There’s no hiding from it, no getting away from it, and the news headlines have been full of it since last Friday: the UK went to the polls and couldn’t quite manage to pick a winner. Well, there was a winner, but they haven’t managed to take hold of the keys to No. 10 Downing Street just yet. This is a real opportunity for Aussie travellers (especially if you are heading to the UK in the near future).

Before we get into how this is good for Aussie travellers, let’s have a look at what has happened, what should have happened, where we are now and so on. If you don’t like the constitutional details of the UK then feel free to skip to the end of the article for the good news bit.

How is the UK parliament supposed to work?

Almost exactly like the Australian one actually. No surprise given that the Aussie parliament and government was based upon the UK model. To get into more detail though, the UK parliament consists of 650 MPs (Members of Parliament), and each seat must be contested at least once every 4-5 years, with the Prime Minister (PM) setting the actual date. The UK operates a system called “First past the post” in which the party with the most seats won (and therefore MPs returned) gets to form the government if they win more seats than all of the other parties combined. So, with 650 seats up for grabs, a party must win 326 seats to form a government.

What happens if a party does not get the 326 seats?

Well, that is exactly the situation that the UK finds itself in right now, and it has the news media frantically trying to satisfy the public’s quest for knowledge on the situation. The answer is quite simple actually: two or more parties must work together to generate a “working majority”. Namely, it means that combined, they will reach the magical 326 seats. Parties can do this in a number of ways, but the most common two (and one of which will be the likely outcome), are that two or more parties effectively merge for the period of the parliament – known as a coalition, or, two or more parties just agree that the smaller party/parties will either vote with, or at least abstain from voting against, the larger party in a confidence vote. The latter being the most likely outcome.

Who is in charge at the moment?

While the parliament is hung, the incumbent Prime Minister – Gordon Brown – remains in charge, and all of the various ministers and secretaries of state remain in their posts until the whole mess is sorted out. This can actually lead to some bizarre outcomes, as demonstrated by the case of Bridget Prentice, Justice Minister. She announced some time ago that she would be standing down from parliament at the election and her name was not put forward on the ballot paper. Of course, as a result of that she is no longer an MP. However, because the ministers have to stay in place for the time being, she is still justice minister. Quite strange really because she must carry out her ministerial duties but is not allowed to enter the parliamentary chambers.

Can the Queen choose a new PM?

No. The Queen has no power to appoint a Prime Minister, nor can she demand the resignation of the incumbent. What she can do however, and is duty bound to do, is to accept the resignation of a Prime Minister and then invite the leader of the largest parliamentary party to form a government in her name, and appoint a prime minister (normally the leader of that party). There is basically only one instance in which a PM is required to resign, and that is when he/she cannot “command a majority” when it comes to a vote. Basically, if the PM loses a vote of no confidence then they must resign. A PM is deemed to have lost such a vote if they are not the leader of a party with at least 326 MPs or has the command of that number using either of the methods described above.

But the PM does not have the command of 326 MPs, should he go now?

No. Although the Labour party did not win the necessary number of seats, and he therefore cannot claim to control a majority, neither can anyone else at the moment. Hence, he has no need to resign just now, and therefore he hasn’t.

What happens next, and who are the players?

There are three main parties in the UK, as follows:

1. Conservatives (also known as the Tories): The returned the most number of MPs in the election – just over 300. Lead by David Cameron, they are the party that are most likely to lead the next government.
2. Labour party: Came second in the election with just over 250 seats. Lead by Gordon Brown, they are the current government.
3. Liberal Democrats (Lib Dems): Came third in the election with 56 seats. Lead by Nick Clegg, it is the Lib Dems that will be the second party in any coalition.

Currently, the Tories are attempting to reach agreement with the Lib Dems. Should that prove successful then the Tories will form the government. If those talks are unsuccessful, the Lib Dems will start talks with Labour. Should those prove successful, Labour will form the government despite not winning the most seats.

If no agreement can be formed then a new election will have to be run.

And the good news?

If you have read the bits above then you will be able to see that political confusion reigns in the UK at the moment. If you didn’t read the above, then just trust that political confusion does reign in the UK at the moment.

Confusion like this tends to have an effect on the markets around the world, and in particular (in the case of the travelling Aussie), the currency markets. Most of the markets had largely predicted a hung parliament in the UK so there is an element of that build into the price of the Pound at the moment. However, judging by the market reaction in Friday’s trading, they didn’t quite build in enough of a safeguard and Sterling plunged against most world currencies. There is no reason that the nose dive will stop until the government sorts itself out, and the upshot of that is that you can buy Pounds for fewer Dollars than ever before. If you’re game, and in need of Pounds then this could be the time to capitalise on the confusion and make a few extra quid for your holiday. Of course the Pound may mount a staggering recovery and become expensive again, that’s up to you to guess. What is for sure, is that Sterling has never been so cheap.

