Tourists discard Tunisia, Egypt and Turkey and embrace Mexico, the Dominican Republic and Sri Lanka

Terrorism has scared tourists away from traditional destinations like Tunisia, Egypt and Turkey and are, instead being offered alternate spots in Mexico, the Dominican Republic and Sri Lanka by tour operators. Some holiday giants are offering savings of more than £800 on sunshine breaks in a fierce new price war.
This has been reported in dailymail.co.uk dated 25 December 2015.

The post-Christmas period is crucial for sales and big name firms including Thomson and Thomas Cook are vying for early bookings because tourism has suffered due to attacks and British families are not keen to go to Tunisia, Egypt and Turkey following the terror attacks. Tour operators are, therefore, pushing alternative long-haul destinations like Mexico, the Dominican Republic and Sri Lanka.
Apart from money-off deals, Thomson and sister brand First Choice are offering thousands of free child places and low-deposit bookings. An example is their ‘Sunshine Super Saver’ - this includes savings of £860 per couple for a Thomson Sensatori holiday to Mexico. A 14 nights at a five-star resort next May in Mexico would come to £2,934.
The lowest-priced destination outside of Europe is the Florida theme-park capital of Orlando - there, a week’s holiday including meals is just £692 per person.

(Image courtesy wikimediacommons.org)

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Drones are overcrowding the skies and endangering the safety of flights

The skies are getting overcrowded with drones in the air and, experts are apprehensive about the safety of the crews and passengers of aircraft in view of two commercial jets coming to within 100 feet of a drone at the time of landing at New York's John F Kennedy International Airport.
This has been reported in dailymail.co.uk dated 2 August 2015.

JetBlue Flight 1843 reported sighting a drone as it approached the airport at an altitude of around 800 to 900 feet at 2.24pm on Friday. As per the statement of the pilot as told to the control tower – the unmanned aircraft had passed just below the plane's nose.
Within three hours, Delta Flight 407, carrying 154 passengers back from Orlando, Florida, saw a drone flying just 100 feet below its right wing as it approached the runway at 5pm.
Drones could break through the windscreen and injure the pilot or could get ingested into the engine and lead to a major accident. In both cases, the lives of crew and passengers would be at stake.
It is not clear whether it was the same drone that had been sighted by both the pilots but, neither plane needed to take any evasive action - both the flights landed without incident. As per the directives of FAA - unmanned aircraft are not supposed to fly above 400 feet and operators must not fly within five miles of an airport unless they 'contact the airport and control tower before flying'.
(Image courtesy wikimedacommons.org)

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