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The next big thing in global tourism

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Enchanting tourist attractions, unique diplomatic stature and a thriving airliner have placed Ethiopia, Land of Origins, on top of the world when it comes to tourism growth.

According to the World Travel & Tourism Council’s (WTTC) annual review, the country saw the highest tourism growth in the world (48.6%), surpassing the global average growth rate of 3.9% and the African average of 5.6%. During the period, the sector supported 2.2 million jobs and contributed US$7.4 billion to Ethiopia’s economy, an increase of US$2.2bn on 2017.

The timeless charm of Ethiopia’s natural, cultural and historical tourist attractions has been driving an influx of tourists from far and wide. As the land where mankind, coffee and the Blue Nile trace their roots, Ethiopia has always been a fascinating destination for holidaymakers.

The country’s UNESCO-registered heritages including the majestic obelisks of Axum, the rock-hewn churches of Lalibela and the fortified historic town of Harar, among others, have always remained tourist magnets, drawing visitors in droves. And add to this the magnificent scenery and the unique wildlife riches, some of which are found in the country only.

As the Meetings, Incentives, Conferencing & Exhibitions (MICE) tourism blossoms around the world, Ethiopia is also uniquely positioned to reap the benefits, owing to its unique place in Africa’s diplomatic landscape. Ethiopia today the city stands among the top capitals in the world, hosting major regional and global conferences.

As the main hub of the Pan-African carrier, Ethiopian Airlines, Ethiopia also enjoys convenient air connectivity with multiple destinations in Africa and the rest of the world, making travel to the country easier than ever before. The connectivity options the airline offers to travelers has made Ethiopia ever more accessible to the whole world, and has facilitated the influx of tourists.

The airline’s catalyst role has never been more impactful, especially in promoting tourism, as alluded to by Gloria Guevara, President & CEO of the World Travel & Tourism Council concerning the exceptional growth of Ethiopia’s tourism. “Ethiopia’s Travel & Tourism boom was one of the great success stories of 2018. It has exceeded our sector’s global and regional comparisons to record the highest level of growth of any country in 2018”, Gloria Guevara notes. “This has been driven by the very strong performance of aviation in the country and the development of Addis Ababa as a dynamic and growing regional hub.” Africa’s largest carrier today spreads its wings to 120 destinations throughout the world, with half the destinations in Africa. Thanks to Addis Ababa’s strategic location at the center of the East-West lane and the ever-expanding service of Ethiopian Airlines, the city has emerged as the major gateway into Africa surpassing Dubai.

Besides its wide connectivity and multi-award winning signature services, the flag carrier’s cutting –edge technologies are adding a definite wow factor that is enabling the influx of tourists savor the beauty of the nation and designate the east Africa’s nation as a home away from home! Ethiopian Mobile App enables international travelers secure eVisa within 4 hours and elevates travelers to a high degree of personalization and end to end travel experience through mobile devices.

Global passengers can apply e-Visa and book their flights, pay online using credit or debit cards, mobile money, e- Wallet and bank transfer. They can also check-in and issue boarding pass as well as self-board. Passport and Ethiopian App suffice all the way to experience seamless travel to and from Ethiopia. The excellence of Ethiopian is also manifest in its hospitality and award winning service. The carrier has been certified by SKYTRAX as Four Star Global Airline.

As Ethiopia keeps leveraging its edge as a destination of choice for holidaymakers, and as Addis Ababa continues to augment its place as the diplomatic capital of Africa and the flourishing hub of Ethiopian Airlines, the sky will be the limit to its tourism growth in the years to come.

Travel News | eTurboNews

New Cancun resort: Vacation like a Hollywood star

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Guests can get close to authentic Hollywood Memorabilia in a beachfront setting and dine at any of 16 world-class restaurants including Guy Fieri’s Burger Joint when the highly-anticipated Planet Hollywood Beach Resort Cancun rolls out the red carpet in late 2019 on the vibrant beaches of Mexico’s Costa Mujeres.

Following the successful opening of Planet Hollywood Costa Rica in late 2018, this new Planet Hollywood resort invites guests to vacation like a star. Located just north of Cancun’s Hotel Zone, Planet Hollywood Cancun brings a Vacation Like a Star™ experience to travelers of all ages looking to rewrite the script on all-inclusive vacations. ​

With no detail overlooked, Planet Hollywood Cancun brings curated entertainment experiences with refreshing pools, luxurious rooms, nine bars, four swimming pools, a lazy river, trampoline park, kids/teens club, and a mini-golf course, making it the ideal destination for work, family, romance and play.

