FOLLOW THAT FLIGHT

Travel nerds rejoice - FlightStats has launched a UK site, flightstats.co.uk. Now frequent travellers can delight in the latest airport delays, live arrival and departure information and weather updates. It’s pretty dry stuff to most of us, but there’s one rather fun bit – a Google map flight tracker allows you to see the current location of aircraft in European airspace, with a route and weather radar overlay – so you can find out whether your colleague/friend/family member is in for a bumpy ride en route to London.

LUXURY TRAVEL - BUT IN A RECESSION?

A new site that’s been going less than two weeks has bravely launched into the luxury travel sector, or rather luxury travel information sector. Globalista.co.uk certainly looks good and has some quality content provided by travel journalists who have lived or still live in their chosen destination, but will users pay the £150 per year to read these gems?

There are 100 subscribers so far, but the site will need many more to flourish… The review round-ups and direct links to hotel and attraction sites is a boon, and the content is broad – the key is how often it will be updated – with so many blogs snapping on the heels of paid-for travel content, they’ll need to keep on their toes to justify the subscription fee.

FLIGHT SEARCH

Officially launched in December, www.nowfly.co.uk is a flights search engine that claims to search 90 low cost carriers as well as scheduled and charter airlines, but crucially Ryanair is absent – presumably because of the carrier’s animosity towards screen scraping websites.

Add to this omission the glitch that changed my request for flights from Southampton to flights from Berlin, and it looks like this site has some way to go before it challenges the likes of cheapflights and skyscanner. The only thing going for it is the simple design – the creators compare themselves to Google in terms of ease of navigation – lofty ambitions indeed.

THE OLDIE

People of a certain age will know Valerie Singleton OBE, and it’s those people she’s hoping to appeal to with the launch of www.discount-age.co.uk, a website of money-saving tips for the over 60s. Travel is among the topics, and while it won’t win awards for its design, the site is a goldmine of over 60 discounts, loyalty cards and offers. A £10 membership scheme allows access to more offers and discounts.

FOLLOW THE PROS

Want to know which holidays travel writers go on? Look no further than the new website from the Sunday Times’ duo, David Wickers and Mark Hodson. www.101holidays.co.uk lists the holidays they believe are the best for the coming year, from a historic tour of Sicily to a nature tour in Costa Rica, and naturally, there are 101 of them. “Searching online can be frustrating and confusing. We’ve simplified the whole process by selecting our take on the best around the world,” says Hodson.

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