Air Travel

I feel I have to respond to two letters, one dissing an airline (Oct. ’06, pg. 31) and one a cruise line (Dec. ’06, pg. 29).

In an exception to ITN’s policy of not covering travel in North America (or the Caribbean), we are printing the following letter from an ITN subscriber as a complement to the previous letter from Ruth Weiss.

For eight months my husband, Martin, and I had looked forward to sharing a Christmas with family members in Ixtapa, Mexico. Our plans included flying early on the morning of Dec. 17 out of Louisville, Kentucky, through Dallas to Houston, where we were to pick up our Aeromexico flight.

The following letter from an ITN subscriber describes her altercation with an employee at Schiphol Airport and the subsequent occurrences which prompted her to file complaints. ITN is presenting it and the resulting official findings to show the professional manner in which a “he said, she said” situation such as this was dealt with and resolved.

I was at Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam, Netherlands, on Nov. 20, 2005, heading home from a riverboat cruise with Grand Circle Travel. My Lufthansa flight was leaving at 2:25 p.m. for Frankfurt and would continue to New York.

With two friends, I traveled from New York’s JFK to London Heathrow on British Airways flight No. 112 on Sept. 15, 2006. Three hours after arriving at Heathrow, we were to connect with British Midland (bmi) flight No. 163 to Mallorca, Spain.

I want to reiterate the warning about changing planes at Charles de Gaulle International Airport (CDG) in Paris.

Over a year ago my daughter, Lisa, and I planned a 2-week trip to Costa Rica after I read of such an adventure in ITN (Aug. ’05, pg. 80).

by Philip Wagenaar.

Q:Dear Steve, I’m a large lady, and on a recent domestic flight a gate agent took me aside and requested that I buy a second seat for myself. Fortunately, both the flight and my credit card had room on it, so I was able to do this, but I wondered, ‘What if I were traveling overseas?’

I’ve asked several international airlines what their policy is regarding “passengers of size” — inquiring how big the seats in the plane are and when a person would be required to buy two — but I cannot get a consistent answer over the phone.

Normally, my wife, Patricia, and I do our own travel planning, relying heavily on the Internet and reading ITN. But a trip to an entire continent was something different, so we looked for ads in ITN for customized itineraries in Australia, reviewed various websites and selected Australia Travel Planning (4428 E. Willow Ave., Phoenix, AZ 85032; 800/830-8999, www.australian.com. The owners, Michael and Gayle, also run Tasmania Travel Planning [same address, phone]; visit www.tasmania.com).