Planet Hollywood Cancun’s professionally designed wellness program, PHIT, brings active vacationers the top-trending fitness regimes straight from Hollywood. Wellness enthusiasts can refuel at the Fix Juice Bar with refreshments such as freshly-prepared Watermelon Cucumber Juice on the menu. The Planet Hollywood wellness story continues at the PH Spa & Beauty Bar, featuring celebrity favorite and award-winning Eminence Organics Skin Care products.

Planet Hollywood Hotels & Resorts is now offering an introductory 50% off web-exclusive offer, making it even easier to Vacation Like A Star™.

Travel News | eTurboNews

Visitors to Walter E. Washington Convention Center encouraged to ask Alexa

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Through a strategic partnership between Events DC, the official convention and sports authority for the District of Columbia, and Volara, the voice hub for the hospitality industry, visitors to the Walter E. Washington Convention Center are finding their way around the facility and hosted events easier than ever before through an ever-familiar voice.

The new voice-based wayfinding solution atop Amazon Alexa is powered by Volara’s market-leading enterprise-grade conversation management technology. Inside the 2.3 million-square-foot building sits wayfinding kiosks that host the voice assistant. Visitors are encouraged to ask Alexa about happenings within the convention center and ask where to find meeting spaces, food-and-beverage outlets, the closest shoe shine, the business center and more. More than 50 kiosks featuring the Volara-powered solution on Amazon Alexa will greet visitors, and voice commands will extend outside the facility to local businesses, services and attractions.

“At the Walter E. Washington Convention Center, we aim to provide our customers with a memorable experience,” said Samuel Thomas, senior vice president and general manager of Events DC. “Most people are tech savvy, and they want to have real-time access to the information they need in a format they are most accustomed to using. We partnered with Volara to provide wayfinding on voice command. Now event goers can get their questions answered quickly without having to seek out staff; it’s quick and efficient. We aren’t replacing face-to-face employee interaction – customer service is our core value and the reason we engaged in this project. This voice technology enables us to scale personal service and gives our customers the option to get information their way. It’s exciting.”

Wayfinding is just the first step. Thomas said his team is working with Volara to add more commands to the voice assistant with the goal of personalizing experiences for visitors. Show organizers can customize or brand kiosks strategically placed in their event locations. Volara’s conversation management engine will then be leveraged to respond to voice prompts for each event. The convention center is considering selling kiosk sponsorships as a value-added service. An automobile manufacturer, for example, may want to sponsor all kiosks in the Convention Center during The Auto Show, providing a good revenue stream for the facility and making the event more interactive, informative and fun.

“When we tell customers about this voice initiative, they get really excited,” Thomas said. “We are always trying to find ways to reinvent ourselves and provide better services for customers, and technology is at the core. Recently we added smart furniture to the public areas that contain USB ports or standardized plugs to keep people connected. We are one of the first convention centers to offer free WiFi. And, through our strategic partnership with Digital Conventions, we now have the most robust digital signage program in the country. This voice project with Volara is yet another added service that we are providing to our customers. With the flexibility of Volara’s software, the sky is the limit.”

Lasan Coger, general manager of Digital Conventions, said he was intrigued when Thomas approached him about the wayfinding by voice command initiative. “A collaborative team from Events DC, Digital Conventions and Volara met and put our minds together to see how we could launch this program. It was challenging to get to where we are today, but everyone involved loved the challenge, and more importantly, we love the product. When we see the responses from attendees at our events, it validates what we are doing, and we can’t wait to expand this program.”

Volara provides platform agnostic voice-based conversation management software and a secure integrations hub to the hospitality venues. Its software turns the leading consumer voice assistants (Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant and IBM Watson) into a business tool that drives more efficient customer service, influences visitors’ behaviors, and improves net promoter scores. Volara is a launch partner for both Google Assistant Interpreter Mode and Alexa for Hospitality.

“We are thrilled to bring wayfinding on voice command to the Walter E. Washington Convention Center,” said David Berger, Volara CEO. “We see Convention Centers, Casinos, Malls, Stadiums, Amusement Parks or any venue that can benefit from wayfinding as an exciting vertical for Volara. This successful deployment is proof that Volara-powered voice assistants can make a venue more visitor friendly, easier to navigate and more efficiently operated. Today we have a waiting list of convention centers that are eager to deploy our solution. The interest is overwhelming.”

