November 2011

Westjet launched its new twice-weekly seasonal service from Toronto (YYZ) to San Juan, Puerto Rico (SJU) Saturday.

The inaugural flight departed at 09h10 EST from Toronto Pearson International Airport's Terminal 3.

The service will operate Saturdays and Sundays from November 5 to April 28.

One-way fares are available from as low as C$269 plus applicable taxes and fees.

The flight connects to most of WestJet's Canadian destinations and a daily codeshare service to San Juan via Miami is also available.
"We are very excited to be launching non-stop seasonal service to Puerto Rico," said John MacLeod, WestJet Vice-President, Network Management and Alliances.

"San Juan is known as one of the busiest cruise ship ports in the world as well as for its own distinct charm and hospitality.
We look forward to offering our guests the opportunity to travel to our 17th Caribbean destination." "It's a pleasure to welcome WestJet to Puerto Rico," said Mario González Lafuente, Executive Director of the Puerto Rico Tourism Company.

"Securing non-stop air access to the Canadian market has been a priority of our administration for its positive impact in the tourism industry.

Canadian travellers represent 18.5 per cent of our international hotel registrations.

In collaboration with WestJet Vacations, we are working on packages tailored to the needs and likes of that market." WestJet Vacations has a full range of convenient and affordable vacation packages to San Juan, featuring six nights' accommodation, including round-trip airfare, starting at C$999 plus applicable taxes and fees.

Beginning October 1, Air Georgian (ZX) launched flight operations in Calgary (YYC) in support of its Capacity Purchase Agreement with Air Canada.

Air Georgian will operate two Beech 1900Ds under the banner of Air Canada Express, to Cranbrook (YXC), Medicine Hat (YXH) and Lethbridge (YQL), Alberta.

Calgary is Air Georgian’s third base – its other two fully operational bases, which include aircraft maintenance services, are in Toronto and Halifax.“We are very excited to be granted this growth opportunity with Air Canada and we look forward to continuing to strengthen our relationship with Canada’s flagship carrier,” says Air Georgian President Eric Edmondson.           

In response to significant demand from the province’s oil and gas sector, Air Georgian has positioned a third B1900D, which is available for on-demand corporate aircraft charters, specialized business shuttle programs and oil crew changes to Fort McMurray and points north.

“We are confident that our operational strength and experience coupled with the versatility of our aircraft will be a great complement to the Calgary aircraft charter market.

Air Georgian is looking forward to building new relationships with the key players in Calgary’s corporate jet charter and shuttle market and providing supplemental lift support to those who require it,” comments Ian Wilson, Manager of Business Development for Air Georgian.Air Georgian has offices and an aircraft maintenance facility at 575 Palmer Road N.E., in Calgary, Alberta.

Virgin Atlantic is entering the Canadian market next summer with scheduled non-stop direct flights between London’s Heathrow Airport and Vancouver.

The new service, which will run four times a week from May 24th to Oct. 25th, is expected to give a $54-million boost to Vancouver’s tourism revenue annually and may also be expanded to an all-year service at a future date.

Vancouver will be the only Canadian destination for the U.K.-based airline, which offered a brief service to Toronto over a decade ago. However, that was cancelled following the 9/11 terrorist attack in the U.S.

“We’ll start with four [flights a week] and see how it builds up,” Steve Ridgway, CEO Virgin Atlantic Airways, said in an interview Friday. “We’re always looking for opportunities to grow [and] we want a market with a strong business component and a strong leisure component.”

Ridgway said that Vancouver is a market Virgin has eyed for years, and that it’s an attractive destination for U.K. travellers. “[It] will be seasonal, but we’d like to make it year-round.”
Ridgway noted that the U.K. has strong historical links and that is the largest overseas market to B.C.

“We’re also looking to persuade Canadian business travellers going to London.”

According to Virgin, the new service will use the Airbus A340-300 and increase capacity from Heathrow Airport in London to Vancouver by around 10 per cent, while generating $54 million in tourism revenue for Vancouver each year.

It also said that the U.K. is the fourth largest immigrant base in Vancouver and flights will be on sale starting Dec. 1.

