The meltdown happened for around three hours on Monday with the Amadeus system. There are four main booking systems used by the airline industry and when one breaks down it causes havoc at a time when carriers expect passengers to streamline their travel itinerary over the internet.

The breakdown has also affected travel agents who have not been able to access tickets on behalf of their clients. Amadeus has not yet given a reason for the failure of its systems, but has told customers that it is sorry if they experienced any undue disruption. It has also apologised to those airlines which have been affected.

Similar systems run by Galileo and Worldspan were not affected by the glitch.

Industry experts have said that it was fortunate that the problem happened during a relatively quiet travel period and that the situation would have been far more serious during a bank holiday, or over the summer.

The analysis also shows that women are more adept at finding parking spaces and are better at lining up a vehicle before driving it into those spaces. Men were found to be better at driving a car forward into a bay, but are less prepared to spend time repositioning it once they have stopped.

The driving instructor in charge of the nationwide experiment, Neil Beeson, said he was surprised by the results. He explained that during his career he had always found that men were generally better learners. He added that his experiment seemed to suggest that women were better retainers of the information they had been given.

A team of researchers was employed by car park operators NCP to look at the behaviour of drivers in 2,500 car parks across the UK. The person’s parking was analysed and marked so that a parking coefficient could be produced for both sexes.

More than 75 per cent of women excelled at setting themselves up for getting into a parking space, compared to around half of the men observed. However, men were quicker at actually completing the parking manoeuvre.

Mr LaHood works for the International Republican Institute, a non-profit organisation funded by the US which encourages democratic governance. The Egyptian authorities have recently carried out raids on a number of similar organisations. The government is currently investigating the funding of human rights organisations after it declared that there would be no tolerance of any foreign institution intent on interfering with the country’s affairs.

At the end of last year a number of raids resulted in organisations having computers and documents confiscated by Egyptian officials.

Mr LaHood said that he had asked the official who informed him that he would not be flying out of the country why he was being detained. She apparently said that she did not know. Mr LaHood was allowed to hold on to his passport and told that he could leave the airport. He said that the issue was not just about his organisation because around 300 others were also being investigated.

US human rights official, Michael Posner, said that the situation was worrying for those who believed that the Egyptian authorities were working on a transition to democracy after last year’s uprising which saw the regime of Hosni Mubarak toppled.

Mr Cameron had previously said that the government was not considering the plans which have the support of London’s Mayor Boris Johnson. However, it seems that he has had a change of heart by announcing that there will be an official examination of the proposition.

The Prime Minister has already got a number of ministers’ backs up by approving plans for a high speed rail link to Birmingham from London. Anti-HS2 campaigners say that the project will destroy large swathes of the English countryside and that the £33 billion it is estimated it will cost should be put into other transport projects.

There are two proposed sites for the new airport, either on reclaimed land or on the Isle of Grain. The MPs said that the project is not supported by the public or the aviation industry and should therefore be scrapped.

Although it is widely admitted that the south east is facing airport capacity problems, it seems that the government is currently struggling to come up with any viable solution to the problem.

Since the fighting ended in October, a flight ban over the North African country has been lifted by NATO. BA will now join a number of other European airlines which have decided that it is once again safe to carry passengers to Tripoli. Alitalia has already resumed services, and Air France said that it will begin to fly to the capital once again on 27 March.

Keith Williams, chief executive of BA, said that he was extremely pleased to be able to announce that services were to resume. He added that the airline was proud of its history of providing a vital economic link to the country. BA has been examining the security risks in Libya since the cessation of hostilities.

When war broke out, tour companies were forced to cancel bookings to the region. Operators such as Abercrombie and Kent, Exodus and Responsible Travel had previously offered travellers the opportunity of exploring the country including its many ancient ruins.

Responsible Travel said that it was unlikely that operations would return to normal in Libya until the FCO changed its advice on visiting the country. BA said that it would be operating three services to Tripoli every week.

The beginning of January is an important period for firms providing summer holiday packages. However, Thomas Cook said that it was currently concentrating on growing margins on those deals rather than capacity in an effort to cut its operating costs.

