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Tags: Lawsuits / Travel With Children / British Airways / Airlines / Airline News / → All Tags

British Airways Treats Passenger Like Pervert, Passenger Sues

Here’s a pretty odd airline rule of which we weren’t aware. Apparently unaccompanied minors and kids in different rows from their parents are not allowed to sit next to men on British Airways. We understand that many people—not just men—are kind of gross and weird, but this just seems a little excessive. One man isn’t too happy with the policy, and he’s decided to sue British Airways over it.

Mirko Fischer is claiming that the airline is making an assumption that all men are potential sex offenders and that innocent travelers are at the risk of being embarrassed and humiliated. He isn’t too thrilled about the British Airways policy that requires flight attendants to check out the seating situation to ensure that male strangers aren’t sitting next to any kiddos.

The offended passenger was asked to move his seat when flying with his pregnant wife, and when he refused, he was told the airplane was staying put until he moved. Eventually he selected a different seat, but had this to say about the whole situation:

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Tags: Security / TSA / Delta / Airport Security / WestJet / Virgin Atlantic / Baggage Fees / Air Canada / British Airways / Northwest Airlines / Northwest Flight 253 / → All Tags

'Keep Your Hands Where We Can See Them,' Demands New TSA Flight Rules

Has this been the worst holiday travel weekend or what? Hopefully most Christmas flyers made it home last night safe and sound, but for those who fly today or later on this week, the Transportation Safety Administration (TSA) has a few new rules to keep you on your toes at the security checkpoint.

In what is being called a "knee-jerk reaction" to the attempted terrorist act onboard Northwest Flight 253 on Christmas Day, the TSA introduced new rules. And, at the request of American authorities, international airports are stepping up their screenings for USA-bound flights. How long these new rules will last is unknown, but we're hoping the more ridiculous ones will fizzle soon.

So are electronics allowed on flights anymore, how many carry-ons can you have, and what's the deal with airplane pillows? Find out, after the jump.

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Tags: Travel Rants / Travel Tips / Airlines / Frequent Flyer Miles / Airline Loyalty Programs / American Airlines / British Airways / Europe Travel / British Airways Strike / Omri Ceren / → All Tags

How American Airlines And I Survived The British Airways Strike Together

And now, in the spirit of holiday travel, a rant from Jaunted writer Omri Ceren, who has spent the last week riding an emotional roller coaster thanks to the called off British Airways strike and his complex flight plans. Do enjoy his story:

Many of you have been following with interest my ongoing and frustrating odyssey to book a winter trip using only American Airlines miles. It's not really "many of you" as much as "three or four" and it's not really "interest" as much as "idle curiosity." Still, there are a couple lessons to be drawn from the final itinerary: LAX-SOF, SOF-TLV, TLV-LHR, LHR-LAX for 80K miles plus fees and taxes.

The initial itinerary was uneven—seats that I thought were available weren't and I couldn't get a SOF-TLV flight even though oneworld partners fly that route—but it was what it was. Then the British Airways strike was announced, which led to this series of phone calls, the tips that came out of the experience, and an itinerary that included a bus ride from Heathrow to Gatwick and an overnight in the Budapest Airport. Then the strike got called off and I tried to get my original itinerary back, which is where this little Teaching Moment picks up.

First, I'd like to thank the US Mint for providing what until now has been the easiest way to convert credit into miles and then back again. They've closed that loophole so now you're advised to seek out branded debit cards. Second, this trip couldn't have been created without American Airlines one-way awards booking. More on that below.

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Tags: Holiday Travel / Travel Advertising / Travel Ads / Travel Tech / British Airways / → All Tags

What Do A Little Girl, A Freaky Doll And Lapland Have In Common? British Airways.

New travel tech site TNooz.com has a roundup of seasonally appropriate, mostly cute holiday travel commercials that they've collected. There's a broad selection, from a bright sunny California commercial to a "moody evocative film" about Scotland. We were going to comment on each one individually—ex: generally, "moody and evocative" doth not good holiday cheer make—but there's one in particular that caught our eye. It's a 1992 commericial for British Airways and it's clever in its own way, though the punchline at the end is bitterly ironic this week.

