Icelandair

Now that the Baltimore Metropolitan Council has launched a long overdue campaign to lure national and international businesses to the Baltimore-Washington corridor, look for Howard County to be a key selling point and a main beneficiary of the effort. To be sure, companies looking to settle hereabouts will be told of the entire region and its sundry attractions, but Howard might be the area's easiest sell.For starters, prospective settlers could read the recent issue of American Demographics magazine that ranked Howard fourth among mid-sized U.S. localities with the highest concentrations of affluence.

Most racing sailors in this area by now have received mailing from the Leukemia Society for this year's third annual Leukemia Cup Regatta, set for June 24.Organizers and sponsors of this event, which includes a CBYRA-sanctioned race as well as the fund-raising aspects, have been at work for nearly a year.They are hoping that as the word of previous years' success has spread more sailors will want to take part by getting pledge sheets filled up to benefit the Leukemia Society.The first-place winner raising the most money will win an eight-day, seven-night bareboat BVI charter with The Moorings, complete with airfare and one night's shoreside lodgings.

Flying from Baltimore to the Great White North will become one step easier when Air Ontario inaugurates non-stop service from Baltimore-Washington International Airport to Toronto July 6, state officials announced yesterday.The new seven-day-a-week service follows the March announcement by Israel's El Al airline that it would offer connecting service via North American Airlines from BWI to New York and on to Tel Aviv beginning June 22.The airline said it plans to petition the U.S. Department of Transportation for direct flights after the feeder service begins.

French Quarter's Lucky Dogs available at the airport Lucky Dogs, a popular food among people who flock to the French Quarter of New Orleans during Mardi Gras, are available on Concourse B at Baltimore-Washington International Airport. Lucky Dogs, a retail operation established more than 30 years ago ago as a street-vending company, sells hotdogs and sausages. Besides the usual chili and onions condiments, a spicy Creole sausage and a smoked sausage, both made in New Orleans, are also available.

Passenger totals, frequency of flights continue to rise More than 1.7 million people traveled through Baltimore-Washington International Airport in October, an 11.2 percent increase compared with the same month a year ago. October was also the 24th consecutive month in which passenger totals grew by double-digits. BWI's domestic passenger totals increased by 11.3 percent and international business turned in an increase of 9.1 percent, according to the Maryland Department of Transportation.

The latest air passenger numbers are in.Baltimore-Washington International Airport registered a 3.2 percent drop last year. The decrease at Washington's National Airport was even steeper -- 4.5 percent. But at Dulles, a perennially underused airport in suburban Virginia, ridership was a healthy 5 percent.It's all very simple. Most airports specializing in domestic service have fallen on bad times because of the economic recession. Those air centers concentrating on international traffic, however, are booming.

Air Greenland is stopping its short-lived service out of Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport, leaving BWI with one trans-Atlantic flight. The airline said it will cancel 10 flights scheduled for this summer between BWI and Kangerlussuaq. The move comes less than a year after Air Greenland began seasonal service to Baltimore, the airline's first U.S. destination. The falling U.S. dollar, which has reduced American demand for travel abroad, and soaring fuel and aircraft rental costs forced Air Greenland to end the service, the carrier said.

Pat Lahue and her husband, Martin, used to sit around the house and joke about taking off to Paris for the weekend. But never in their wildest dreams would they have thought of seriously doing something so frivolous. Not until the reality of doing it -- inexpensively -- showed up in a newspaper ad.Paris. Round trip, $269 per person. And, voila!, they were there, laughing their way up the Eiffel Tower and down the Seine river on an extended weekend trip."It was wonderful," said Pat Lahue, who had never been to Paris until February, when she took her husband.

Like many people these days, corporate travel managers and professional meeting planners who work for organizations and companies are confused and frustrated by the new "simplified" airfares.For years, these high-volume users of airline service have gotten VTC used to the same thing that any big customer in an industry expects: The more you buy, the more of a discount you get.Although most airlines were hesitant to admit that they ever offered big companies volume discounts, they all did it. More open has been the practice of offering discounts as high as 50 percent off full-coach airfares to anyone going to meetings or conventions.