Celebrities

Heathrow’s photographer snapped them all

June 21, 2016Harriet BaskasAir Travel, Celebrities, HistoryBrad Pitt, Clint Eastwood, Dennis Stone, Heathrow Airport, Liz Taylor, Muhammad Ali

London’s Heathrow Airport is celebrating its 70th anniversary this year and digging into the archives for some treasures and special stories.

This is one about “the Godfather of Heathrow” – 84-year-old Dennis Stone – who has been a photographer at the airport for 70 years, starting work at age 14.

Over the years, Stone has snapped it all, including the visits of a dozens of celebrities, including including Frank Sinatra, Goldie Hawn, Princess Diana and the Beatles. Here’s a video about Stone’s time at the airport and some of the great photos he took.

Liz Taylor at Heathrow Airport

Clint Eastwood at Heathrow Airport

Heathrow also has a website set up to gather stories about the airport, with a wide assortment of prizes for the best stories, including trips from London to Sydney, Australia with Qantas.

EVA’s Hello Kitty jet lands in Houston

June 20, 2015Harriet BaskasCelebrities, liveriesEVA Air, Hello Kitty, Hello Kitty jet, Houston, IAH Airport, Shining Star jet

With a great deal of fanfare and classic Hello Kitty cuteness, EVA Air’s brand-new, specially painted Boeing 777-300ER landed at Houston’s Bush Intercontinental Airport on Friday, June 19, 2015, with the carrier’s Chairman KW Chang serving as captain.

Named the Hello Kitty Shining Star Jet, the plane’s livery features Little Twin Stars Kiki and Lala, Hello Kitty and My Melody and is EVA Air’s seventh specially painted aircraft and its second using a long-range Boeing 777-300ER. The plane will fly on EVA Air’s new route between Houston’s George Bush Intercontinental and Taipei’s Taoyuan International Airport three times a week. A fourth flight, using a Boeing 777-300ER with standard EVA livery, will be added on July 8, 2015.

Here are a few pictures from the arrival event at IAH Airport. More pictures of the Hello Kitty-themed items on board – and available for purchase on board the airplane – tomorrow on Souvenir Sunday.

EVA AIR HELLO KITTY JET – in flight. Courtesy EVA AIR

More tomorrow…

(All photos by Harriet Baskas, except the plane in flight, which is courtesy EVA AIR)

Listen to the history of Shannon Airport

April 20, 2014Harriet BaskasCelebrities, HistoryBBC, Gene Kelly, Shannon Airport

You have a week – till Saturday, April 26 – to log onto the BBC website and listen to this hour-long documentary about the history of Ireland’s Shannon Airport .

Shannon Airport was the first airport in the world to have a duty free shop and the bar there claims to have invented the now-iconic Irish Coffee drink. And, as the accompanying photo gallery shows, the airport has had its share of celebrity visitors, including Marilyn Monroe, Bing Crosby, Fidel Castro and Gene Kelly.

Gene Kelly shopping in the Shannon Airport duty free shop; courtesy Shannon Airport Authority.

I’m on a boat

May 18, 2013Harriet BaskasCelebritiesCelebrity Cruises, CMOG, cruising, glassmaking

“I’m on a boat. No, it’s a ship. And we will be at the dock soon.”

That’s what I kept telling myself during what I could not believe was an almost day-long bout of seasickness on a less than 48-hour cruise on the Celebrity Solstice from Seattle to …. nowhere.

The waters were calm. The scenery in the Strait of Juan de Fuca was lovely. And some people – not me – spotted Orca whales in the water.

I was a guest of Celebrity Cruises, so I toured the ship, watched a bit of a show and made time for two (maybe it was three) scoops of guava gelato. I tried using the on-board wireless to get some work done, but because the service was complimentary for everyone on this short trip, the lines were were clogged up. (As were the bathrooms in my cabin section for a few hours.)

But I’m really glad I finally perked up and felt better.

Because the 2nd night on the ship I made my way to the top deck and watched an outdoor glassmaking show put on by a trio of entertaining and informative glass artists on loan from New York’s Corning Museum of Glass (CMOG).

They were not cruise-ship corny.

They were not selling anything.

They were not rushing through their show.

And each took a turn on the microphone enthusiastically answering questions from the audience while another created a truly lovely work of art.

It turns out that at least three of Celebrity Cruises’ Solstice class ships (Celebrity Solstice, Celebrity Equinox, and Celebrity Eclipse) include a permanent hotshop where CMOG staff present live, narrated glassblowing demonstrations.

Great idea!

Fun, photo-rich timeline celebrates Air Canada’s 75th birthday

September 11, 2012Harriet BaskasAirlines, CelebritiesAir Canada, Airlines, Babe Ruth, Frank Sinatra, The Beatles

What do Frank Sinatra, Gina Lollobrigida, Louis Armstrong, Chubby Checker, Warren Beatty, Peter Fonda, Ronald Reagan and Bob Hope all have in common?

They were all passengers on Air Canada or its predecessor, Trans Canada Air Lines (TCA), sometime during the past 75 years.

As part of a slew of activities to mark its 75th anniversary, Air Canada has launched a great on-line timeline with more than 300 pictures, videos and vignettes that tell the story of the airline and of the evolution of Canada’s aviation industry.

Don’t worry if you’re not really interested in Air Canada’s story. Spend a little time poking around the timeline and you’ll see some really great celebrity photos, including the Beatles posing with their wax replicas in 1965 and, from 1941, Babe Ruth.