A boy from Manchester has been reunited with his three lost teddies after they went missing while on a family holiday.
Little Oliver Simpson, from Heywood in Rochdale, had just arrived at the hotel for a holiday in Costa de Almeria with his parents, Jill and Stewart, when the family realised that a bag with the six-year-old’s much-loved teddies inside was missing, and so they contacted Jet2’s Customer Services team to see if they could find out more.
After Jet2 heard that the family had lost one of their bags, the team said they “immediately launched a search” to find the missing teddies.
Customers Helpers at Almeria Airport worked together with the holiday resort’s Customer Helpers to track down the bears, and luckily, they were found safe and sound on the coach the family had hopped on from the airport to their hotel.
With the teddies safely found, the team then got to work to make sure Oliver was reunited with his three fuzzy friends.
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Jet2 helps reunite little Manchester boy with the teddies he lost while on holiday / Credit: Jet2
Keen to make the reunion one Oliver would remember forever, staff took the bears on an adventure at the airport and pictured them having a drink in a cafe, helping to check in customers’ luggage, and directing holidaymakers to their transfer coaches, all before meeting back up with the youngster.
Resort Customer Helper, Justina Tarvydaite, also stepped in and wrote a letter to Oliver from his teddies, telling the little Manc all about the adventures they had been on at the airport, and when he was finally reunited with his bears on his flight back to the UK, he was, as you can imagine, “over the moon”.
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Oliver’s mum, Jill, said the airline “literally went above and beyond” to find and reunite Oliver with his teddies.
Praising the “caring staff”, she went on to explain: “Not only did they locate his belongings, but they also showed Oliver the adventures his teddies went on whilst we were on holiday, which was magical and so thoughtful.
“He was over the moon, and I even shed some tears.”
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Oliver Simpson had been on holiday with his family in Costa de Almeria in Spain / Credit: Jet2
Claire Hernandez, who is a Destination Manager at Jet2holidays, said it was “all hands-on deck” when they heard Oliver had been separated from his teddies and how upset he was by it, adding: “I am immensely proud of how the team worked together to ensure Oliver and his family left feeling elated at the return of the teddies.
“Their reaction was priceless.
“It’s very important to all of us that each and every one of our customers feels like a VIP, and the team work extremely hard to ensure our customers have a memorable holiday.
“It never ceases to amaze me just how far they will go to make our customers happy.”
Featured Image – Jet2
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‘The average cost of a pint’ in the UK by region, according to the latest data
Danny Jones
Does it feel like pints keep getting more and more expensive almost every week at this point? Yes. Yes, it does, and while you can’t expect a city as big as Manchester to be one of the cheapest places to get one in the UK, we do often wonder how it compares to other parts of the country.
Well, as it happens, someone has recently crunched the numbers for us across the nation, breaking down which regions pay the most and the least for their pints.
The data has been examined by business management consultancy firm, CGA Strategy, using artificial intelligence and information from the latest Retail Price Index figures to find out what the ‘average cost of a pint’ is down south, up North and everywhere in between.
While the latest statistics provided by the group aren’t granular enough to educate us on Greater Manchester’s pint game exactly, we can show you how our particular geographic region is looking on the leaderboard at the moment.
That’s right, we Mancunians and the rest of the North West are technically joint mid-table when it comes to the lowest average cost of a pint, sharing the places from 3rd to 8th – according to CGA, anyway.
Powered by consumer intelligence company, NIQ (NielsenIQ) – who also use AI and the latest technology to deliver their insights – we can accept it might seem like it’s been a while since you’ve paid that little for a pint, especially in the city centre, but these are the stats they have published.
Don’t shoot the messenger, as they say; unless, of course, they’re trying to rob you blind for a bev. Fortunately, we’ve turned bargain hunting at Manchester bars into a sport at this point.
We might not boast the lowest ‘average’ pint cost in the UK, but we still have some bloody good places to keep drinking affordable.
London tops the charts (pretends to be shocked)
While some of you may have scratched your eyes at the supposed average pint prices here in the North West, it won’t surprise any of you to see that London leads the way when it came to the most expensive pint when it came to average cost in the UK.
To be honest, £5.44 doesn’t just sound cheap but virtually unheard of these days.
CGA has it that the average cost of a beer in the British capital is actually down 15p from its price last September, but as we all know, paying upwards of £7 for a pint down that end of the country is pretty much par for the course the closer you get to London.
Yet more reason you can be glad you live around here, eh? And in case you thought you were leaving this article with very little, think again…
Benson Boone has announced a headline gig in Manchester – and it’s a big one
Danny Jones
American pop sensation and unrivalled king of unnecessary front flips, Benson Boone, has just announced his first-ever headline Manchester arena gig as part of a new arena tour.
The solo artist and acrobatic chart-topper has seen a meteoric rise in the US and, as is usually the case across the Atlantic, he’s become increasingly popular over here too.
Benson may have performed here in Manchester before as part of the 2024 MTV EMAs and for a small show at The Deaf Institute, but now big fans have the added Boone of getting to watch a standalone show at one of Europe’s leading indoor entertainment venues.
Announced on Friday, 30 May, the 22-year-old will be making his way across the pond from Washington for a limited run of UK concerts, with a date at Co-op Live arena being one of just five dates.
Extending his ‘American Heart Tour’ ahead of the release of his eponymous sophomore record, with this autumn leg, Co-op Live will mark his individual visit to 0161.
The Grammy-nominated artist has earned several nods of recognition already for his first album, Fireworks & Rollerblades, which was released just last spring.
He has been described as among the current trend of male singers who fit into the American Idol and ‘Voice audition pop’ genre (a term recently coined online), along with the likes of Teddy Swims, Shawn Mendes, Alex Warren and others.
Regardless of the slightly tongue-in-cheek term, he’s become a huge hit around the world and landing him is still a big coup for the venue that has already welcomed similarly massive pop contemporaries like Swims, Sabrina Carpenter, Olivia Rodrigo and more.
In case you’re wondering just how big a deal he is over in the States, even this early in his career, his domestic headline dates sold out in seconds, quite literally…
The last time he visited Co-op Live was to perform at the most recent MTV EMAs
Benson Boone is coming to Manchester on Monday, 27 October and will be playing just two other British venues: The O2 in London (two nights) and the Utilita Arena in Birmingham.
Safe to say you don’t want to miss this one if you like soaring vocals and lots of flipping.
General admission tickets go live at 10am on Thursday, 5 June, but Co-op Members can gain access via the arena’s official pre-sale window from the same time on Tuesday (3 Jun).
Emily Sergeant -
5th September 2023 