Here's the thing though. We were a little hesitant to suggest this, but now we're convinced: the video is super creepy. We're not certain why we feel like this. We can't put our finger on what exactly is going wrong. But we're 100% sure something is fundamentally amiss with this family, from "clever daddy's" staccato speech to the little girl's pique. If this was the opening scene in a horror movie, by minute 20 someone would be killing kittens. Check out the doll in the upper corner and tell us we're wrong...

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Tags: Weather / Snow Travel / London Travel / Airports / LHR / LGW / STN / LTN / LCY / British Airways / Travel Delays / → All Tags

British Airways Passengers Will Now Face Snow Delays Instead of Strike

So it turns out the biggest issue impacting travel to and from London over the Christmas holiday will be the arrival of fresh snow, instead of the now-averted British Airways Strike. After eight inches of snow fell in Kent, Sussex and Essex, and a few inches in London, flights from London's Gatwick, Luton, City and Heathrow airports have met with a rash of cancellations and delays.

But because of the panic of the British Airways strike threats earlier this week, many travelers opted to grab earlier flights, the ones which are now affected by the snow. To hear the worst of it, we swung by BusinessTraveller and found that flights to Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted are severely affected, Gatwick had their runway closed earlier, London City Airport was completely closed but just reopened, and easyJet cancelled a slew of flights, which you can see a list of here.

If you're trying to fly to or from the London area, keep your web browser tuned to your airline's website, and it would be pretty smart to install FlightStats' mobile apps on your smartphone, where you can keep up to date with your flight delays and information on the go.

Related Stories:
· Snow causes disruption at UK airports [Business Traveller]
· More Travel Chaos as Big Freeze Continues [Sky News]
· Weather Travel [Jaunted]

[Photo: Na :-/]

Tags: Travel Tips / Airlines / Frequent Flyer Miles / Airline Loyalty Programs / American Airlines / Europe Travel / British Airways / → All Tags

Use AAdvantage One-Way Bookings To Create A European Vacation

Get together with any group of frequent fliers and—after they get done rightly trashing Ryanair—the topic of conversation inevitably turns to the declining value of mileage programs. When airlines aren't busy taking away perks, they're spending their time restructuring awards tiers so you don't notice how they're taking away perks. It's that steady decline, more than anything else, that underlies the very first rule of airline miles: don't hoard your airline miles.

So being good, rule-abiding travelers, we booked a trip to Europe this winter using AAdvantage miles and oneworld partners. We were able to book three destinations for 60K miles. That's not impressive on its own—three flights times 20K is 60K—but the beauty is that it more or less forms a round trip. The important trick comes from the policy change American Airlines implemented last March, allowing customers to use their points for one-way trips. And so 60K miles will get you most of the way from LAX to Sofia, Tel Aviv, and London and then, unfortunately, back home. The caveat is that you have to book SOF-TLV on your own unless you want to spend another 40K bouncing around Europe. Not ideal, but not a disaster.

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Tags: British Airways Strike / British Airways / Airline Hell / Holiday Travel / Airlines / Airline News / LHR / → All Tags

Massive British Airways Strike Averted; All Flights 'Operating As Normal'

BREAKING: The BBC reports that the imminent two-week holiday strike by British Airways' employees has been averted. When the airline employee union United decided to strike during peak holiday travel time, from December 22-January 2, and for so long a time, British Airways took them to court to seek an injuction.

Today, the court ruled in favor of British Airways, meaning that BA employees will have to report to work as normal through the holidays, but they will hold another vote to strike after the new year. And the union was even denied the ability to appeal the decision! Flights are back on, everybody!

