Air Travel

Dear Globetrotter:

Welcome to the 471st issue of your monthly foreign travel magazine.

On Feb. 4, TransAsia Airways flight GE235, heading from Taipei to the Taiwanese island of Kinmen (Quemoy), crashed into the Keelung River in northern Taiwan after clipping a highway bridge. Of the 58 people on board, 43 were killed. Investigators say the pilot reported a flameout in the right engine before shutting down the left engine and attempting to restart both.

 In July 2014, a TransAsia flight crashed in Taiwan’s Penghu archipelago during bad weather, killing 48 of the 58 people on board.

Arguably, the best gateway for trips to continental Europe is Germany’s centrally located Frankfurt Airport (FRA) (www.frankfurt-airport.com). In addition to a vast array of long-haul and short-haul air connections, it has an attached long-distance rail station with direct routes to a wide range of cities.

On Jan. 29, the Malaysian government officially declared the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 an accident, with no survivors.

Heading from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing and carrying 239 people, the flight disappeared from radar on March 8, 2014, and has yet to be found. According to satellite data, it is believed to have gone off course and crashed into the ocean west of Australia.

I read the subscriber’s article about driving to Everest Base Camp, “To Mt. Everest and Beyond” (Dec. ’14, pg. 44). He and his wife went to the northern side of the mountain in Tibet, China. The route they took was similar to one we drove in Tibet in 2000, and a lot of it was neither scenic nor historic.

In the fall of 2009, I visited the southern base area of Everest, in Nepal, and I felt that the flight to Lukla, Namche and Tengboche was the best part of the trip. 

As part of a March 2014 South American adventure, which included several days in Santiago, Chile, and a cruise from the city of Valparaíso to Los Angeles, my wife, Judy, and I spent six nights on Easter Island (called Rapa Nui by its residents and Isla de Pascua by Chileans). 

In the letter “Used BA Miles for Hotels” (Jan. ’15, pg. 15), a subscriber mentioned the high fees charged for an international flight on British Airways (800/247-9297, www.britishairways.com). I had the same experience on a round-trip flight from Chicago to Oslo, Norway. The cost was 100,000 Avios (BA’s frequent-flyer miles) plus $1,800. I promptly canceled the booking.

My husband, James, and I arrived at the lovely Hilton Los Cabos Beach & Golf Resort (Carretera Transpeninsular Km. 19.5, Los Cabos, BCS, Mexico 23447; 877/354-1399, www.hilton loscabos.com) on Saturday, Sept. 6, 2014. We enjoyed a fabulous week’s sojourn and were scheduled to fly home the evening of Monday, Sept. 15.

On Sunday evening, Sept. 14, Hurricane Odile hit with a vengeance. Winds reached over 130 mph, ripping tiles off the hotel roof, downing huge palm trees and destroying the roof of the swim-up café.

An AirAsia Indonesia airliner carrying 162 passengers and crew crashed while flying from Surabaya, Indonesia, to Singapore on Dec. 28. 

Flight QZ8501 was last heard from at 6:24 a.m. when the pilot asked for permission to climb above storm clouds the plane was approaching. The request was initially denied due to conflicting air traffic, but the plane disappeared from radar before pilots could be given further instructions.