To learn more about Volara-powered voice assistant programs, visit volara.io.

Travel News | eTurboNews

Developing safety and security for children during travel

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Safety and security are always a concern of the travel industry, no matter who the traveler might be. A major issue when dealing with children is their safety and security. In the case of young travelers, the situation becomes even more difficult and emotional. There are many reasons for this heightened need for safety and security.  Among these are:

1)   Children are perceived to be more vulnerable

2)    Most people tend to be highly protective of children

3)    The legal ramifications of injury to a child may be even more severe

4)    Children evoke emotional reactions, and these emotions may crowd out rational thinking

Child safety and security tends to become the responsibility of three groupings:

1)   The child or young adult

2)   The parent of guardian of the child

3)   The host institution

The following is a partial list of precautions that all of us need to take when dealing with the child segment of the travel market. To help provide a safer ambiance for family vacations, consider some of the following.

Just as in the case of marketing efforts, tourism security efforts need to segment the market into at least four age brackets. Some suggested brackets might be: (1) new borns-2 years, (2) 3-7 years, (3) 7-12 years, and (4) teenagers until the legal age of 18. The essential issue is to realize that while both a 17 year old and a 2 year old are legally both minors, from a safety, security, and sociological standard, they operate in a very different ways and require very different guidelines. To help maintain these various groups safe and sound Tourism Tidbits offers the following suggestions. It should be noted that these are only a few suggestions of the many that are needed, and final decisions should be made by an onsite professional.

– Keep video cameras going. In case a child is lost (or Heaven forbid kidnapped), a video camera may be an excellent tool in locating the child.

– In places where adults and children mix, consider the use of ID bracelets being offered at the time of ticket purchase. You can use the ID bracelet either as a check-in/check-out device or give them away as a souvenir. In either case, should the child be lost, the security agent will have a name and phone number to call.  It is a good idea to place both the local and home number on the bracelet.

– In areas that have special young people’s sections, make sure that it is only children who enter. Adults should not be allowed into a children’s section. If an adult is needed there in case of an emergency, he/she should only be allowed to enter accompanied by a trained security agent.

– Develop policies on older children or unaccompanied minors. Younger children may be less of a problem than older children (12-17 years of age). These are guests who are legally still minors but can often do a great deal of damage or may demand that they be treated as adults even though such treatment is against the law. Make sure that all personnel are familiar with your business regarding minors’ safety and behavior of and with minors. Employees need to know:

–      policies and laws that specifically deal with people under the legal age of maturity

–      how to handle an angry or non-compliant minor

–      how to handle someone who may be making a scene

–      -when to actively intervene or call for additional help

–      how to check IDs without offense – a person’s ID is checked and questioned as to the whereabouts of his/her parents

In the hour before closing, it is very important to make sure that unsupervised young people are accounted for. In cases where the young person falsely believes that he/she is grown-up, ask for both a driver’s license and a social security number.

– Be aware of child abandonment/abuse. A form of child abuse is abandonment of a child. Train personnel to be on the lookout for all forms of child abuse. For example, if an adult is hanging around other people’s children asking for that person’s ID, turn security cameras on the person and attempt to get the license number of the vehicle being driven. The more information you have, the easier it will be for the police to act should there be a problem. Do not assume that a child abuser will return the next day. It may be weeks or months, or never, until that person returns.

– Develop cooperative information centers. Work with local police departments, hotel associations, and other attractions so that information can be passed between security departments rapidly and easily.  Remember people judge a locale on just one negative incident. When something goes wrong in one place, it can affect the entire local tourism community.

– Be careful of safety concerns.  Do a safety analysis; look for and correct such things as: glass doors against which inadvertently a child may run into, issues of food safety, or balconies over which a child may climb and jump.

Dr. Peter Tarlow is part of the Safer Travel Program by eTN. More information
www.safertravel.com 

Travel News | eTurboNews

Confirmed: Auto anti-stall system on before Ethiopian Max jet crash

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It has been confirmed that investigators have determined the automatic anti-stall system as activated before the Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 737 Max jet crash.

This initial determination is based on information from the aircraft’s data and voice recorders, which shows that the malfunctioning automated system may be responsible for the deadly March 10 crash.

