Road Warrior

New services from the US to Cuba coming This week the United States and Cuba will hold talks in Havana on resuming scheduled air services between the two countries.

Rules on who can go to Cuba have been loosened recently but have not opened up to mass tourism or trade yet. The changes stop short of allowing investment by US companies.

However, access to telecommunications, internet and banking are expected to improved.

Nasa app to help airlines cut costs and flying times Space era technology is going to help airlines to cut costs and flying times. Nasa has signed up Virgin America and Alaska Airlines to trial the agency's Traffic Aware Planner (TAP) application.

It allows flight crews to make changes in altitude or direction to become more efficient. Changes can cut down on fuel usage and reduce time in the air.

TAP connects with an aircraft's on board avionics information system and actively searches for a quicker route or change in altitude. Airlines give Tourism Ireland top award Tourism Ireland beat off stiff competition from Las Vegas and Australia to win the destination marketing award at the significant World Routes Marketing awards in South Africa last week.

Tourism Ireland also won the overall award for the first time.

The awards are voted for by airlines only and there are four airport category and one destination marketing award. In the category for airports serving less than four million passengers both Cork and Shannon airports were highly commended.

Shannon won the category last year. Some surprises in Tripadvisor hotel review analysis Luxury hotels will get a bit of a shake-up in the research carried out by Luxury Branding, a company that assists brands with client and customer relationships.

In an analysis of 2.25 million guest reviews on Tripadvisor of five-star brands, some household name did not appear in the top 10.

Four Seasons appear on the list at 13th just ahead of Irish luxury chain, the Doyle Collection. Top of the list is the Ritz Carlton Hotels followed by Oberoi and Raffles. The report can be seen on luxury-branding.com. Book a great deal at Jurys Inns in one-day sale Jurys Inns are holding a flash sale today for one-night stays from October 19th to January 31st at a rate of €39 and £39.

The sale run from 9am today to 9am tomorrow. Use the promotional code 39SALE, jurysinns.com.