Ridgway said Virgin will do well against its main competition, British Airways and Air Canada.

“We have a big following in the U.K. and lots of repeat customers.”
He noted that the timing is right, with London hosting the summer Olympics next year and Queen Elizabeth’s diamond jubilee will also be celebrated.

Tony Gugliotta, senior vice-president of marketing and business development at the Vancouver Airport Authority said the new Virgin service is a great development for the airport, which will see about 40,000 additional passengers a year.

“It’s a world-class airline with a tremendous reputation. We feel it will create about 50 jobs a year, about $3 million in wages.”

Gugliotta said it’s a significant investment by Virgin at a time when many airlines are cutting capacity because of difficult economic times.

Air Canada announced that it is boosting its international flights from Calgary to Tokyo and Frankfurt, further strengthening its global network.  Effective April 27, 2012, Air Canada will increase its Calgary-Tokyo non-stop summer service to five weekly flights as it takes steps towards continuing the non-stop service on a year-round basis, subject to obtaining the necessary approvals in Japan. In addition, beginning February 4, 2012, the carrier will operate its non-stop daily flights from Calgary to Frankfurt with larger 265-seat Airbus A330-300 aircraft year-round, representing an increase of 25 per cent more seats during the winter than the Boeing 767-300ER it currently operates on the route. 

“We are pleased to increase our international flights from Calgary reflecting worldwide demand to and from Alberta’s energy centre,” said Ben Smith, Executive Vice President and Chief Commercial Officer.  “Air Canada’s flights linking Calgary non-stop to the UK, Europe and Asia all feature Executive First lie-flat bed suites and leading personal in-flight entertainment throughout the aircraft.  Demand for Air Canada’s non-stop Calgary-Tokyo Narita service has been strong from business and leisure travelers as well as freight forwarders over the past year and we look forward to being able to maintain a year-round schedule, pending approvals in Japan.”

Air Canada’s increased scheduled of Calgary-Tokyo flights will operate on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays, departing Calgary at 12:45 p.m. and arriving in Tokyo the following day at 2:25 p.m.  Flights will depart Tokyo on Wednesdays, Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays, Sundays and Mondays at 4:00 p.m., arriving Calgary same day at 10:40 a.m.

Calgary-Tokyo non-stop service complements Air Canada’s daily year-round Vancouver-Tokyo and Toronto-Tokyo non-stop flights, both operated with Boeing 777-300ER aircraft.   This summer, the carrier will offer 19 flights each week from Canada to Tokyo’s Narita International Airport.

Air Canada’s non-stop services to Tokyo and Frankfurt offer a multitude of connecting flights with its Star Alliance partners to key destinations via Asia, including: Hong Kong, Manila, Seoul, Beijing, Shanghai, Singapore, Bangkok, Taipei and several points across Japan, and via Europe to: Delhi, Mumbai, Amsterdam, Budapest, Milan and other destinations.

Air Canada operates its Calgary-Frankfurt flights and its Calgary-Tokyo flights with 265-seat Airbus A330-300 aircraft and 211-seat Boeing 767-300ER aircraft respectively, both offering a
choice of Economy Class and Executive First service featuring lie-flat bed suites. Further details and a virtual tour of Air Canada’s cabin amenities including complimentary personal seatback entertainment at every seat throughout the aircraft are available at:  http://www.aircanada.com/en/travelinfo/onboard/cabincomfort.html

This summer from Calgary, Air Canada will offer up to 126 daily flights including three international flights to London Heathrow, Frankfurt and Tokyo Narita, four weekly flights to the Caribbean and Mexico,10 daily transborder flights and 110 daily domestic flights.

According to AP reports, testing for a new program to get certain travellers through airport security with less hassle has gone so well that the Obama administration plans to expand it to another round of airports and travellers, the government said Wednesday.

The pre-screening test program and policy changes represent the government’s attempts for a more risk-based, intelligence-driven passenger screening program that responds to complaints that the government is not using common sense when it screens all travellers the same way at airports.

Details of which airports and airlines would be eligible for the next round of testing for the pre-screening program were still being hammered out, said Transportation Security Administrator, John Pistole.

