LAX facing head wind in international travel
Unlike other big city airports in the nation, LA International hasnt seen foreign flights surpass pre-recession numbers. Among factors cited are the economy, changing travel patterns and the Japanese quake.
I planned a once-in-a- lifetime trip for my two children and me to South Africa a few months ago. I used a travel agency to book my airline tickets.
My travel agent told me the flight was made with American Airlines. As the date got closer, I called American and was told the booking was there but hadnt been paid. I was very upset and immediately confirmed and paid for the reservation.
At the time I was dealing with a family illness, which made the situation more difficult.
When I called my travel agent, I found out they had changed the flight arrangements to British Airways. I called American Airlines less than 24 hours later to cancel the reservation I had made. The person on the phone did cancel my reservation and I was told my childrens reservation, which was separate from mine, was canceled as well. I was charged $2,187 for each of my childrens tickets. The tickets were never used.
Id like American to either refund the tickets or transfer them to me or to my husband. It is unreasonable that the tickets are not being refunded or at least transferable to me and my husband. American will only allow my children to use the flight credits after adding a $250 change fee. Can you help?
#x96; Laurie Spear, Boca Raton, Fla.
Whoa, talk about getting your wires crossed! It sounds as if there was a completely preventable breakdown in communication between you and your travel agent.
The reason you deal with a trusted intermediary to book your airline tickets is that they provide an extra service. A travel agent can confirm your flights, make a change to your reservation, answer any questions about your itinerary and fix a flight if theres a problem.
Your agent would have been on the hook to buy you a new ticket if somehow American Airlines wasnt paid for the ticket on time.
Stepping in and fixing it without first consulting with your agent made the problem worse. Given the difficult situation you were in at the time, I cant blame you for just paying for the ticket.
But the real problem was American Airlines. You asked it to cancel all of your tickets, but it only processed one itinerary. When you didnt get a confirmation from American, you should have called back.
Most airlines will refund a ticket if you call within 24 hours to cancel, but after that, theyll offer a credit minus a change fee, which can only be used by the ticketed passenger.
Given your personal circumstances and the problems with your travel agency, I thought American should take another look at your case. It did and it decided to make an exception to its policy. It issued new flight vouchers that could be used by anyone and are valid for a year from the date of their issue. Youll still have to pay the cancellation fee, but youll no longer have to use the tickets for your children.
copy; Copyright The Sacramento Bee. All rights reserved.
Costa
Rica
Advises
Against
Travel
To
Panamas
Boca
del
Toro
At
the
request
of
the
Foreign
Ministry,
the
Comisio
Nacional
de
Emergencias
(CNE)
-
National
Emergency
Commission
-
has
called
on
the
media
to
notify
the
public,
especially
the
inhabitants
of
the
southern
Caribbean
region
to
refrain
from
travelling
to
Panamas
Boca
del
Toro
and
Changuinola.
The Big Apple has been invaded by the Louisiana swamplands. Latching on to the popularity of the History Channels Swamp People in an effort to turn interest in the television show into travel to Louisiana, the state Office of Tourism has joined with the cable network to create a miniature swamp habitat in New York this month.
Two division-leading teams in the NBAs Western Conference will meet Feb. 4. The Oklahoma City Thunder travel south to Texas to take on the San Antonio Spurs. Tip off is set for 8:30 pm ET.
SNOW is causing problems for train passengers today and drivers are warned to be careful while Transport for London says it has managed to keep
London ‘open for business’.
Train Problems
This morning Southeastern says it is working with Network Rail to keep the railway lines free of ice and snow and the trains running.
But it says there will be disruption and cancelled services because there are several inches of snow in places.
Due to snowfall, Southern also says its services are disrupted and trains are subject to delay and cancellation.
Journey times on its network are taking up to 30 minutes longer.
Warning for drivers
The Highways Agency urged motorists to take extra care on the roads and the RAC says motorists face a dangerous cocktail of driving
conditions.
Kent Police is warning people not to travel unless absolutely essential, and urged people not to cause an obstruction if forced to abandon
their vehicles.
A spokesman said: Kent Police is advising people to be prepared and take great care.
“If drivers feel their journey is essential, they should listen to traffic updates on local broadcasts before setting off.
London open for business
But there is better news from Transport for London which says London is ‘open for business’.
TfL’s managing director of surface transport Leon Daniels said: We have worked tirelessly from Saturday afternoon and throughout the night, gritting the capitals main roads every few hours and
running deicing trains along the London Underground network.
Around 2,000 tonnes of grit has been spread by TfL and boroughs and all main roads and the vast majority of local roads are open and traffic running smoothly.
Bus routes are all operating this morning and there were only a few curtailments on night bus routes overnight.
Were working hard to keep planned services running on all Tube, DLR and London Overground lines and to keep London moving.
So London is open for business today, but clearly people should take care on the roads and allow plenty of time for their journeys.
