Air Travel

Dear Globetrotter

Welcome to the 478th issue of your monthly foreign travel magazine.

In the Indonesian province of West Papua, a Trigana Air flight heading from Jayapura to Oksibil and carrying 54 people, all Indonesians, crashed in the jungle, near its destination, on Aug. 16. There were no survivors. Inclement weather may have been a factor in the crash.

When my wife, Susan, and I booked a Berlin-Prague cruise for Sept. 28-Oct. 6, 2014, with Viking River Cruises (Woodland Hills, CA; 877/668-4546, www.vikingrivercruises.com), we had the company’s air services division, Viking Air, arrange four flights for us, all on Air France in Economy Comfort.

We would fly from Los Angeles to Paris, where we would spend five days on our own, then from Paris to Berlin, staying in a hotel overnight before cruising to Prague and flying home to Los Angeles via Paris.

Due to open in February 2016, St. Helena Airport will connect the remote Atlantic island of St. Helena, 1,200 miles west of Africa’s southern coast, to the rest of the world by air for the first time. 

Most famous as the final home of Napoleon Bonaparte, the British Overseas Territory of St. Helena is home to more than 4,000 people. It currently is accessible to visitors only via the RMS St. Helena, which makes the 5-day journey from Cape Town once every three weeks. The ship will be retired in April 2016. 

Despite preconstruction soil treatment, the runway at the klia2 passenger terminal at Kuala Lumpur International Airport in Malaysia, opened in 2014 to service low-cost flights, is sinking due to unstable soil, causing bumps, cracks and the pooling of water. 

This has led to flight delays and may contribute to airplane damage. AirAsia, which operates the largest fleet flying out of klia2, has sued the airport’s operator for losses and damage. It is estimated that it will take five years for the issues to be resolved.

On July 18, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) gave Thailand’s Department of Civil Aviation 65 days to rectify shortcomings in its aviation safety standards, citing a shortage of qualified aviation inspectors plus improper testing and an incomplete air manual.

In what may well be a travel industry first, Uniworld, to encourage the travel-shy, is offering free travel insurance on most of their 60 European river cruises in April and May of this year.

With Uniworld’s “Worry-free Travel Protection Gold Plan,” guests can cancel for any reason up until the day of departure. Cancellation coverage guarantees a refund of 100% of the cruise cost in cash and travel certificates.

Elaine Chew of Sacramento, CA, found out about baggage-delay cov­erage in an annoying, frustrating way.

In October 1995 she transferred from a San Francisco/London flight to a connecting flight on to Frankfurt; unfortunately, her luggage did not make the connec­tion.

She joined her tour group with­out the luggage and spent a good bit of her first three days on the phone to British Midlands Air­lines trying to locate the missing bags.

I read the item about Sunday being the best day of the week on which to buy a domestic airline ticket most cheaply (June ’15, pg. 58).

I go to California at least four times a year to see my kids, traveling round trip between Newark, New Jersey (EWR), and Los Angeles (LAX) using United Airlines. I have consistently found Wednesdays to be the best day to buy a ticket at the lowest price.