Air Travel

by Judy Licata and Marvin Herman, Delavan, WI

My husband, Lynn, and I were to join my parents in Philadelphia where all four of us would continue on to England and begin our anticipated 2-week Baltic cruise aboard Celebrity Cruises’ Constellation, June 2-16, 2007. (For the cruise, two of us paid a total of $8,768, which included airfare and $518 for trip insurance.)

by Deanna Palic

Hollywood goes to Chile

I read the item “Venice’s 2-tier pricing” (Jan. ’08, pg. 24), regarding different prices for locals and tourists at restaurants and hotels and for water transport in Venice, Italy. Yes, there are scams in Venice as well as unintentional and unneeded services and their subsequent charges, but, more often, there are just high prices.

After traveling around the world with occasional long airport stopovers, I have come to learn some of the secrets of making the most of the “dead” time.

Here is the first batch of readers’ Q Ratings of international airports — plus, as you’ll see, a few revisions in the instructions which will make the tallies more useful. The goal is to generate an idea of the comparative wait times at airports.

by Andy Cubbon, Marietta, GA

When Karen Scott and I went on our annual catch-and-release striped marlin sports fishing trip to the Galápagos, Feb. 26-29, 2008, we found some changes in procedures that we think ITN readers will want to know about.

We don’t fly a foreign carrier when a U.S. carrier has the route, even though we realize the U.S. carrier will not match the foreign airline in service. Why? Because our carriers need all the help they can get to stay alive; if not supported, more will go the way of Pan Am, TWA, etc.

We have found that Continental does provide comfortable seating and good service, having flown them many times on the Honolulu-Guam-Manila or -Hong Kong route and from Frankfurt to Newark or Dulles as well as Paris-Newark and New Delhi-Newark — all good flights.

We are fortunate to have an Air France flight available from Philadelphia to Paris. Taking advantage of the irresistible advance-purchase fares offered in May ’06, we flew Philadelphia-Bordeaux that November, from Philadelphia to Amsterdam that December and Philadelphia-Nice in March ’07. Our most recent Air France flight, to Paris, was in March ’08.

Air France’s Airbus is comfortable, clean and well equipped. The individual entertainment systems offer a variety of eye- and ear-catching choices.