MOTORISTS have been advised to avoid unnecessary journeys today as snow covered Essex last night.
Around 10cm of snow fell with temperatures dropping to near -3 C.
The Met Office put Colchester and Tendring on amber alert, the second highest weather warning.
Stansted Airport briefly shut its runway during the night.
Essex County Council sent gritters out at 3pm and 8pm last night (Febuary 4) and again at midnight and 4am this morning.
The main routes are moving but traffic this morning was moving on one track.
First bus service has adapted its route in Dovercourt as abandoned cars on Fronks Road has made the road inpassable.
The bus operater is diverting its route from Fronks Road to travel down Main Road to transport its passengers.
Bus services were operating as normal around Colchester and Clacton.
Passengers are advised to keep up to date wth changes on Firsts twitter page @FirstEastBuses.
Trains travelling locally and to London are currently operating as normal.
Passengers travelling today are advised to check www.greateranglia.co.uk for realtime service updates.
Police have warned residents to make sure their windscreen and windows are clear before setting off.
Passengers should take a shovel, warm clothing, flask with a hot drink and a fully charged mobile phone if embarking on a longer journey.
Snow began falling in Colchester at around 10pm and continued throughout the early hours of this morning.
Send your photos of the snow today in Colchester and the Tendring district to gazette.newsdesk@nqe.com and they could be printed in tomorrows Gazette.
#9/10 Murray State
(22-0, 10-0 OVC)
at
UT Martin
(3-21, 0-11)
Saturday, Feb. 4, 2012 – 6 pm
ElamCenter – Martin, Tenn.
Game Notes I Live Stats I Live Audio I ESPN3
The Murray State Racers host the Southeast Missouri State Redhawks in a battle of the top two teams in the Ohio Valley Conference. The game on ESPNU at the CFSB Center in Murray, Ky., sees the Racers carry a 17-game home winning streak into the 7 pm tip.
The MSU-UTM game is the Racer TV Network are available to all 100,000-plus Time Warner, Mediacom, Murray Electric and Comcast subscribers at no additional charge.
Time Warner customers will see the broadcasts on channel 16, in all areas west of Kentucky Lake and in Hopkinsville and Madisonville. Mediacom is seen in Marshall, Calloway, Trigg and Caldwell Counties as well as southern Illinois on channel 23. Murray Electric services the city of Murray and carries the games on channels 15 and 18, while Comcast subscribers will see the Racers on channel 17 in McCracken County and southern Illinois.
The Racers are coming off a 73-58 win Saturday at home over Eastern Illinois when Isaiah Canaan and Donte Poole each scored 18 points to lead MSU to its 21st straight win to start the season. The Redhawks have won eight of their last 10 games including a 74-53 win Monday over the same EIU squad in Charleston, Ill.
The Racers 2011-12 season has been the top story of the college basketball season. MSU is the only undefeated team in NCAA D-I at 21-0 and a win will set the OVC record for the best start to a season. Currently, the Racers are tied with the Western Kentucky team of 1953-54. MSU has already clinched their 25th straight winning season which is tied with UConn for the fourth-best streak in the nation behind only Syracuse, Kansas and Arizona.
Racers rookie head coach Steve Prohm is the fourth rookie head coach of the 15 in MSU history to win 20 games. Prohms start is the tied with Lou Rossini of Columbia who started 21-0 as the third best start in NCAA D-I for a rookie. MSU has also set the school record for fastest to 20 wins.
The Racers are into their eighth consecutive week of being ranked in the Associated Press Poll. However, MSU has been ranked higher in the ESPN/USA Today poll for the last five weeks at no. 9 while theyre no. 10 in the AP poll.
Either way, the rankings are an all-time high for MSU topping the no. 16 spot they had twice in the early 1950s. MSU is also the no. 1 team in the CollegeInsider.com Mid-Major Poll for the first in program history, the first for an OVC team.
The Racers have won 17 straight at home since their last loss (Jan. 20, 2011) to EIU. MSU is 38-2 (.950) in the CFSB Center in the last three seasons and 50-5 (.909) in the last four seasons. The 8,691 that watched MSU beat TTU (Jan. 14) set the attendance mark at the CFSB center passing the 8,602 that watched the Racers play SE Missouri State (Feb. 11, 1999). Saturdays crowd at the EIU game was a second straight sell-out at home for MSU and fourth all-time.
Seattle Golf and Travel Show tees off Friday
Golf season in the Northwest kicks off Friday when the three-day Seattle Golf and Travel Show begins at the CenturyLink Field Events Center.
Heathrow airport cancelled half of its flights as the snow and cold weather continued to cause problems across the UK, stranding motorists and leaving roads icy and treacherous.
The travel chaos ensuedon Sunday as the worst of the wintry showers came to an end across the country and forecasters predicted dry conditions and a partial thaw.
Although the snow flurries are now expected to move eastwards, swaths of the UK were on amber alert on Sunday, the Met Offices second highest severe weather warning, with icy conditions across much of England, Scotland andWales.