Happy shopping!

In a joint press statement this morning in both Houston, Texas and Chicago, Illinois, the long-expected merger of United Airlines (UA) and Continental Airlines (CO) was announced.

The deal has been heralded as “a merger of equals” although with the possible exception of Continental’s boss, Jeff Smisek, who will head up the new company, it appears that United Airlines has come off rather more equal than Continental in the deal seeing as how the new, combined airline will be called … United Airlines.

United will be sporting the existing Continental colours and livery – including the distinctive globe tail fin, but it is hard to see how Continental can trumpet the merger as one of equals. Airlines, as a rule are referred to by their name, not the colour of their aircraft tail fins!.

The new combined United Airlines now becomes the world’s largest airline (based on flown passenger miles).

United and Continental have been competing in the same airspace now for many years, so it is inevitable that there will be a shedding of staff; either through redundancies in the future or through normal wastage, as many roles are now duplicated. On the face of it, United Airlines (as was) seems to be taking the lead in the new company which leads us to believe that most of job losses that come down the pike will be borne by the former Continental Airlines staff.

Customers will be largely unaffected by today’s news as it will take some time for any changes to fully work their way through the system. The most likely difference is that holders of Continental tickets will find themselves boarding a United Airlines aircraft, but this is nothing new in the airline industry.

It is unsurprising that United Airlines and Continental have decided to merge as both companies lost tens of millions of dollars last year – many of which would have been spent wooing each others customers away. Those dollars can now be better spent on services at the terminal and in the air. One would hope that the result is a better, more efficient and comfortable journey for passengers.

With British Airways merging with Iberia a couple of weeks ago, and now this merger, we could be starting to see a trend emerging. There is much talk about who will be the next airlines to form partnerships in the near future; airlines like US Airways and American Airlines will no doubt be keeping a very close eye on the success or otherwise of the new United Airlines as both have been linked with their own mergers in past years.

The new combined airline aims to reduce combined annual operating costs by by between $1.0 billion and $1.2 billion by 2013, and the eyes of the aviation world will be upon them while they try. Should the cost savings prove successful, watch out for a flurry of mergers in the coming few years.

Combined United Airlines statistics:

Staff: 86,000

Serviced locations: 370

Annual turnover: $29 billion (US)

United Airlines: http://www.unitedairlines.com

Continental Airlines: http://www.continental.com

Merger press release: http://www.unitedcontinentalmerger.com/press-release

To date, the OzLeisure.com.au website has been about providing information to Australians and visitors to our country with information on the best leisure activities around.

That has been pretty successful and the website is becoming more popular by the month, but we like to keep things moving whenever we can, and to keep evolving the website to offer more to the ever-growing number of visitors. We do actually have a very bold scheme that is in development for later this year or early next that will make the current website – large as it is – look minute by comparison. That however is the grand plan and for the future. Meanwhile, all grand plans have to start somewhere and what we have released today is the first, quite small step on that road.

What we have launched today is a products and services database. Well, when we say database, that is possibly a bit of an exaggeration because at the moment it is empty, but, once products and services are added, it will indeed resemble more of a database!

We are now embarking upon sourcing products and services to upload to this fledgling database such that we can start to become a definitive source for everything leisure related in the Australian market.

The system works in much the same way as the existing activities database, offering those companies and individuals who enter their details the opportunity to go far beyond a basic classified-style listing which has no meat on the bone. Like the activities database, products and services are afforded images, detailed descriptions, outlet locations, coverage information, comments, ratings and so forth. admittedly for some of those options to be exploited to their fullest extent there is a charge, but at only $15.00 + GST one-off payment, it is a small price to pay.

Of course, as is always the case with OzLeisure.com.au there is a free option. Unlike many other databases, the free option doesn’t instantly reduce the listing down to a one-liner either; again, it is still afforded all of the same options as the premium, paid-for listing, just fewer of them. Only 2 images can be shown for an item with a free listing as opposed to an unlimited number with a premium listing. Little changes like that.

All listings are vetted by a human before they are made live on the website, and nothing will be tolerated that breaches the T&Cs or falls foul of the usual caveats etc.

So, now the quest for products and services begins. Wish us luck. If you happen to be the supplier of leisure-related products or services to Australia, please feel free to add your items to the database by clicking here – we look forward to seeing it.

Well, the news is bad …

The breaking news out of BBC News is that the negotiations between the Unite union and British Airways have broken down and the strike is to go ahead, starting today (Saturday).

This is a devastating blow for everyone involved, but most importantly, the worst affected people are the customers for BA who may now find themselves without an aeroplane to whisk them away to foreign lands.

As reported previously, BA are attempting to fly between 60-65% of flights into and out of London, and the anticipated route percentages to be flown remain unchanged. As always, for this strike and the next one – if there is no resumption in negotiations and the strike goes ahead – is to check with the airline before you leave for the airport.

