Air Travel

Jet Airways, India’s second-largest airline, suspended all future flights on April 17 after being unable to secure funding to pay debts. Though not out of business as of press time, the airline had not said when it would begin offering flights again.

Ramon International Airport (ETM) began operating in southern Israel, near the city of Eilat, on March 4. It is Israel’s second international airport, after Ben Gurion (TLV) in Tel Aviv. At press time, it was serviced internationally only by Ryanair flights from Europe.

Ramon is the first civilian airport built in Israel, as Ben Gurion was originally a British RAF base, though it has since been greatly expanded.

A new airport terminal known as Jewel (Terminal 4) began operation at Changi Airport, Singapore, on April 17. The terminal provides service for 26 airlines, has more than 280 shops and restaurants and is anchored by a 131-foot-tall atrium featuring thousands of tropical plants in a 5-story garden plus the world’s largest indoor waterfall, cascading from the center of the roof.

At the end of a South Pacific cruise with Ponant, my wife and I stayed the day at the Tahiti Airport Motel (Faa’a, Tahiti; phone +689 40 50 40 00, tahitiairportmotel.net) on March 19, 2019.

Booked online, our room was a deal at $118 for the afternoon and evening (no cancellation allowed). We checked in at around 2 p.m. and had a place we could spend the day and take a nap until leaving for our 11:59 p.m. flight to Los Angeles.

An overnight stay there would have cost $172. Other hotels in town started at $200.

Ultrabudget Icelandic airline Wow air (wowair.com) ceased operations and canceled all future flights without prior notice on March 28, stranding hundreds of passengers in the US and Europe. Wow is unable to refund passengers whose flights were canceled, but refund claims may be made against its liquidation in the future.

Wow, which sold air tickets from US cities to Reykjavik for less than $100, had been looking for investors but was unsuccessful.

American Airlines ceased all flights to Venezuela on March 15. At the time, it was the only US-based airline flying to Venezuela, with daily flights from Miami to Caracas and Maracaibo.

In the letter “Tips on Booking Hotels and on Insurance” (March ’19, pg. 14), a subscriber wrote, regarding travel insurance, “I used to purchase insurance on every air ticket; the airlines made it so convenient. Then one day I realized that I rarely cancel or change flights, so I would only be on the hook for the amount of the cancellation penalty that the airline would charge. The rest of the value would be available to me as a credit toward a future flight. Now I only insure the amount of the cancellation penalty, not the entire value of the tickets.”

My husband’s cousin, Diana, and I had scheduled a trip to Paris and Amsterdam with Tripmasters (Rockville, MD; 800/430-0484, www.tripmasters.com). We had purchased travel insurance through Allianz Global Assistance, which Tripmasters had recommended; we chose the Horizon Plan.

My husband, Norman, and I and a friend of ours were on our way to take a cruise from Copenhagen, Denmark, through the Baltic area on the Norwegian Cruise Line ship Breakaway. We began our trip on May 9, 2018, by flying from New Orleans to Chicago on United Airlines and from Chicago to Copenhagen on SAS Scandinavian Airlines (in a code-share with United). On May 20, we would also fly back on SAS from Copenhagen.