Air Travel

The domestic airline Southwest Airlines (800/435-9792) announced in September a change to its “no show” policy. 

I took a 15-day tour, “New Zealand Experience,” with AAT Kings Tours/USA (Anaheim, CA; 866/240-1659). It started on Oct. 8, 2012, and was a wonderful trip, with excellent guides and excellent hotels. 

I bought this tour through Travel Downunder (Bellevue, WA; 866/258-1629), which also arranged my flights. The owner, Wendy A. Schatz, was prompt with her emails and very helpful. 

Dear Globetrotter:

Welcome to the 453rd issue of your monthly foreign-travel magazine, the one YOU help write.

Michael J.E. Burge of Ventura, California, hopes that travelers might end up a little wiser by hearing his tale. Mechanical problems and acts of nature cannot be controlled, but certain decisions might be made differently to make things go a little more smoothly.

A fire gutted the International Arrivals hall and Immigration area of the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (NBO) in Nairobi, Kenya, on Aug. 7. It burned for four hours, partly because fire engines were delayed by traffic and because water pressure in the mains at the airport dropped. The cause of the fire is under investigation, but terrorist attack has been ruled out.

Typhoon Maring struck the Philippines, Aug. 18-22, causing damage on the islands of Luzon and shutting down most of the metro Manila area. 

More than 160 flights were canceled at the Manila airport during the storm. However, two air traffic controllers made it to the airport and on Aug. 19 and 20 handled 60 arrivals and 60 departures to relieve some of the airport congestion.

Virgin Galactic hopes to be the first company to offer commercial space flights.

Upward of 500 people have paid deposits of $250,000 each to be one of the first space tourists. 

No date is set for the first launch, but the company’s future astronauts have access to a variety of events held by the company, including G-force training and attendance at test flights.

Guests may book online or contact one of the Space Agents listed on the website.

Dear Globetrotter:

Knowing that ITN will send a free sample copy of the next-printed issue to anyone anywhere (worldwide) on request, subscriber Susan Bigelow of Palmetto, Florida, asked us to send one to a traveling friend of hers, Judy Gallagher, and included Judy’s address. She added a note about ITN: “It is the best travel magazine I have ever seen.” 

A friend and I went to Mongolia’s capital, Ulaanbaatar, in June ’13. We flew in through Beijing. Big mistake! We found the Beijing Daxing International Airport architecturally amazing, but it was massive, with little signage and few people who spoke English.

We flew in from San Francisco on United Airlines but had been unable to get our boarding passes in San Francisco for the Beijing-Ulaanbaatar leg of the trip. When we got to Beijing, we looked for the MIAT Mongolian Airlines booth to check in for our flight. 

For our friends Tom and Gretchen and my husband, Jerry, and me, I wanted to hire a private guide in Argentina, but that was cost prohibitive. To design a trip for four of us for October ’12. I ended up contacting Anibal Mazas of Merlin Viajes (Pdte. Roque Sáenz Peña 1119 9° “902”, Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires, CP 1035, Argentina; phone +54 9 11 4936-0313).

I contacted him on the advice of Claudine Van Hemelryk of B&B Olleros 3000* in Buenos Aires, where we stayed four nights (July ’13, pg. 51).

My wife, Diane, and I took the “Africa Safari” with the “Best of Cape Town” extension from Road Scholar (Boston, MA; 800/454-5768), Oct. 24-Nov. 8, 2012. We were booked to return home on South African Airways (SAA) from Cape Town to Johannesburg and from there to New York’s JFK Airport on Nov. 8.

We checked in in Cape Town at about 2 p.m. for our scheduled 4:45 p.m. flight, which was supposed to connect with our overseas flight in Johannesburg departing at 8:30.