There is potential for significant change amongst the major airlines of Europe and some shake-up in both One World and Star Alliance.

Iberia has confirmed it has opened its books for a sale. Both British Airways (which holds a small ownership stake) and Lufthansa are reportedly interested.

Lufthansa is already involved with a bid for Alitalia.

With US-EU open skies close to passing, interest in buying bmi has naturally increased. Once again, the interested bidders include British Airways (to keep competitors out of Heathrow by holding over half of the slots) and Lufthansa (which already has a 30% ownership stake).

Interesting times.

Musings of the Global Traveller
Thoughts, advice and travel news from around the world by a seasoned frequent flyer.

According to the BBC, London Heathrow’s long awaited terminal 5 will be open in exactly one year.

Call me a sceptic, but with the shambles that is Heathrow I find it hard to believe that it will be open on time and solve the airport’s problems.

Still, once it is open, travel should be easier for British Airways passengers. Just remind me not to pass through the airport when it first opens.

Pictures from Wikipedia

Musings of the Global Traveller
Thoughts, advice and travel news from around the world by a seasoned frequent flyer.

Sometimes it is very useful to have information on airline schedules and on-time data at your fingertips.

Yes I am again sitting in an airport facing a probable mis-connection later today. Fog elsewhere in the network has disrupted the timetable in such a way that one of my flights is now due to arrive an hour after the next flight departs. So I’ve been working with the nice agents to find a solution. At the moment the alternate flight, which I know is on the same aircraft thus no mis-connection risk unless the flight is cancelled, is oversold. They’ve put me on standby and thanks to getting in early and my status I have a reasonable shot at clearing this.

As backup I may have to fly another airline or cancel some sectors. I have both airlines’ relevant schedules with me and will be re-checking the arrival and departure time data later to assess the best contingency plan.

Ironically, some of today’s flights were held over from last year when some flights got cancelled.

At least by being informed and with access to the right people, I have the best chance of making this work out.

Update – I’ve managed to switch flights so that I am on the same aircraft for each sector. Thus eliminating mis-connection risk. Still a risk of cancellation, and the delays keep getting longer (I’m watching the progress of the aircraft as it flies around the country to get here).

Musings of the Global Traveller
Thoughts, advice and travel news from around the world by a seasoned frequent flyer.

The US-EU open skies agreement passed another milestone today, with ratification by EU Parliament.

A couple of weeks ago I posted about what open skies might mean. Flight Wisdom reports that with the ink not even dry already Continental has filed to fly new trans-atlantic routes including Houston to London Heathrow and Cleveland to Paris.

Edited to add: bmi has confirmed they will be flying from London Heathrow to USA (the current Bermuda II agreement prevents them from doing so), details to be announced.

Musings of the Global Traveller
Thoughts, advice and travel news from around the world by a seasoned frequent flyer.

First Upgrade : Travel Better brought us the Travvies (the best travel blogs on the web), now Travel Rants is bringing us the Blog-A-Thon Challenge (best travel blog entry), sponsored by SA-Venues.com who are donating the prize. You don’t need a blog to enter.
I look forward to discovering some more great travel writers.

I wonder who the judges are?

Musings of the Global Traveller
Thoughts, advice and travel news from around the world by a seasoned frequent flyer.

It is as if my money smells, the difficulty I am in getting an upcoming side trip ticketed at the moment.

First I hunt around for flights that fit my schedule and have some availability at a reasonable fare (not a trivial amount since I am looking for business class to complete requalification of a frequent flyer status). I found several options, the best being on the airline websites of a couple of airlines that operate the route. So far so good.

I try the more ideal of the two (in terms of schedule, frequent flyer mileage earning and price). This airline website keeps crashing at various stages of the booking process. I was told by someone over on Flyer Talk that their website is flakey. Great – it is an internet only fare. I persevere and manage to get a reservation. Only to find on the confirmation screen a paper ticket is required and I have to both pay for and ticket at the local ticketing office within 72 hours. Local being the start city of this side trip. This is on another continent from where I am now, and I head further away in the meantime. So I rang the local (to me) ticket office to be told they cannot do anything. I would have to either pay an exorbitant amount for a fare that they could ticket, or get it ticketed when I arrive. That isn’t practical since availability will be gone by then (there are only a couple of seats left on some flights and none on others), and in any case I have only a few hours between arriving at this city and needing to start the side trip.

Scrub that idea and move on to airline number two. Their website works, but again a paper ticket is required and they will only mail it to addresses in that city. At least I can pay for it online, but there are no guarantees I will get the tickets before I travel.

I then move on to a non-airline booking site. This has the same policy as airline number two.

So three different companies all turning down my money due to some ticketing rule or other. I thought SITI / SOTI / SOTO rules were abolished a year or two ago. This is not an obscure destination I am trying to travel to. Somehow I can’t see IATA’s aim of 100% e-tickets being achieved any time soon.

Musings of the Global Traveller
Thoughts, advice and travel news from around the world by a seasoned frequent flyer.

Finally the Airbus show goes to USA with A380 visits to Los Angeles LAX airport, New York JFK, Chicago O’Hare and Washington Dulles. (Apologies if I have missed any out.)

The Cranky Flier was there when the A380 landed in Los Angeles and lucky enough to be invited to an event. I was talking to a journalist earlier today who is lucky enough to get an invite to go onboard. I’m jealous of them both. At least I managed to visit it in Singapore a year ago.

Hopefully I can still make the inaugural flight, whenever that might be.

Musings of the Global Traveller
Thoughts, advice and travel news from around the world by a seasoned frequent flyer.

I don’t mind red eye flights too much. For those unfamiliar with the term, a red eye flight is a flight that leaves late at night and arrives in the early hours of the morning. I’ve had lots of them – 56 in 2006 alone.

The one I took last night was brutal. Not brutal like the movie.

Pics from Wikipedia and Yahoo.

The previous night I got no sleep (yes my fault). Then a long day. Then short red eye flight – just over 4 hours heading east, departing 11pm.

So today I’m a bit addled, not from jetlag (only 2 hour time difference). Good practice I suppose for an upcoming trip that several more red eye flights.

I’ll stop now before I ramble some more.

Musings of the Global Traveller
Thoughts, advice and travel news from around the world by a seasoned frequent flyer.

I have long praised Air New Zealand lounges for their amenities, including free computer terminals (except at their smallest lounges). I was blown away to discover the latest tweaks to their computer settings render the Air NZ website inoperable!

If you are going to the trouble to supply computers I would think the first function they should be able to do is make an online booking, check schedules, check on-time performance (arrival and departure info) for that airline. Apparently not a concern

Musings of the Global Traveller
Thoughts, advice and travel news from around the world by a seasoned frequent flyer.

As I get ready for my next around the world trip, I came across the blog of Phileas Fogg (make that Mark Schatzker) who is currently also travelling around the world. But while I speed across the skies, Mark will be travelling by land and sea – no transport faster than 100 mph – and plans to take 80 days.

I’m enjoying the frequent updates.

Musings of the Global Traveller
Thoughts, advice and travel news from around the world by a seasoned frequent flyer.