You have to admit the Santa Cruz car thief who stole his neighbour’s Ford Fiesta, swapped the license plate and then parked it in full view of the neighbour’s house had some set of huevos. The thief in a feeble nod at the victim’s ability to recognise his own car did at least make some minor alterations like installing a tinted rear view mirror but not enough to foil P.C. Plod and Co. who identified the missing car via the chassis number.

As reported in Typically Spanish.

A punter recently wrote a one-liner in to a UK newspaper which said something like, ‘In its latest cost-cutting exercise, Ryanair has announced that the pilot will be chosen at random from amongst the passengers.’

Famous as they are for tawdry penny-saving schemes (pay 2 pee, carry on hand luggage) their latest effort is so tacky  it beggars belief.

Did they really make a group of young Scots stump up GBP200 to fly their dead friend’s suitcase home, despite them having his ticket (and therefore his seat and luggage allowance) on hand?

Yes, they did.

According to Ryanair spokesman Stephen McNamara (who must be as popular as a dentist with halitosis)  Ryanair have now paid the money back. He said:

Ryanair policy ensures that, if a passenger is affected by bereavement, a refund of their fare and fees will be provided upon application to Ryanair’s customer service department. Ryanair requires a copy of the death certificate to be presented in order to process such a refund. However, we have now refunded the fare and baggage charge to the Visa Electron card used at the time of the booking. Ryanair wishes to pass on its condolences to the family and friends of the bereaved at this sad time.

Oh. That’s okay then.

I wonder how much the airline saves each year by cutting customer service and common-sense to the bone?

He may be geographically challenged but once he found out where Tenerife was, Seyth Miersma, who took the new Lamborghini Gallardo for a test drive on the island found the place to be “…a wonderland for supercars.”

Those who salivate at the thought of a speedy hunk of metal will love the online presentation of the test drive’s results. The title of the article in The Winding Road magazine – Better Than Pefect? says it all really and the accompanying photographs are stunning.

The last three months of 2008 saw an improvement in the punctuality of flights leaving the UK according to the Civil Aviation Authority. London Heathrow improved its departure punctuality by 13%, though Edinburgh Airport remains at the top of the league with an on-time performance of 83%.

• Heathrow recorded a 13% increase in punctuality between October and December 2008, but Edinburgh airport was the UK airport with the highest on-time performance

• Every airport surveyed increased its percentage of on-time flights

• Charter flights at Gatwick were the only segment to see an increase in the average delay of flights

Average flight departure delay decreased from 13 minutes to only 4 minutes although flights to  Tenerife had the longest average delay of 24 minutes with an on-time performance of 67%.

Tenerife was also the only charter destination among the top 75 destinations and it attained an on-time performance of 67 per cent and an average delay of 25 minutes.

Stop messing about with your hand luggage you lot and get on the plane already!

January 2009 was a good month for flights to Tenerife and Lanzarote according to Monarch Airlines who report an overall 8.42% increase on bums on seats with these destinations in the top two spots over January 2008.

I wonder was that as Monarch say simply because of the cold snap or because worries about the gathering clouds of recession made some people choose shorter hauls than they would have otherwise?

Like most webmasters, I am always looking for services that might be of use to visitors and that might in return throw the occasional peanut my way. With this in mind and with an eye to bargain basement prices I wanted to find the best supplier for cheap and cheerful flights to Tenerife for the visitors to my destination website, eTenerife.com

So my flight path this morning has been testing out various flight price comparison websites like Wegolo and Terminal A. There are quite a few of these sites and their job is to take your preferred dates and travelling party and run through all the airlines’ prices and schedules before finally coming up with offers ranged by price or convenience (as in direct or stopovers, etc).

While I do use these sites myself to do comparative research before booking flights, I’d have to say you need to go a step further and look into the specific airline’s small print for added charges and fees.

Just as an example, lets pretend that myself and another adult are travelling with two kids to Tenerife in August.

On Wegolo the cheapest outbound for the the family including taxes and surcharges on 4th of August is: €488.04. How did that breakdown?

(What? Why are the kids prices so high?)

The return journey is similar. The cheapest option is €472.12 and the costs were:

Again prices for the kids are just incomprehensible. The airline in both the inbound and outbound flights in these cases is Ryanair, which is currently in the news while the media try and figure out if boss, Michael O’Leary, is kidding about forcing paying passengers to spend a penny if they need to spend a penny on one of his flights.

Oddly enough all you need to do is take a look at the standard fee schedule for Ryanair and Mr O’Leary’s claim that the only reason he is not already charging customers is that Boeing don’t yet offer pay slot mechanisms on their toilet doors as a standard option doesn’t seem so far-fetched. Or so funny.

Keep it up Mr. O’Leary and no family will be able to afford to fly anywhere.

If you own a VW in Tenerife there was really only one place to be last Sunday and that was on a family picnic outing with the club that describes itself as VW Bus Fanatics gathered into a gang, mad about double cabine T2 pickups. We´re ready to catch a rusty iron and make it a a rider´s dream.

SO if VW pickups are your thing, drive on by the Doka Club of North West Tenerife