Currently about 280,000 frequent fliers from American and Delta are participating in the program, according to the TSA.

The program is being tested at airports in Atlanta, Dallas, Detroit and Miami.

The US government has also made other changes in the past year that could make for a less intrusive trip through airport security and, while invasive pat-downs and full-body imaging machines are still a central part of the security screening in the US, children of 12 and under are now less likely to be patted down or forced to take off their shoes.

About half of the full-body imaging machines have also been upgraded to show an outline of a person instead of a blurry naked image, a feature of all new machines the government purchases, Pistole told Congress.

The Latest Technology

Passport Canada is preparing to begin issuing all new passports as electronic passports, or ePassports. Issuance of ePassports will begin before the end of 2012; the exact timelines will be announced at a later date. This higher-security passport will have an electronic chip embedded in the book. The chip is an extra security feature that will enhance the Canadian passport’s current security features, which include holographic images and a hidden photo of the bearer that can only be viewed under ultraviolet light.

The current Canadian passport already contains information that can be scanned. The last two lines at the bottom of page 2 form the machine-readable zone, which contains the passport holder’s personal information found on page 2 in a format that can be scanned by border agents.

The addition of the chip represents the next generation of machine-readable travel documents. Unlike the traditional machine-readable zone, which will still be found on the ePassport, the electronic chip contains the passport holder’s photo. It also contains a country-specific signature that proves the passport was issued by the Government of Canada.

Enhanced security
The addition of the electronic chip to the Canadian passport will increase security, provide greater protection against tampering and reduce the risk of fraud. This is because the chip adds more layers of identity checks within the passport, all of which must match.

The information stored on the chip is identical to the information that is visible to the naked eye on page 2 of the passport, as well as the information repeated in the machine-readable zone. The visible photo must match the photo stored on the chip, as well as the “ghost” photo printed in ultraviolet ink.

When the passport holder’s information and the Government of Canada’s unique signature is originally stored on the chip, the chip is electronically locked. This means that even if someone were able to tamper with the data on the chip, the chip would indicate that the lock had been broken and the fraud would be detected.

Protecting your information
The chip in the Canadian ePassport will be a proximity contactless chip that must be held within ten centimetres of the reader in order to be read. Moreover, the data on the chip cannot be accessed unless the machine-readable zone on page 2 has first been read, which means that the passport book must be open. It is therefore extremely unlikely that the data stored on the chip could be read without the knowledge of the passport holder.


An ePassport being read by a reader Border authorities equipped with ePassport readers will insert the traveller’s ePassport into a scanner, which will read the machine-readable zone, thereby opening the chip so that it can be read as well. The machine also checks other security features, such as the country’s signature. Border authorities who are not equipped with ePassport readers will continue to examine travellers’ passports as they do now.

Tried and true
Some 95 countries, including the United States, the United Kingdom and France, have been using ePassports for several years now with no reported chip failures. Through a pilot project that began in January 2009, Passport Canada has already issued more than 40,000 diplomatic and special passports containing the chip, and no difficulties have been reported.

In the unlikely event that the chip cannot be read, the passport will still be valid. It will still contain all the security features of the current non-electronic Canadian passport.

A transparent process
The information stored on the chip is the same as the identification data that is visible to the naked eye on page 2 of the passport. The passport holder’s photo in JPEG format (the most common image format used by digital cameras) will also be included on the chip. This will enable facial recognition technology to be applied, where available, in order to further authenticate the passport holder’s identity. No additional information about the passport holder or his or her travels will be stored on the chip.

Public ePassport readers will be installed in Passport Canada’s 34 offices. This will allow passport holders to access the information stored on their chip to make sure it is accurate, if they wish to do so.

As part of its ongoing climate change strategy, Fairmont Hotels & Resorts (Fairmont) today announced that it has cut its CO2 output by 8.4 percent.  As a member of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) Climate Savers program, Fairmont has pledged to reduce its operational CO2 emissions by 20 percent below 2006 levels by 2013, and was the world’s first luxury hotel group to commit to reducing its greenhouse gas emissions (GHG). The more than 8 percent decline, based on 2010 year-end data, means the hotel company is almost halfway to its ambitious reduction target.

