Road Warrior: the business of travel

Qantas the safest airline for third year running The list of the world's safest airlines has been released by airlineratings.com, and Australia's Qantas has topped the list for the third year running.

In a survey of 407 carriers worldwide, the top 10 includes four carriers operating out of Ireland: American Airlines, Emirates, Etihad and Finnair. Aer Lingus appears on the top 10 list of budget carriers.

Assessments are made based on a range of factors related to audits by aviation's governing bodies and lead associations, as well as government audits and the fatality records of airlines. No quarter asked as Link NYC offers free calls and wifi You will no longer need a quarter to make a telephone call in New York, where thousands of payphones are being turned into wifi access points with free call access. Link NYC is transforming the city's streetside relics into next-generation communications hubs.

Users will be able to access gigabit wifi within 150 feet of the 7,500 call stations. The former payphones will also feature touchscreen tablets for free telephone calls and USB charging. Financing of the stations will be from in-station advertising. Some 500 stations are expected to come into operation this year. Starwood's stellar year not slowed by acquisition Starwood Hotels had a busy 2015 despite the company's acquisition by Marriott Hotels late in the year. Starwood ended the year with 220 new hotel management and franchise deals, up 26 per cent on 2014. It also opened 105 new hotels with 22,000 rooms. New signings were across the brands Aloft, the Luxury Collection, W and St Regis. This year will bring further hard work to merge the Marriott and Starwood groups into the world's largest hotel company.

The thousands of guns that US fliers 'forgot' President Obama may be making a big push on gun control in the US, but the end-of-year news from the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) is disconcerting.

During 2015, 2,603 concealed guns, many of them loaded, were found on passengers attempting to board flights. This figure represents an increase of 17.7 percent on 2014 and is the highest ever.

Officers also regularly find BB and pellet guns, ammunition, stun guns, replica arms, knives, brass knuckles and other prohibited items.

The preliminary data for 2015, made available on the TSA’s blog this week, does not imply any raised terrorism threat. “In many cases, people simply forgot they had these items,” it says. Eek.