Church Fenton in North Yorkshire and Wattisham in Suffolk recorded 16cm of snow, while up to 15cm was forecast for parts of Cumbria, Lincolnshire, East Anglia, North Yorkshire, the Peak District and the Midlands.
The icy spell has seen daytime temperatures plummet four or five degrees lower than average for February, traditionally the coldest month of the year.
Heathrow, which had initially cut only 30% of its flights, said the decision was intended to minimise disruption and was made in anticipation of freezing fog.
Although the runways, taxiways and stands had been cleared of snow, only half of the 1,300 scheduled flights went ahead. The London airport, however, said its snow plan had worked far better than in previous years, adding that it would operate a normal flight schedule on Monday.
A spokesman said Heathrow, which operates at 99.2% capacity, was getting back to normal as it worked to clear the backlog of flights. We took the decision with airlines and air traffic control yesterday to reduce the flight schedule in advance, he said.
By cancelling flights in advance airlines have been able to rebook some people on to flights that are departing, and passengers have had better quality information about whether they can fly or not.
Extra staff were being drafted into terminals to help passengers rebook flights, he added.Inbound flights to the airport were also affected, with six transatlantic flights from the US redirected to Shannon airport in Ireland because of the cold snap disruption.
Some were in UK airspace or on approach to London when they were ordered back over to Ireland.
Shannon Airport Authority confirmed arrangements were being made for 400 stranded passengers to stay overnight. The affected routes included Heathrow-bound services from Dallas, Miami, Houston, Washington, Denver and Atlanta.
The transport secretary, Justine Greening, said the authorities at Heathrow were taking the right approach to the problems created by the weather.
Actually cancelling flights in advance so passengers dont get to the airport and then find their flight being cancelled was one of the main recommendations of the inquiry that Heathrow held into the debacle last year when we saw huge disruption, she told the BBC Sunday Politics programme.
They are clearly trying to manage the airport and I think the most important thing is making sure that we put safety first. Weve got to get planes up into the air and down on to the ground safely.
That does take a little bit more time to make sure wings are de-iced and that the runways are clear, but over all theyre trying to do their best.
The airport came in for heavy criticism following severe weather in December 2010 when Heathrow almost ground to a halt and thousands of passengers were forced to camp overnight in terminals. At the height of the chaos on 19 December, it was able to handle only around 20 flights.
A BAA-commissioned report later concluded the operators response to the pre-Christmas snow was initially ineffective and that the potential impact of the weather had not been fully anticipated in the days before the worst of the snow.
A spokesman for Gatwick said the airport was not experiencing any major delays on Sunday and had had to cancel only nine flights. Were taking a business as usual approach, he added.
Stansted, Birmingham, Luton and Manchester airports were forced to suspend operations for a period on Saturday night as snow piled up on the runways, but normal service was expected to resume on Sunday.
A total of sSix flights were cancelled yesterday in Birmingham, where some passengers were forced to spend the night in thea terminal. But aA spokesman said the airport would catch up todayon Sunday, providing temperatures did not drop too much furtherlower.
In Luton, flights were fully operational with some delays due to snow clearing.
A couple of departures were cancelled at Stansted, but a spokesman for the airport said there was movement on and off the runway, adding: Flights are subject to delays of up to about one hour. Although the worst of the snowflurries will move eastwards, swathesswaths of the UK have been placed on amber alert, with the On the roads, motorists faced what the RAC described as a dangerous cocktail of driving conditions and were urged to stay at home. Some minor routes were closed altogether. Drivers on sections of the M25 in Hertfordshire were trapped in gridlock throughout the night.
One motorist, Tom Jones, was stranded in his car for more than seven hours. He told the BBC: We joined the back of a tailback, never realising we would be spending the night on the motorway.
He added that the Highways Agency had to deal with much bad driving, and that he had seen several cars stuck in ditches and many blocking the hard shoulder.
Thames Valley police said the snow had caused a tailback between junctions nine and four southbound on the M40 from about 9pm until the early hours of Sunday.
Police in Kent warned people not to travel unless absolutely essential, and urged people not to cause an obstruction if forced to abandon their vehicles.
The Highways Agency has issued an amber alert, advising people to take extra care while travelling because of the increased risk of adverse driving conditions.
The AA said it dealt with about 1,500 callouts an hour on Saturday.Rail services have also been affected, with disruption set to continue throughout Sunday.
Southern Railway said trains were subject to delay and cancellation, with journey times extended by up to 30 minutes.
In London, all bus routes were operating on Sunday morning after a few curtailments to night bus services, Transport for London said.
Tube services were said to have started well but delays and suspensions soon set in on most lines.
A Met Office yellow alert, which warns people to be aware, was in place for the Highlands and Northern Ireland.
The Department for Transport has said it was better prepared than ever for severe weather. Salt stocks across Britain stand at more than 2.4m tonnes, a million more than last year.