Travelers who are flying with the Australian airline Qantas are being urged to check the details of their travel insurance policy to determine whether or not they will be covered in the event of a strike by the airline. Many of the main travel insurance companies have now inserted a provision into their policy stating that they will not be liable to cover flights delayed or canceled due to strike action after September 28th.
Staff at the popular airline have been striking on and off for the past couple of months and this has severely disrupted passengers traveling around the country. Many analysts have predicted that the tourism of Australia overall will be hit hard and some say that the number could be reduced by 10% for this year. Furthermore, the usual fury of activity that accompanies the Christmas period (as many people try to get home or go on holiday for Christmas) is expected to be far quieter due to the industrial action advocated by the union that represents the Qantas engineers, pilots and baggage handlers.
By the end of 2011, tourism from Japan is expected to fall by around 18% while the number of British and American passengers are predicted to decrease by 6 per cent and 4 per cent respectively. Campbell Fuller, a representative of the Insurance Council of Australia, stated that the situation varies from company to company and that all claims will be assessed on an individual basis however travelers are still encouraged to read …

The American State Department has issued a severe travel warning to its citizens who are either in Syria or are planning to go there. The warning comes after heated tensions between the government and a wave of protesters who have been encouraged by the Arab Spring revolutions that have rocked the Middle East and its neighbors.
The seeds of the uprising have been growing for around 4 months now however violent clashes between pro-democracy activists and the security forces are becoming more common and 18 people were killed in a attack by President Bashar al-Assad’s security forces on Friday. The protesters are defying a direct order from the government over taking to the streets and demanding regime change however this hasn’t stopped tens of thousands from doing so and the worry is that many American citizens will be caught up in the revolutionary fever of the country and suffer as a result.
The State Department declared that the “ongoing uncertainty and volatility” of the region meant that it was unsafe for Americans to travel there and they are even providing transportation for those wanting to leave the country while they still can. A travel warning was first issued on April as the Arab Spring began to gather pace and it related to US government employees and their families as well as non-essential personnel however it has now been expanded to incorporate all US citizens and it is hoped that they will take heed of the warning.

After the tragic death of Polish President Lech Kaczynski, the acting President Bronislaw Komorowski has announced a immediate investigation into the travel rules regarding military officials.
The incident happened after the President and some of his top officials were on a flight bound for Western Russia when a heavy fog engulfed the aircraft and greatly reduced visibility. Despite persistent warnings to the pilot not to try and land the plane at the airport and instead divert the journey to somewhere that had better visibility, the jets pilots continued their original course and the tragedy happened as a result. Indeed, some have speculated that the pilot and his co-pilot were under some pressure to land the plane at the designated airport as the President was due to attend a memorial for the Polish victims in World War Two at Katyn in the Smolensk region.
An immediate investigation is underway to determine how the plan crashed and why the advice over poor visibility and hazardous landing conditions was ignored. Polish investigators revealed that the ‘black box’ has been found and is in full working order so details of the crash and what happened immediately before it should become clear soon however it doesn’t take away the fact that a country’s President and many of his top advisors were killed due to a situation that could have been easily avoided. Bronislaw Komorowski is expected to announce new plans regarding the travel for military officials in the coming weeks in the hope that a disaster …

The UK Foreign Office has revised its initial assessment of traveling to Japan. After the devastating earthquake last month, the FCO strongly advised against any non’essential travel to the Asian country after one of the worst natural disasters on record. The earthquake and accompanying Tsunami registered a massive 9 on the Richter Scale and devastated large parts of the country and completed destroyed many sections of its infrastructure.
Such was the fear of aftershocks and other disasters associated with the earthquake that the FCO advised against any travel at all to the country in the days and weeks immediately following the event. However now that several weeks have passed and that attention is now turned to rebuilding and salvaged what is left, the Foreign Office has decided to review its initial assessment and has instead concluded that non-essential travel to the nations capital, Tokyo, will not put any UK citizens in immediate danger.
However the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant is still in a precarious state after the earthquake and workers are desperately trying to cool down the reactor by injecting nitrogen in an attempt to prevent anymore hydrogen explosions that could be potentially devastating to the region and the country overall. While travel to Tokyo is not, at this minute, considered risky or dangerous the FCO has declared that non-essential travel to the north east of Tokyo and those area’s still heavily devastated by the Earthquake is highly discouraged and that British citizens should consider the importance of …

For the first time since Spain entered democracy over 30 years ago, a ‘state of alarm’ was declared over the air traffic controllers strike. On, what is one of the busiest weekends in the calender year for air travel in the country, many of the nations controllers chose industrial action over their work conditions. In fact, the issue has been going on for over a year now and it is a direct response to the austerity package and decision by the Spanish government to partly privatize Spain’s airports. It is a move that has received widespread criticism and many fear that privatization will lead to job losses and a substantial amount of cuts.
The strike itself began at 5pm on Friday and it came just hours after the government announcement. While the strike itself only lasted for less than a day and many controllers were back at their posts by Saturday afternoon it is expected to take several days to fully clear the backlog of canceled and delayed flights and the move to strike has come under sharp criticism by many of the passengers that have been affected.
Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba, Spain’s deputy prime minister also joined in with the chorus of criticism that has been directed at the airport staff and, while acknowledging that the air traffic controllers do indeed carry out an important job, he stated that he believed that they were hanging on to certain privileges when the economic situation means that thay are ‘unacceptable’.

New research has revealed that flight delays and overall bad experience of traveling on airplanes is on the rise in the United States and it is not expected to get better any time soon with the current economic climate. The main reason for this decline in standards has been blamed largely on the troubling financial situation that many of the airlines have found themselves in. Since the year 2000 there have been 7 major airlines going out of business and this has resulted either in bankruptcy or mergers; both of which have put considerable constraints on the industry as a whole.
From 2003 to 2008, the price of jet fuel has more than tripled and this, in turn, has mean’t that many airlines are having to cut costs and it can only have a negative effect on customer service and enjoyability. Indeed, much emphasis has been put on what city you actually fly from; New York has been determined to have the most delays of any American city and indeed the city has the worst arrival and departure delay record in the country.
There is no magic fix for this problem according to analysts however some have argued that privatizing the airport system would go a long way to improving standards. In addition, some have even argued for a high speed rail system to be implemented for journeys under 500 miles (which make up around 31% of passengers routes) in a bid to help ease the congestion of the country’s …