Musings of The Global Traveller
Thoughts, advice and travel news from around the world by a seasoned frequent flyer.
Globe Navigation has some brief info and luscious pictures of every country and some places within most countries. Currently 500 destinations are featured. The site is very easy to navigate around.
I’ve just spent the past wee while browsing – dreaming of travels to places I haven’t yet been and remembering many journeys I’ve already taken. Once you’ve picked somewhere to go, my “how to get to” series can help you find affordable ways to travel there.
Over half of BA’s flights are operating in the latest round of cabin crew strikes – 24 to 28 May, with more strikes due 30 May to 3 June and 5 to 9 June. Thus the impact on flyers hasn’t been as bad as it could have been, but nonetheless disruptive to the travel plans of thousands.
So I’m wondering if I’m doing the right thing by booking more British Airways flights for later this year. Surely the strike (and Iceland volcanic eruption) will be over by December? My recent track record hasn’t been great. Each of the last couple of trips which include BA flights, and the next one, fell/fall on strike dates.
Has the lengthy dispute affected your willingness to fly BA?
I’m not referring to the no fly list or the TSA watchlist. Instead there is another, trouble-maker, list being kept by the TSA. Apparently people causing “trouble” at security checkpoints in USA, or even those who witness incidents are being logged and monitored in this list (source USA Today).
This, well, troubling for the great potential for abuse of power and loss of rights. So far, if the report of 240 logged incidents are correct, this potential abuse by screeners/officers probably hasn’t occurred.
What isn’t (yet) obvious is what is done with the information. Do people on the list get added to the no fly list or watchlist? Do they get SSSS’ed for extra screening every time they try to fly?
Emirates have long had a fantastic deal on trans-Tasman flights (between Australia and New Zealand) in first or business class, in that limo airport transfers at both ends were included.
For a trip between Auckland and Melbourne (say) that could easily be worth $200+ round-trip in saved taxi fares and account for most of the difference between an economy fare and a business class fare. At least when business class is on sale, which it often is on these routes.
The included airport transfer even applied to upgraded economy tickets. Great for when Emirates Skywards had promotions to upgrade for 1 mile.
Now, however, the rules have been changed. For Emirates passengers flying only between Australia and New Zealand business class does not include limo airport transfer. First class still does. Longhaul passengers in first and business will also keep the airport transfer.
The British Airways cabin crew union Bassa has won their appeal against the recent injunction and their strike is back on again. The planned strike days are
24-28 May
30 May-3 June
5-9 June
BA has a webpage with information for affected travellers.
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.
Uganda
Source: Ed Wright
There are bus services from all neighbouring countries to Uganda. Airlines flying to Entebbe, Uganda include:
TIP Longhaul travel to/from Uganda most likely requires flying through Europe. There are relatively few flights intra-Africa and none between Asia and Uganda.
TIP The Oneworld continent-based Explorer around the world fare allows back-tracking through Europe from Uganda as an exception (along with Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria and Tanzania). Only one of the transits through Europe can have a stopover.
TIP For awards, Star Alliance offers the most routing options. However on some programs which limit the number of transfers there may be difficulties due to the lack of flights from any major hubs.
Rick Seaney has a post on understanding airline revenue management. It is a bit US-centric and doesn’t cover all the tools airlines use, but does give some of the main factors behind airline revenue management.
A while ago I posted on the basics of airline revenue management (including the humourous “if airlines sold paint”) as part of my flyer tip series. Surprisingly, there isn’t too much overlap with Rick’s post.
Reader Nun recently made the following comment
I’ve been following “How to get to” for a while. One thing I don’t understand is the strict treatment of the term “alliance.” Just because an airline belongs to an alliance doesn’t mean that’s all the partners they have or that’s all the routes they have. It’s often possible to get somewhere in a codeshare. For example, Iberia has lots of IB coded flights which are actually flown by Vueling. Vueling isn’t part of oneworld but the codeshares are. There are lots of examples. Just a thought…
Good question Nun, and of wider relevance than just for the “how to get to” series of posts. It is true I base the information on the airline operating the flights, not allowing for codeshare or partner flights. There are reasons for this, which I’ll explain below.
What is a codeshare?
A codeshare is where an airline markets a flight but it is actually operated by a different airline. Eg Air New Zealand codeshares on Aircalin flights between Auckland and Noumea, and Aircalin codeshares on Air New Zealand flights on the same route. There are different types of codeshare agreements between airlines but that is not important for this discussion.
What is a partner flight?
Most frequent flyer programs (FFPs) also partner with some non-alliance airlines. Sometimes this is limited to a specific route, and other times all routes are included. Some FFPs even partner with airlines that are members of a competing alliance. For the purpose of this discussion a partner flight excludes flights by other airlines within the same alliance.
Why the operating airline matters (codeshares)
Almost all alliance fare products are limited to flights on airlines within the alliance. There are some limited exceptions (such as Oneworld distance based Global Explorer around the world fare). The fare rules require both operating airline and marketing airline to be within the relevant airline alliance.
For mileage earning and redemption the situation is more complicated, as follows:
Why not include partner airline flights?
Partners of one frequent flyer program are not normally also partners of all other frequent flyer programs in the same alliance. A Flyer Talk thread on Star Alliance partner airlines illustrates – for example Virgin Atlantic is a partner of several Star Alliance airlines, but others are not partners with Virgin Atlantic.
Going back to Nun‘s question. I haven’t included partner airlines in the alliance listings in the “how to get to” series of posts because they are useful only to some frequent flyer programs and generally not useful for alliance products or awards. To include every airline flying to a country would mean some long lists and information that would quickly become out of date. I get around this by listing the main non-alliance airlines as “other”. The reader is left to check which ones may be useful for them for mileage earning or award redemption purposes.
Parts of Europe continue to have intermittent airspace closures due to ash from the Eyjafjallajokull volcanic eruption.
The UK met office has handy 5 day forecast maps of ash density over Europe and northern Atlantic Ocean which is helpful for travel planning.
Note the forecasts do not allow for future changes in eruption intensity (which are unknown) and do not forecast airspace closures since those decisions are made by aviation authorities.
The first part of the planned 20-day BA cabin crew strike is cancelled by court injunction (source BBC). BASSA, the cabin crew union, is appealing the decision. If they win an appeal then the strike will be back on again 19 May to 9 June.
This is the second time in this dispute that British Airways has managed to halt a strike before it commenced on technicalities – the planned Christmas 2009 strike was also cancelled by court injunction.
