Musings of The Global Traveller
Thoughts, advice and travel news from around the world by a seasoned frequent flyer.
The Lufthansa & Germanwings strike has been lifted after 1 day with the pilots having returned to work (for now). Even though the strike is lifted expect significant disruptions for the next couple of days, particularly for longhaul passengers.
Qantas has advised of planned configuration changes to A380 and 747 aircraft between late 2011 and late 2013. Currently all their A380 and 747 aircraft have 4 cabins (first, business, premium economy and economy), except for 7 747 aircraft with 2 classes of service. There are 3 different 747 configurations. Ultimately there will be 2 A380 configurations and 1 747 configuration.
Some A380 to keep first class, some configured with 3 class seating
The existing 6 A380, plus the next 6 to be delivered, will continue to have all four classes of service. However there will be less business class seats and more premium economy and economy class seats. Exact configuration is yet to be disclosed. These 12 aircraft will operate exclusively on the following routes:
The extra 8 A380 will have no first class cabin. The new seating configuration is yet to be disclosed.
All 747s to be 3 class
The current fleet will eventually be reduced to 9 aircraft, all of which will have no first class cabin.
Other changes include a switch to the new version of business class seats (same as those already installed on A380) to be fully lie flat instead of the current flat on an angle, upgrade to inflight entertainment system (presumably to the same software as is on the A380), and changes in the number of seats. There will be a reduction of 8 business class seats, an extra 4 premium economy seats, and an extra 78 economy class seats. The changes in seat numbers are all relative to the current 747-400ER seating configuration since these are 6 of the 9 aircraft which will remain in the fleet.
Routes that lose Qantas first class service
The following routes either currently have first class service and will lose it some time in 2011, 2012 or 2013; or used to have first class but with a current suspension:
Significant reduction in premium seating
Premium cabin (first and business class) awards and points upgrades on Qantas flights will be tougher. Operational upgrades should also be less likely.
The changes will see the end of the current practice whereby on certain routes seating is in a higher cabin but with the service for the cabin you pay for. Eg some passengers seated in premium economy seats with economy service, others seated in business class seats with premium economy service, and others seated in first class seats with business class service.
Positive aspects
The news is not all bad for frequent flyers.
Business class will be lie flat on 747. IFE improvements are always welcome. More premium economy and economy class seats means potentially better fares and more sales to keep them filled.
There may be some opportunities during the transition period to improve your seating, at least if you have Oneworld elite status. This is because first class will have to be discontinued for sale ahead of when the seats are removed in order to avoid costly disappointment for passengers paying many thousands of dollars for first class travel.
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Hat tip to Loyalty Traveler
Last Wednesday afternoon a Ryanair flight diverted to a neighbouring airport when it could not land due to thunderstorms at the destination. Since the airports involved were on different islands, and there was no later ferry (presumably due to the bad weather), this meant passengers spent an unplanned night before getting a ferry to their booked accommodation the next morning.
This all makes for a good news story beat up of how the heartless airline stranded passengers on the wrong island (eg BBC).
It is unfortunate that the other facts were not published. All other flights to the destination airport of Lanzarote, Canary Islands, were also cancelled or diverted that evening. I don’t see how the airline can be blamed for not getting their passengers to Lanzarote until the next day – they cannot control the weather and surely everyone accepts that safety is important?
Under EU reg 261/2004 a delay in arriving at destination due to unforseen bad weather is not compensatable, although the airline must provide accommodation, meals, 2 phone calls and suitable transportation.
There are a lot of things I do not like about Ryanair, but this time I thing the media has it wrong.
This is part of a series of blog entries on how to get to countries and places. Here is a link to the index. I plan to eventually cover every country and some other places. If you have a request for a particular country or place please use the Contact link at the top, or leave a comment.
Zimbabwe
Source: Marius Loots
Arrival at Zimbabwe is by land (lots of buses from Johannesburg, less plentiful from other neighbouring countries) or by air. Airlines flying to Zimbabwe include:
TIP Despite the lack of longhaul flights (limited to Air Zimbabwe flights from Harare to Europe, Middle East and Asia), Zimbabwe is fairly easy to get to thanks to the proximity to Johannesburg and the tourist infrastructure at Victoria Falls in particular.