The firm has issued a statement in which it points out that its last bookings results were reported on 14 December when they were actually ahead of the market. The statement continues to say that because of the weakness in consumer sentiment at the time the plan was to reduce future capacity by around eight per cent.

The tour operator was also keen to point out that the UK bookings figures were not reflected by the company’s specialist arms or overseas operations.

Thomas Cook saw its shares dive by 75 per cent last year after a number of profits warnings, the departure of its chief executive officer and an announcement that it would be seeking £200 million in refinancing. The company said that sales had been hit by the political and social unrest in North Africa and natural disasters including the floods in Thailand.

Emirates, which has the largest fleet of superjumbos on the planet, said it had already investigated the problem on one of its planes and was currently inspecting the wings of another. A spokesman said that there were no safety issues for the carrier and that schedules would not be disrupted.

EASA said it was concerned that if nothing was done to fix the cracked brackets there could be additional wear and tear over time which could turn into a more serious problem. Although the EASA has since told Qantas that it does not have to comply with last week’s directive, the airline’s engineers have said that they want to have the carrier’s fleet checked.

Paul Cousins, Australian Licensed Aircraft  Engineers Association president, explained that cracking in a wing component could cause pressure on other parts of the wing, and that this was a safety problem.

A spokesman for Qantas said that there was no threat to the operations of the superjumbos in its fleet. However, the carrier is continuing to work with the Civil Aviation Safety Authority and with Airbus and will monitor the results of inspections by other carriers. If cracks are found, then airlines are being told to contact Airbus for repair supervision.

It is younger drivers who are being hit by the price rises and some companies are even refusing to sell them premiums. Director of AA Insurance, Simon Douglas, said that cheaper deals were rapidly disappearing and that young drivers appeared to be the biggest losers to the price hikes.

The Transport Committee last week agreed that one of the reasons that premiums are costing more is the increase in bogus whiplash claims. Mr Douglas said that it was wrong that the number of claims was on the increase when the number of accidents reported on the UK roads was continuing to drop.

MPs have also called for a ban on practices in the insurance such as providing information on customers who have had an accident to claims firms and solicitors in return for a referral fee.

An inquiry into why car insurance is still so expensive was launched at the end of last year by the Office of Fair Trading. The average cost is now three times what it was five years ago. However, the AA predicts that prices will fall in 2012.

The UKH2Mobility initiative is being backed by 13 companies including a number of car manufacturers. Business Minister Mark Prisk said electric vehicles which run off hydrogen cells were being recognised as a viable option for a future of low carbon motoring. He added that industry experts would be brought together to make the UK a major player in the use and manufacture of hydrogen fuel vehicles.

The task force is currently looking at how much investment will be needed to create an infrastructure for refuelling which will make hydrogen power attractive to the consumer.

Chief executive of Toyota Motor Europe, Didier Leroy, said a charging infrastructure would have to be set up before 2015 when the company intends to roll out its first hydrogen vehicles. Head of vehicle design and development at Nissan, Jerry Hardcastle, said that he believed hydrogen-powered vehicles could represent an important part of the car market in the UK over the next few years.

The project will also be considering how the electric cars can be used to boost the country’s economy and create jobs. The cars are powered by mixing air with hydrogen which will be kept in a tank in the vehicle. This then creates the electricity which is used to turn the wheels.

Among the cost saving strategies being employed by those who will be going overseas are booking a package deal so that most of the costs are already covered beforehand. The study found that 13 per cent would be looking for a self-catering option in order to keep expenditure down. Staying with relatives or friends was the belt-tightening choice for 13 per cent of respondents.

David Barrett, from Sainsbury’s Travel Insurance, said that the majority of travellers were actively looking for holiday options which would keep costs to a minimum. He added that although most of us were refusing to give up on a holiday at a time when household budgets were being squeezed, tactics such as booking trips at the last minute to make sure we are getting the best deal were more widespread than in previous years.

The survey found that 23 per cent of travellers were not planning to make a booking until between March and June, and a further 10 per cent were going to wait until the high season - between July and September - before looking for a deal.

Summer holidays had already been booked by only 16 per cent of those intending to leave home in 2012.