This preliminary determination was made known during a briefing at the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) yesterday. It is also known that the auto anti-stall system was activated on the Indonesian Lion Air 737 Max jet crash.

The preliminary findings could be revised, but right now they point to the system, called MCAS (or Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System) as the potential cause of both crashes. Regulators say the Ethiopian Airlines Max jet followed a similar flight path to the Lion Air flight, including erratic climbs and descents before crashing minutes after takeoff.

The MCAS system is designed to automatically point the nose of the jets down if it senses potential for a loss of lift, or aerodynamic stall. Aircraft can lose lift from the wings and fall from the sky if the nose points too high. The system also makes the Max fly similarly to older generations of Boeing’s 737, negating the need for a lot of added pilot training.

Boeing is working on a software update to the auto anti-stall system so that the nose will point down only once instead of around 21 times as happened in the Lion Air crash making it easier for pilots to override it.

Ethiopian officials are expected to release their preliminary report soon.

The 737 Max 8 has been grounded worldwide due to the crashes as Boeing works on an update to its software to make the planes safer.

Travel News | eTurboNews

How fast things can get lost… and found again at Frankfurt Airport

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New online search function speeds up processes in the Lost & Found Office at Frankfurt Airport

Fiddlesticks! The family has just settled into their seats in the plane and are full of excitement about their holiday. When suddenly the youngest child cries, “my teddy bear is gone!” Now what? It’s a shame that she’ll have to do without her favorite cuddly animal during the trip. But it would at least be great to know that it will be in safe hands in Frankfurt Airport’s lost & found office until they return―it would be a huge relief, in fact.

But how can they find out? Fortunately, it has just become considerably easier for the owners of missing objects to report their losses to the lost & found office online―any time of the day or night. With luck, the lost item will already be in the database. A new system now automatically compares search requests and returned items, identifies matches, and notifies owners as soon as their missing property turns up.

In the search portal on the airport website, it is possible to specify attributes such as the item’s brand, color, size, unique inscriptions etc. and when and where it was lost. A photograph of it can even be uploaded. “The new system greatly facilitates our work,” says Rike Krüger of the lost & found office at Frankfurt Airport. Passengers can easily select search parameters themselves. In the past, it was necessary for airport employees to laboriously copy this information from emails or faxes or call owners to ask for details. Especially on busy days, this can take awhile. “Travelers now enjoy an improved service. They can actively support the search process themselves and no longer have to constantly worry during their trip, hoping against hope that we will have found their property by the time they return,” adds Krüger. “We can now let them know right away as soon as their lost smartphone, backpack, umbrella, saxophone or whatever appears in our system.” The image analysis function will also be improved even further very soon; the software will then be able to automatically identify and correlate more attributes of missing objects. This will make it faster and more convenient both to submit search requests and to identify found items.

Once it’s clear that the lost & found office has a missing object, its owner has various options for recovering their property. They can of course personally retrieve it from the lost & found office right after returning, or else authorize someone else to do it for them. For a small fee and the cost of postage, the staff of the lost & found office will also send items to anywhere in the world.

Good to know

The Lost & Found Office at Frankfurt Airport is a service of Fraport, the airport’s operator. Its 10 employees deal with up to 70 returned items and 50 search requests a day. Currently about 10,000 objects are stored in the lost & found office in Terminal 1 located at the entrance to the Airport city Mall on Level 0. They range from items such as jewelry and electrical appliances, across clothing and accessories, toys and travel bags, all the way to curiosities such chainsaws, wheelchairs and microwave ovens. They are kept for three months and then auctioned off if they haven’t been claimed by that time. The proceeds are kept for three years, just in case owners make themselves known by then. The lost & found office is open to the public every day between 8 a.m. and 6 p.m.

Passengers and visitors can find more information on the lost & found office and many other services on Frankfurt Airport’s website, Service Shop, or Twitter, Facebook, Instagram or YouTube social media pages.

Travel News | eTurboNews

ATM Report: 63% of Dubai Airport passengers were in transit during 2018

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More than 63% of the 89 million passengers who passed through Dubai airport in 2018 were in transit with just 8% of these passengers leaving the airport to explore the emirate, according to the latest Colliers International data published by Reed Travel Exhibitions ahead of Arabian Travel Market (ATM) 2019, which takes place at Dubai World Trade Centre between 28 April – 1 May 2019.