TIP Check fares to nearby airports – Livingstone airport is just over the Zambian border at Victoria Falls, and Lusaka airport may be an alternative for Harare.
Most Lufthansa and Germanwings flights are expected to be disrupted next week. Note, however, that some related airlines’ flights are all operating. This includes Swiss, Austrian, bmi, Brussels Airlines, CityLine, Eurowings, Lufthansa Italia.
Lufthansa has published a schedule of their flights which they anticipate being able to operate. All flights not listed on that schedule between 22 and 25 February are cancelled.
At present they are allowing refunds, rebooking onto other Lufthansa flights (in the same cabin but any available booking class), and heavily restricted rebooking onto non Lufthansa flights (requires same booking class). Hopefully the restrictions on rebooking onto other airlines will soon be eased otherwise there will be a lot of people unable to travel on the days they want to. For domestic German flights, Lufthansa also allows rebooking onto Deutsche Bahn trains.
For the latest information for affected passengers check the link above to Lufthansa’s website.
Airline assistance (EU reg 261/2004)
EU reg 261/2004 articles 5 and 6 apply for cancellations and delays respectively. This means food, 2 phone calls, and accommodation (if necessary) must be provided to passengers whose flights are cancelled or materially delayed. Lufthansa will likely argue that article 7 compensation will not apply due to the exemption for extraordinary circumstances.
The latest round in the ongoing struggle between British Airways and their cabin crew union BASSA was a clear win for the airline. In the judgement, all points were in favour of BA – confirming that it wasn’t unreasonable for British Airways to make the changes in crew numbers and arrangements given the circumstances.
In a few days the month long union ballot will be completed and shortly thereafter we’ll hear if there is to be a strike. Back in December a 12 day strike was called for over Christmas but was cancelled by court injunction due to voting irregularities.
This latest court decision is too late to effect the ballot (which almost certainly will be another vote to strike), but should play on the minds of union officials as they determine what to do next.
The best outcome for travellers will be if the union accepts the judgement and takes a softer line.
Many readers know I sometimes have rather complicated itineraries. Most of the time it all works out fine. Sometimes it doesn’t.
I have one upcoming 16 flight ticket that today had schedule changes to 14 (yes 14!) of the flights. In addition there were some flight number changes and a few aircraft type changes.
Once I got over the shock of the sea of red alerts of “new flight details“, and took a closer look, I was able to breathe again. Despite some changes being several hours there were no misconnects. That is a miracle. Yay.
My carefully constructed original itinerary allowed for ample opportunity to use airline lounge showers while in transit during one particular 2 1/2 day travel intensive period. This plan is now in ruins. Every single transfer during that period where I have airline lounge shower access is now too short to have time for one, whilst the transfers which do not have airline lounge shower access have lengthened. It is uncanny how perfectly misaligned to my plan the changes have been.
Since I don’t want to go 2 1/2 days without a shower I’m now looking to book an airport hotel during a couple of transits, unless I can find a pay per use shower instead. It is a shame there is no airportshowers dot com.
The fall back option, if I can’t find pay per use showers or suitable hotels (or I come to my senses that there really isn’t enough time to get to one), is to bring with me the high stash of wet towelettes in foil wrapped packages as supplied by many airlines.
A 4 day strike running from Monday to Thursday next week has been announced by pilots at Lufthansa and Germanwings (source New York Times). While other airlines in the group are not directly affected there probably will be some impacts on their flights too, not least due to many thousands of rebooked passengers.
Edited to add.
Related airlines which are not directly affected by the strike include:
In all cases it is the operating airline that matters, not codeshares. Check your flight details carefully.
ANA is adding suites to their first class lounges at Tokyo Narita. Yes, you read that right – suites on the ground.
It isn’t a new idea. Royal Jordanian Airlines already has similar suites in their Crown lounge at Amman. Lufthansa does even better for those flying in first class with long transfers, by providing a lovely day room at the Kempinski Hotel.
Hat tip to About Airport Parking.