British Airways website

Phone: 1300 767 177 (Mon-Fri 0900-1730 EST)

If you are supposed to be travelling on a BA flight during the strike period, we would love to hear your comments on whether you were able to travel, and if so, what your experience was. We wish you luck.

As the sand runs through the hourglass, the strike by BA cabin crew is looking more like it will go ahead save for a miracle 11th hour save.

While Australia slept, BA announced that they are hopeful of running approximately 60% of their scheduled services during the affected dates, and from an Australian perspective, things are not predicted to be as bad as they could have been … if you are scheduled to fly into London Gatwick that is.

BA expects to run the following services:

• 100% of long haul flights using London Gatwick
• Over 50% of short haul flights using London Gatwick
• Over 60% of long haul flights using London Heathrow
• 30% of short haul flights using London Heathrow

As yet there is no information about services to/from other UK regional and European airports.

British Airways seem to be managing this situation as best as they can, and if the predicted number of operating flights is accurate then they deserve much praise. The travelling public wait to see how accurate those numbers are though.

Advice to travellers remains the same: keep up-to-date with the latest developments at the British Airways website, and check with the airline before heading to the airport on any journey that may be affected. The website has been updated in the past couple of hours to reflect the latest news and updates should be continual from this point onwards.

Good luck if you are travelling BA during the strike period. We would love to hear your comments about how well (or otherwise) the airline and remaining staff cope, and whether it had any effect on your journey.

It’s all very well having a blog and getting people to view it, but if there is no content those visitors won’t stay for long. And, if they can’t find what they are looking for, or don’t like what they see, then they won’t be back and the whole thing becomes a complete waste of time.

With a small company like ours, it is very easy to become swamped with work and there are things that get neglected; it’s easy to see how a blog posting would be a likely casualty in that shake-out, and therefore the blog workload is something that has to be addressed early on in the game, and it is something for which a contingency plan must be in place so that the information keeps flowing, and the readers are kept interested.

To that end, we have devised a plan which will hopefully alleviate the potential for problem, and should one or more of the team be unavailable for whatever reason, or simply become too swamped in work on a particular day – as we admit is a good problem to have – the posts and tweets will continue from the other people on the team.

We have therefore decided to split up which types of information are handled by certain people, and one of those three (initially) will be posting on their specialist subjects on a regular basis to keep people up to date with the daily goings-on at OzLeisure.

So, without further ado, let’s introduce the team:

On sports (especially the footy), we have Karen. Karen is a bit of a dark horse in this regard … we have known for ages that she is a massive footy fan. GO BLUES! (I would be shot if I didn’t put that in), but it turns our that her sports interest and knowledge is not limited to just the Aussie Rules, and not just to the AFL either. A keen supporter of the VFL and avid tennis fan, Karen is also very partial to basketball, netball, baseball, athletics and a whole host of others. Being a country girl, Karen will also be keeping an eye on rural affairs from time to time and how they affect the Australian leisure industry. She has close ties with a number of regional tourism boards – especially in Victoria – and will be chipping in with information from them as it is applicable.

Moving on, we have Richard. Richard has arguably the most difficult role with the information output: he will be looking after the big picture for leisure across Australia and trying as best he can to convey to you all what is going on nationally, as well as at a local level. Having extensively travelled throughout Australia, New Zealand, USA and Europe, Richard knows exactly what travellers and leisure seekers are looking for in their time away from work and that combined with his finger never being far from the pulse of the Aussie leisure seeker, he will be bringing all of that firsthand experience to bear in this role. It’s a huge responsibility but one that he is more than capable of.

Finally, there’s me, Mike. This whole blog and Twitter thing for information output was my idea, so I have to count myself in the team too. As developer for the OzLeisure.com.au website and everything else that we do that ends up on the web, obviously much of my reporting will be focused around that as well as developments in the technology world that have an impact on Australian leisure and tourism. On its own, that is not a huge amount of work to be doing and it would be unfair to have Richard and Karen do so much, and me so little, so I have also put my hand up to cover the international leisure news that does or could apply to Australia; that includes keeping an eye on airlines and tour operators, deals for Aussies leaving these lands for whatever reason and basically everything else that happens outside of Australia that has an impact on us here. And no, this choice was nothing to do with possibilities of international travel … honestly.

So that’s it. The team is chosen, the roles have been assigned, we are all just getting ourselves settled in and ready for the off, then the information will start flowing. We are all looking forward to getting our teeth into these roles and although it may take a little while for us to find our feet and get into the groove, if you give us a little bit of time to iron out the creases, we are confident it will be worthwhile.

Unless an agreement can be reached by the end of play this coming Tuesday, 16th March 2010 (UK time), it looks as if the strike by British Airways cabin crew will go ahead.

