Morocco’s national airline, Royal Air Maroc, will join the oneworld airline alliance in mid-2020. Some current oneworld member airlines include American Airlines, British Airways, Japan Airlines, Qantas and Qatar Airways. Passengers who are frequent-flyer-program members of a oneworld-member airline earn benefits such as miles and have access to airline lounges when ticketed to fly on any oneworld airline.
A cruise missile fired by rebel Houthi forces in Yemen struck the Arrivals hall at Abha International Airport in Abha, southwestern Saudi Arabia, on June 12, injuring 26 civilians. The rebel group released a statement saying that the airport had been the intended target.
Dear Globetrotter:
On May 20, the United Kingdom announced that travelers from the US, Canada, Japan, South Korea, Singapore and New Zealand are now eligible to use ePassport gates when arriving at airports. The ePassport gates are unmanned, automated passport checkpoints that allow for quicker entry into the country.
To use an ePassport gate, place your passport, open to the photo page, onto the scanner and look into the gate’s camera. Facial-matching technology will compare your face to your passport photo. When the light turns green, you are free to proceed.
Citing a “risk to flight operations,” the US Department of Homeland Security suspended all commercial passenger and cargo flights to Venezuela on May 15. This suspension was described by the department as “indefinite.”
American Airlines, the last major US passenger airline to offer flights to Venezuela, ceased its only two routes, Miami/Caracas and Miami/Maracaibo, on April 15.
Travelers with a layover at Tokyo’s Narita International Airport (NRT) can take a free tour with a volunteer, English-speaking guide through the airport’s Transit & Stay Program (www.narita-transit-program.jp).
For travelers with more than three hours free, four guided tours are available: a visit to the Shinsho-ji Temple, dining at a Japanese buffet, a countryside bike ride and cosplaying (role playing) at a reproduction Edo-period town. For those with more than six hours free, two bus tours are available, to Sawara and Shibayama.
As my tour group was being driven to the airport in Turkey (June ’19, pg. 20) for our various flights to the US, one member asked, “Do you all have the Mobile Passport Control app?” We all shook our heads ‘no.’ “You have to download it,” he continued. “It’s saved me so much time at Customs.”