As Dubai targets 20 million annual visitors by 2020, plus an additional five million between October 2020 and April 2021 for Expo 2020 – 70% of which will come from outside the UAE – a number of initiatives to increase stopover tourism have been introduced including new transit visas and dedicated tourism packages.

Danielle Curtis, Exhibition Director ME, Arabian Travel Market, said: “Last year, the UAE introduced a new transit visa allowing all transit passengers an exemption from entry fees for 48 hours with the option to extend up to 96 hours for AED 50. This visa is not only good for the country’s tourism sector but for the local economy as a whole, enticing passengers to view their transit not as an unwanted delay in their travels – but as a good opportunity to add value to their trip and experience everything the UAE has to offer.”

According to IATA, the Middle East is forecast to see an extra 290 million air passengers on routes to, from and within the region by 2037, with the total market size increasing to 501 million passengers during the same period.

Adding to this, figures from ATM 2018 show the number of delegates interested in buying airline products and services increased 13% between 2017 and 2018.

“This projected growth underscores Dubai, and of course the Middle East, as the ideal location to bring together professionals from the aviation and tourism industry for our inaugural CONNECT Middle East, India and Africa forum which will be co-located alongside ATM 2019 – taking place on the last two days of the show,” Curtis said.

The success of the aviation industry in the sky is matched in the GCC and wider MENA region by the continued huge infrastructure investment.

The total value of 195 active aviation-related projects in the Middle East reached almost $50 billion in 2018, according to research provider BNC Network.

The various airport investments under way include AED30 billion in developing Al Maktoum International Airport, AED28 billion expansion of phase four of Dubai International Airport and AED 25 billion for the development and expansion of Abu Dhabi International Airport. In addition, Sharjah Airport is also undergoing a AED1.5 billion investment in expansion of its terminal.

There are also a number of upcoming and planned airport expansion projects across Saudi Arabia, including King Abdulaziz International Airport Expansion in Jeddah and King Khalid International Airport Expansion in Riyadh.

Curtis said: “2018 was also an exciting year for new flight routes with GCC airlines alone adding 58 new flight routes – focusing on areas of consistent and substantial growth.

“With two thirds of the world’s population within an eight-hour flight from the GCC, it is an ideal base for exploring some of the world’s most interesting and previously inaccessible corners of the world. And the GCC’s airlines are making it even easier with the continuous addition of new and direct flight routes,” Curtis added.

Looking ahead to ATM 2019, aviation will feature heavily in the programme with a keynote from Emirates’ President Sir Tim Clark titled ‘Emirates: Still leading the way’ as well as an exclusive one-to-one with Air Arabia CEO, Adel Ali. A panel session titled ‘What are the hot topics in the airline world’ which will explore how traffic is performing against a backdrop of volatile fuel prices and geo-political challenges as well as discussing stopover tourism and how the digital world is affecting airline and airport services and experiences for customers.

Confirmed exhibiting airlines for ATM 2019 so far include Emirates, Etihad Airways, Saudi Airlines, flydubai and flynas.

Considered by industry professionals as a barometer for the Middle East and North Africa tourism sector, ATM welcomed over 39,000 people to its 2018 event, showcasing the largest exhibition in the history of the show, with hotels comprising 20% of the floor area.

Brand new for this year’s show will be the launch of Arabian Travel Week, an umbrella brand comprising four co-located shows including ATM 2019, ILTM Arabia, CONNECT Middle East, India & Africa – a new route development forum and new consumer-led event ATM Holiday Shopper. Arabian Travel Week will take place at Dubai World Trade Centre from 27 April – 1 May 2019.

Arabian Travel Market is the leading, international travel and tourism event in the Middle East for inbound and outbound tourism professionals. ATM 2018 attracted almost 40,000 industry professionals, with representation from 141 countries over the four days. The 25th edition of ATM showcased over 2,500 exhibiting companies across 12 halls at Dubai World Trade Centre.  Arabian Travel Market 2019 will take place in Dubai from Sunday, 28th April to Wednesday, 1st May 2019. To find out more, please visit: www.arabiantravelmarket.wtm.com.

Travel News | eTurboNews

10 Students Tips For Planning Your Assignment

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The secret to successfully finish everything in time is time management. We all tend to forget about things or postpone them to the last minute, and it might bring troubles and stress to your life. It can also decrease your grades because when you don’t have enough time for an assignment, it is hard to do quality work. Anyone might find him/herself wondering “Can someone help me to do my assignment right now?” Sure thing; you can always use the best essay writing service when you have no other possibility to finish it on your own. Many students in Australia and all over the world have struggled with planning; this guide will help you to manage time properly and be successful with your studies.