The information available at the moment indicates that the proposed strike dates are 20th March 2010 for three days and then again on 27th March 2010 for four days.

BA is in dispute with the Unite union – which represents a number of the cabin crew – over staffing levels and pay for those members involved as BA hopes to cut GBP 63.5 million in annual costs following two loss-making years.

Of course the result of this is that customers are the ones to lose out as flights will inevitably be delayed and cancelled for the days during the proposed strikes. What is less well understood though is that the problems will not end there … as a result of those cancellations and delays, there will be aircraft and staff in places where they shouldn’t be, and that will have a knock-on effect to the timetable for days following. In the case of the first set of proposed strike dates, with the second proposed strike only five days later, the effects of the first strike will roll right into the second, thereby compounding the problems faced by travellers.

For their part, BA have offered customers affected by the proposed strikes refunds and re-booking where applicable, and have indicated that they will be able to run some of their services using staff that are either non-union, or from a different union, and by using staff that have been trained specifically to take over from the usual cabin crew. The latter solution however, may raise safety concerns on the basis that stand-in cabin crew are by definition less experienced than the regular crew members.

There is still time for these strikes to be averted, and it is surely the case that everybody – most notably those people booked on BA flights during the affected period – wants a solution to be found between now and Tuesday, even if it is a temporary stay allowing more time for talks to take place and an agreement to be reached. It is not beyond the realms of possibility for this strike to be called off at the last minute – many have been in the past.

If this strike were to go ahead, it will obviously do serious damage to British Airways both financially and in terms of credibility and reliability, but it will not cover the union officials and staff in much glory either. The airline, although not “in trouble” financially, has had a bad couple of years with regards income and profitability as many companies around the world have. They have felt the effects of the global downturn and have been hit (along with most other airlines around the world) with increasing oil prices which have driven up operating costs. As any company would do, they are re-structuring the business to put it on an even keel and get back to profitable ways. This necessitates a change in company structure and staffing levels, which the union are obviously objecting to. However, by striking as proposed, the union may well be taking aim at their feet if not actually shooting themselves there just yet.

It seems that a strike could be the start of a downward spiral of events that would affect the union members in the long run. So, the staff strike and as a result, the company loses money – money that, at the moment, it can ill afford to lose. That additional unnecessary loss means that BA are now forced into making even more cuts in order to plug the gap. At the same time, customers have lost confidence in the airline and are not booking long in advance for fear of more strikes, so, the airline loses forward bookings and revenue forcing even yet deeper cuts. It’s a vicious circle.

Of course in a company the size of BA there will always be differences of opinion between the employer and the union. It has happened since the beginning of time, and will continue long into the future, but striking cannot seriously be the answer to any such dispute. Sure, the unions want to make a stand and fight for their members’ rights, that’s their job, but playing Russian Roulette with the company is not the way to make it work. There are arbitration services available to both sides which should be used, and there is always an amount of give and take from both sides of the disagreement. Upsetting your customers, those people who pay for everyone to be employed really helps nobody and inconveniences everybody.

All we can do for the time being though is to hope that common sense prevails, and the strikes are called off.

If you are affected by this proposed action we advise that you check with BA on a regular basis to keep abreast of the situation, contact details are as follows:

Latest strike information from the BA website

Tel: 1300 767 177 (0930 – 1730 hrs EST Monday-Friday)

Please check with the airline before you make your way to the airport on the day of travel if you intend to fly on any of the affected days or the days either side of the proposed strike dates.

Hello, and welcome to post number one on the brand new OzLeisure.com.au blog.

In the upcoming posts on this site, we here at OzLeisure.com.au will be bringing you the latest news regarding the website, with information on upcoming developments, news on recent developments as well as general news about new and updated listings that are available.

Besides keeping up-to-date with the website news, we will also be covering and giving our views on the latest news in the leisure industry, with a particular focus on the Australian market, as well as general news about Australian that we believe will be of interest to our readers as well as general bits-and-bobs that pop up along the way that we would like to share with you.

We will obviously allow comments on anything we post, but we will be monitoring what goes on here and will be interacting with the commentors where applicable. Also, we would like to keep this site available to everyone, so we will be quite strict with regards to the language used in the comments; please remember that kids have access to the Internet too, and we would like to keep things nice and clean.

We hope that you will enjoy the content that we will be producing from here on, and look forward to sharing our news and views with you all. For your convenience you will find links to RSS feeds on the right of the screen so that you can have the articles sent directly to you.

All comments on content and suggestions for more content are gratefully received and we will be reading each and every one of them, tweaking the content that we provide as required, and hope to build this site – in conjunction with the main OzLeisure.com.au website – into a valuable resource for all Australian residents and visitors to our fair lands.

Enjoy.

The OzLeisure.com.au team