Icelandair

Icelandair moves regional offices from Columbia Icelandair, the national carrier of Iceland, said Wednesday it has relocated its North American headquarters from Columbia to Quincy, Mass. The move comes two years after the carrier announced it was canceling its flights from BWI Marshall Airport. The airline did not return calls so it is unclear how many jobs will be relocating. - Andrea K. Walker Jewish Museum of Md. buys land for expansion Baltimore's Corned Beef Row appears to be losing a deli and gaining a larger museum.

Michael S. Whipple, general manager of the Sheraton Inner Harbor Hotel, has received the "Maryland Travel Person of the Year Award" from the state Office of Tourism Development for service to the industry.Tourism Partnership awards, presented at the 15th annual Governor's Tourism Conference, which ended yesterday, went to: Gangplank Ragtime Band at Phillips' Restaurant in Harborplace, for serving as a goodwill ambassador for the state; Mary Junck, publisher of The Sun, for the paper's redesign, its expanded Business section and its new beat to cover tourism; the Baltimore Business Journal, for its special section on conventions; Icelandair, for helping promote Maryland and moving its headquarters from New York to Columbia; the State Highway Administration and the State Police, for a partnership to ensure tourists' safety.

I was searching for the perfect winter vacation -- one that would offer natural beauty as well as a bustling city center. And I found it, surprisingly, in Iceland.Certainly, planning a winter trip to Iceland was a concern. But it's a popular myth that Iceland, the second largest island in Europe, is a frozen country. Despite its northerly location, the Gulf Stream actually keeps temperatures quite moderate.Iceland, which lies close to the Arctic Circle, is situated approximately halfway between Moscow and New York in the Atlantic Ocean and is only a two-hour flight from the United Kingdom.

A vacation stop in Iceland is warm-up for EuropeIcelandair European Vacations has just launched a complete travel guide for holidays in Iceland and Greenland. "The 1995 Iceland Vacation and Stopover Planner: The Discovery of Europe Starts Here," describes tours and packages in an easy-to-understand format. Called "Iceland Stopovers," the packages are designed to encourage travelers to make an island stopover before or after their trip to the rest of Europe.A five-hour flight from the East Coast of the United States, Iceland is known for its steaming volcanoes, bubbling earth-warmed springs, centuries-old glaciers and iceberg-clogged lagoons.

Nashville has the Grand Old Opry and Orlando has Disney World. Now those two cities have scripted a truly cornball idea: stealing Baltimore-Washington International Airport's passenger route to London. To which we say, phooey."The Washington region is well served with other Washington-to-London routes and Philadelphia-to-London service," Rep. Bob Clement, D-Tenn., maintains in urging the route to be transferred to Memphis. Next time the esteemed lawmaker takes a junket, let him fly out of Philadelphia and see how he likes that convenience.

Faced with a nationwide slump in domestic air passenger and cargo traffic, Baltimore-Washington International Airport is looking increasingly to the international market for its growth.In the past two years alone, the number of international passengers passing through the airport grew 77 percent and international cargo more than doubled, according to figures released yesterday by Maryland Secretary of Transportation O. James Lighthizer."As international markets open up at BWI, the region's businesses are filling up seats and cargo holds," he said, "and these are particularly strong gains in light of economic conditions."

Passenger growth reaches double digits for 23rd month in row For the 23rd consecutive month, Baltimore-Washington International Airport's passenger growth reached double digits. More than 1.5 million travelers used BWI in September, a 16.8 percent increase over the same month a year ago. Southwest Airlines, BWI's leading carrier, served 559,094 passengers, a 38 percent increase over September 1999. US Airways, BWI's second-leading carrier, served 378,481 travelers, growing by 15.1 percent.

The recently inaugurated regular service to South America by Ladeco Chilean Airlines adds an important new dimension to Baltimore-Washington International Airport. It is now possible for Marylanders to fly -- or ship cargo -- from BWI to Santiago three times a week and then continue directly to Buenos Aires and Montevideo.This new, long-awaited South American route is a significant step in BWI's development into a truly competitive international gateway. This can only benefit the region's economy.

Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport will lose its flights to Africa in May, when North American Airlines cuts service to Lagos, Nigeria, and Accra, Ghana. It is the latest blow to BWI's efforts to bolster its international service, after Icelandair's pullout last month. It also means the large West African immigrant population in the Baltimore-Washington region will now have to travel further for flights to their home countries. Rising fuel costs, coupled with competition from routes Delta Air Lines recently launched from New York to West Africa, have forced North American Airlines to shut down all commercial service, company spokesman Steve Forsyth said.

If there's one place the global financial crisis has hit harder than the United States, it's Iceland. But one industry that's thriving in Iceland is tourism, as visitors rush to scoop up bargains in what was once one of the most expensive countries in the world. Lonely Planet and other travel publications have listed Iceland as one of the top destinations this year. Icelandair used to fly direct from BWI Marshall Airport to Reykjavik. That service has been discontinued, but you can hop a flight out of New York or Boston and be in the world's northernmost capital in less than six hours.