“Everyone can agree that the debate on climate change has shifted from it’s here and real, to how can we all contribute to a low carbon future,” said Fairmont’s president Chris Cahill. “The business community needs to step up and take a leadership position if we're going to affect any real, transformative change, and I’m very pleased that Fairmont has been able to take some positive steps in curbing its energy usage and lowering GHG emissions around the globe. From the daily efforts of our engineers to the determined conservation practices of our hotel-level green teams, we remain committed to persevering and protecting the destinations we call home.”

Pinkies up! From San Francisco to Shanghai, Fairmont has a long, illustrious history of serving the best Afternoon Tea in town.  To celebrate the luxury hotel brand’s historic connection to this cherished tradition, Fairmont has declared Saturday, November 12, 2011 as an “official” day to pay tribute to all things tea.  Get Steeped with Fairmont festivities will go on around the world and include everything from discounts for wearing fancy hats at The Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise and signature “Tea-quila” cocktails at The Fairmont Dallas to a multi-cultural tea celebration at The Fairmont Kea Lani, Maui.  For a full listing of local Get Steeped events, tea fun facts, recipes and more, guests can visit http://www.fairmont.com/promo/getsteeped.

Tea Day celebrations at Fairmont hotels will be as diverse as the hotels hosting them.  In Victoria the regal Fairmont Empress - famed for its traditional Afternoon Tea - will have a tea sommelier on hand conducting tastings, while Switzerland’s Fairmont Le Montreux Palace will celebrate tea Swiss-style with finger sandwiches made with local cheese and beef along with mini meringue from Gruyère.  At Fairmont Heliopolis & Towers in Egypt, a tea station will be placed in the lobby along with home-made cookies and tea cakes.  Kenya’s historic Fairmont The Norfolk will invite restaurant guests to tour a neighboring tea estate, where they will be taken through the intricate techniques of growing & making tea.

Can’t tell a crumpet from a scone or think tea is something reserved for your grandmother and her high society gal pals? Don’t worry, as many Fairmonts are putting a modern spin on this age old beverage by serving up trendy tea-infused cocktails.  Fairmont St Andrews in Scotland will offer a tea cocktail menu throughout November, featuring delicious drinks such as the Tea and Toast-tini made with Fairmont Breakfast Tea Blend, Seville Orange Marmalade, Bombay Sapphire Gin and Fresh Lemon Juice.  In China, Fairmont Beijing will offer cocktails as well, using local Chinese teas to create the Chamomile Kiss and Jasmine Pearl.  The Fairmont Waterfront in Vancouver will offer a flight of three warm (and spiked) teas paired with their Pastry Chef’s delectable pastries.  Hot Maple Tea with Sortilege liquor will be on offer at Quebec’s Fairmont Le Château Frontenac, while Fairmont Sonoma Mission Inn & Spa’s Wine Country TEAsers will be crafted using Fairmont’s signature teas and authentically local Sonoma Valley wines.  Not to be outdone is The Fairmont Dallas, which will celebrate Texas style with a poolside BBQ and a Tea-Quila day featuring tea infused drinks made with tequila.

Kids who want to be in on the fun won’t be left behind either, with an Afternoon Tea etiquette class on offer at The Fairmont San Francisco that will feature a hat fashion show presented by San Francisco’s famed Mrs. Dewson’s Hats.  A special Teddy Bear Tea in Hamburg at Fairmont Hotel Vier Jahreszeiten will feature tea and hot drinks in addition to specialty sweets and games in the hotel’s ballroom, while at The Fairmont San Jose the hotel will host a Mommy & Me Tea Party day with a Book Reading event.

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For those last minute holiday plans, we’re pleased to announce that Four Seasons Resort Punta Mita still has availability!

