Returning to Seattle from a European vacation on May 12, 2018, one hour before our scheduled departure from Paris' Charles de Gaulle Airport (CDG), we learned that our easyJet flight 8322 to London Gatwick Airport had been unceremoniously delayed four hours.
We noticed the schedule change while sitting at the gate, but there was no accompanying announcement (not even in French), no explanation and no customer support staff on hand to help.
Another reader's letter reminded me of an experience of my own.
Heading home from Frankfurt, Germany, in September or October 2016, my wife and I boarded a United Airlines flight to Chicago, but the plane then sat on the ground hour after hour due to mechanical problems.
By the time things were fixed, we were told that a new flight crew would have to be found, as there would not be sufficient time for the crew on board to arrive at our destination within their allowable number of hours that they could work in a day. We finally took off over five hours late.
On May 30, 2018, a friend and I flew overnight on Delta Air Lines from Seattle, Washington, to Amsterdam Schiphol Airport, where we were to catch a KLM Royal Dutch Airlines connection to Bristol, England.
Upon arriving in Amsterdam, we found out that thunderstorms were causing many flights to be canceled, including our flight on KLM. We were informed that the next flight to Bristol was June 2, three days later!
I was not interested in visiting China until a very affordable opportunity presented itself through my hometown chamber of commerce. As a veteran of a couple of these 10-day trips, I now can attest that they're a great way to see the cultural highlights of China at low cost.
This opportunity started back in 2008, when the Association of Chamber of Commerce Executives (ACCE) set up an agreement with a wholesaler, sponsoring trips to China to raise funds for chambers all over the country. Up to 10,000 people now take this trip each spring and fall.
On my first trip, in April 2010, it cost a mere $2,000 for a 10-day trip that hit the majority of the places I wanted to see, starting in Beijing with Tiananmen Square, the Forbidden City, the Great Wall and the Ming Tombs plus lunch with a local family.
Budget Canadian airline Swoop (www.flyswoop.com) started operating four routes in the US in August, with only one fare class on each flight: from Edmonton (YEG) to Phoenix-Mesa (AZA) [for CAD99 (near $76)] and from John C. Munro Airport (YHM) in Hamilton, Ontario, to four airports: Las Vegas McCarran (LAS) [CAD179], Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood (FLL) [CAD179], Orlando (MCO) [CAD169] or Tampa International (TPA) [CAD159].
At press time, tickets were available for purchase for the dates of Oct. 11, 2018, to April 27, 2019.
At press time, two national airlines in Africa were scheduled to begin operations soon, with monetary assistance from Ethiopian Airlines. No contact info was available yet for either airline.
• Chadian Airlines, the national airline of Chad, was expected to begin operating out of N'Djamena International Airport (NDJ) on Oct. 1. Initially offering domestic routes, the airline anticipates expanding into other African and Middle East countries. Chad has been without a national airline since 2012, when Toumaï Air Tchad ceased flying due to safety and economic concerns.
Dear Globetrotter:
Have you ever wanted to travel to a very remote place but thought it was a good idea to have someone help with the plans? Well, my husband, Fred, and I did. Our desired destinations were Robinson Crusoe Island and Easter Island.
We chose Chilean Special Journeys, or CSJ (Palacio Concha, Av. Concha y Toro 44, Barrio Concha y Toro, Santiago, CHILE; phone, in the US, 888/345-6077, www.chileanspecialjourneys.com), from an advertisement in ITN. We could not have chosen better!
The countries of Ethiopia and Eritrea, in Northeast Africa, had technically been at war since a 1998-2000 border conflict. On July 9 of this year, a "peace and friendship" agreement was signed by the countries, allowing border crossings for the first time since 1998. On July 18, an Ethiopian Airlines flight landed in Eritrea, the first flight between the two countries since 1998.
Dear Globetrotter:
Welcome to the 510th issue of your monthly foreign-travel magazine. Yes, in this day and age, an actual magazine! And we have a lot of longtime supporters, Barb Hartwell of St. Petersburg, Florida, among them.
Barb wrote, “International Travel News was responsible for propelling my husband and me toward one of the most wonderful trips we ever took and for leading me to a very special friendship.
“The very first sample copy I received (and I don’t know who was kind enough to have it sent to me) prompted my husband and me to call the company Travel Downunder (Bellevue, WA; 866/258-1629, www.travel-downunder.com) and tell the agent, Wendy Schatz, that we wanted to take the identical trip to Tonga that was put together for Penny and Dan Strohl of Oakland, California, and that was described in such beautiful detail by Penny in the article ‘Tonga — a South Pacific Paradise’ in the August 2005 issue of ITN.
“In the ensuing preparations for that trip, we were put in contact with the Strohls, who became very good friends of ours, although we lived in Florida, far from their home. Since my first email contact with Penny, she and I have emailed each other two or three times a week. (Yes, that’s for the last 13 years!) My husband and I visited twice with the Strohls in Oakland, and I took a little trip to New England with the Strohls after my husband died in 2009.