Tips on Planning to Do Your Assignment without Stressing Out

How to write an assignment? Well, it takes some skill and researching, but the main thing, of course, is to have all planned and organized, before you even start writing.

  1.      Create a useful time planner. The first thing to mention is that it is better to use a digital calendar or an app that allows creating tasks with due dates and reminders. Of course, you might make a notebook with all the information, but as long as it is in the paper, there is no way to set reminders. As soon as you get an assignment out into calendar and set a due date. Set two reminders, one week before the due date, another one two weeks before. Don’t trust your memory, as it is hard to keep everything in mind; use technology instead.
  2.      Create a rating system defining the importance and complexity of tasks. It is useful when you have several of them at a time. Mark them with different colors and figure out how much time each of them will take you to write. Start with the most complex and important ones, the less crucial you can always trust to an online service, like PapersOwl.
  3.      How to start an assignment? You need to begin with a close reading of requirements and topic; it is crucial that you understand the key question and the demands you are expected to meet. Underline the main words and focus on them, define the crucial question of an essay.
  4.      After the previous step write down what you need to do to finish the task. Basically, you are creating a plan of actions you are going to take. Don’t put huge options like “write an essay.” Divide them into smaller sections so that they are less nerve wreaking and easier to do. Set realistic goals, if you cannot write 2000 words a day, it is ok; just divide the works for two days at least.
  5.      Begin working on an assignment with drafting a structure for it. Whether you are going to a college in Melbourne or any other place in Australia, there are common outlines for any kind of academic paper that are well-known and are publicly accessible. If you don’t have an example, you may ask the professor or look online, the general outline for an essay is always the same. Use it to customize according to your needs and topic.
  6.      Look for useful information. Don’t rush to write everything, do research on the topic first. You don’t have to pay for online sources; there are many of them that are free to use by anyone. There is your local public library, college library, and digital resources. If you don’t know which sources are most relevant, ask someone for help: professor, tutor, and classmate.
  7.      When working with sources make notes and marks on the most important data. After you are done, it will be easier to find this information.

  1.      Work on your thesis statement. Before actually writing it is better to know what your standpoint is and the main idea. That’s why one should spend some time formulating a clear thesis statement that will be a guide to future work.
  2.      Write a draft. Try to focus and not get distracted, don’t be too critical when writing a draft, just follow thoughts and ideas. Remember to put in direct citations primary sources and paraphrase secondary ones. It is not essential where to start; you may begin with the part that is easier for you and then complete other paragraphs.
  3.  Proofread and edit draft to make it a finished paper. Use services like Grammarly that helps to proofread spelling and grammar and use online plagiarism checker, there are several free AU services. But most importantly – reread your text to revise the general logic, readability, strong arguments, etc.

This guide should help you with the understanding of how to do assignments. Remember that it is better not postpone it till the last night, as the more time you have, the better it is.

Author’s bio: Becca Stickler is a freelance writer with a focus on sustainability and eco-friendly living. Now engaged in travel around the country and writing.

Travel News | eTurboNews

“It’s easier to fly nude”: Naked man attempts to board plane in Moscow airport

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A man was filmed trying to board a plane to Crimea in a Moscow airport after stripping in public. He stood in the line for the ticket check fully nude, before bewildered police detained him.

At first, it seemed like a typical Saturday at Moscow’s Domodedovo Airport. Passengers were lining up near the jet bridge to board a plane for the city of Simferopol in Crimea. But one man clearly stood out.

Footage from the scene shows the man getting in line stark naked. Covering his private parts, he calmly waited for his turn as others passed through the final check. It was not clear what the man had in mind, but he crossed himself several times as the line moved forward.

During the entire process, the naked man acted as if nothing were amiss. Other passengers didn’t pay much attention to him either, apart from giggling.

According to one witness, the man explained his stunt by saying that “clothes make body aerodynamics worse” so “it’s easier to fly” nude.

The man was later detained by police and is set to be examined for his mental condition.

The airline, whose aircraft he attempted to board, told local media that the individual undressed in public and ran past its staff. “He failed to reach the plane,” the company’s spokesperson said.

Not a lot is known about his identity, except that police say he is 38 years old and was born in Siberia.

Travel News | eTurboNews