Whether it’s a last minute getaway after hectic pre-holiday preparations, a toast to the New Year with good friends, or a vacation for the entire family, opportunities to celebrate include holiday feasts, cooking classes, wine tasting, beach parties, Carnival for the kids, holiday shopping at the Resort’s boutiques and more
By booking your stay with Vision 2000, a Four Seasons Preferred Partner agency, you will receive the following additional added-value benefits during your stay:

• Daily full American breakfast for two people per bedroom
• Lunch for two once during stay
• Upgrade of one category, based on availability at time of check-in
• Complimentary high-speed Internet access for all suite bookings

Please contact your Vision 2000 travel advisor today to book your holiday trip!

A little about this stunning Resort ...
The tropical charm and ideal weather of the Punta Mita and Sayulita coast have long been a magnet for those seeking the perfect vacation and a respite from colder climates. About an hour from Puerto Vallarta, Four Seasons Resort Punta Mita is located in a 607-hectare (1,500-acre) nature reserve.

FAMILY
Whether your family is just beginning, all grown-up or at any stage in between, Four Seasons Resort Punta Mita is a wonderful destination for vacations near Puerto Vallarta. They go out of our way to give a special welcome to the youngest guests, and their resourceful Concierge is always close at hand – to make reservations for a family dinner, offer suggestions for tomorrow's outing or help arrange a babysitter. Up to two children 18 years of age or under, or three children under 12, may share their parents' room at no extra charge.
Children's Amenities
Enjoy the unique personal touches that make Four Seasons Resort Punta Mita the family hotel of choice near Puerto Vallarta. Simply provide us with the names and birth dates of the children in your party so that we can be prepared with:
A welcome amenity on arrival for our youngest guests

• Child-size bathrobes
• Colourful alphabet bath sponges
• Complimentary baby care basket upon arrival, including sun cream, diaper rash cream, facial moisturiser cream and hair and body cleansing gel
• Welcome milk and cookies on the evening of arrival
• Children's menus in our restaurants and through In-Room Dining

GOLF
In June 2008, Pacifico Golf Course at Four Seasons Resort Punta Mita was named the number-one golf course in the world by the readers of Condé Nast Traveler. The Jack Nicklaus-designed golf club is set amid vistas of white-sand beaches and the majestic Sierra Madre Mountains surrounding Riviera Nayarit. Spread over 81 hectares (200 acres), the course takes full advantage of its seaside location. Eight holes border either the Pacific Ocean or Banderas Bay, and offer views of whales during seasonal migration.

Enjoy the novelty and challenge of Hole 3B, dubbed “The Tail of the Whale.” It is the world’s only natural island green. The Punta Mita peninsula’s tropical landscape of palm trees and flowering trees add to the pleasure of playing this golf course, which is challenging for experienced golfers yet friendly for the beginner.

SPA
The word apuane means "healing waters," and it is around this concept that the Apuane Spa at Four Seasons Resort Punta Mita was created – as a tranquil oasis where the cares of the world can be forgotten. From its distinctive position along the coast, within an hour’s drive of Puerto Vallarta, the Apuane Spa offers a full range of treatments designed to encourage relaxation, renewal and recharging. Unwind in the serene environment centered on a sun-drenched courtyard. Our signature Ha Waye healing waters treatment takes place under a multi-head Vichy shower while two therapists work in unison to massage away stress.

DINING
The distinctive flavours of regional Mexican cuisine, along with a range of seafood and international favourites, set the tone for restaurant dining at Four Seasons Resort Punta Mita. Imaginative menus are prepared with fresh local ingredients and presented with Punta Mita flair in the Resort’s restaurants and through 24-hour In-Casita Dining, as well as at banquets and special events.

GUEST ROOMS & SUITES
Perched along the warm Pacific coast or nestled among 10 rolling hectares (26 acres) of lush tropical grounds, the accommodations at Four Seasons Resort Punta Mita include 173 guest rooms, including 32 suites, which are grouped in tile-roofed Mexican-style casitas. These rooms all face the ocean and feature breathtaking views of white-sand beaches, the glittering waters of Bahía de Banderas or the mountains that surround Punta Mita and Sayulita – less than an hour from Puerto Vallarta. Also available for rental are one-of-a-kind private residences grouped on the hillside and at the shore – all with ocean views.