strabane woman Chris Browne is to join easyJet as chief operating officer. She resigned last year as chief operating officer of TUI Aviation. Chris has been on the board of easyJet and a non-executive director since the start of the year. She has previously worked at Iberia and Carlson Worldwide