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Tags: British Airways Strike / British Airways / Airline Hell / Holiday Travel / Airlines / Airline News / Virgin Atlantic / LHR / → All Tags

Virgin Atlantic Aims To Be Savior Of Passengers During British Airways Strike

If you're holding tickets to fly on British Airways anytime between December 22 and January 2, then we hope that you've already heard that the airline's employees are striking for those two weeks, virtually incapacitating the world's third largest airline. Although BA has admitted that flights during the first week will be cancelled, they'll attempt to run a skeleton operation for the second week, but we don't see how that's possible. Thus, you've got to scramble to rebook now.

We've already offered Five Tips for Rebooking Your Cancelled BA Flight from a Jaunted writer who just went through the stress of actually changing a multi-segment itinerary. But now, more help comes in the form of Virgin Atlantic swooping in with larger planes to help scoop up the passengers left stranded by British Airways.

The full deal, after the jump.

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Tags: British Airways Strike / British Airways / Airline Hell / Holiday Travel / Airlines / Airline News / LHR / → All Tags

How To Rebook If You're Flying During British Airways' Two-Week Strike

Update December 17, 2009: The strike has been averted thanks to court action! See all the details here.

If you had a flight on British Airways between December 22 and January 2, we've got some good news and some bad news. The good news is that future-you's carbon footprint may be a lot smaller. The bad news is that the environmental benefits may come from canceling your holiday travel, as 12,500 of the airline's employees are going on strike for the holiday season.

If you booked a British Airways flight directly via the airline, their agents will work with you to find alternative routes. If you have a British Airways flight that you booked via one of their oneworld partners—say, if you were planning to go to Europe this winter on American Airlines miles—things are going to be much more difficult. You'll need to make your own calculations about a new itinerary vs. taking the risk that the flight will be called off. But if you're going to rebook you need to get on the phone and do it now. Here's why...

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Tags: Travel Tweet of the Week / Twitter / Twitter Travel / British Airways Strike / British Airways / → All Tags

Tweet Of The Week: Blame British Airways

We love Tuesdays. Why, you ask? Because the day brings many travel tips and quips as "Travel Tuesday" on Twitter, and we're going to share our favorite with you. Got an avid travel twitterer we should follow? Let us know.

Today's Twitter action was dominated by two topics, and happily both are completely up our alley since they focus on the airlines. First, the Boeing 787 Dreamliner successfully took its first flight, and people tweeted about watching it on a livestream. Second, there's the news of the big two-week British Airways employee strike that'll cripple the company and millions of passengers over Christmas.

There's been tons of angry tweets about the BA situation, and we were all set to feature an outraged flyer until we came across this tweet from someone suffering secondhand from the flight cancellations. This is perhaps the most hilarious tweet we've yet seen regarding the BA strike, and we really feel for this woman, who is appropriately facepalming and/or showing off her wedding ring for her Twitter picture. Here's what she said:

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Tags: Qantas / British Airways / Airline Mergers / Airline News / Airlines / → All Tags

British Airways Considering Getting In Bed With Qantas

British Airways CEO Willie Walsh is going around telling people (like Financial Times journalists) that he thinks a merger with Aussie airline Qantas could still happen. They talked about it last year but dismissed it as a bad idea, but now British Airways is considering nicer ways to ask.

Basically, Qantas is a successful airline on its own, even though their old CEO thought merging a good idea. So British Airways is now saying they could merge in the same way as they did with Spanish airline Iberia, which would still give Qantas a fair bit of autonomy.

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Tags: Airline News / British Airways / Iberia / Airline Mergers / Travel News / → All Tags

British Airways And Iberia Agree To Merge And Become Soul-Sucking Airline

Now not everyone knows that the Spanish airline Iberia hasn't been faring so well, but you should be very aware that they've just reached a preliminary agreement with British Airways to merge. This means that the airlines will cooperate on flights and form a company which, according to SkyNews, has "419 aircraft which would fly to 205 destinations."

BA and Iberia, along with American Airlines and Finnair already put the merger cogs in motion back in August 2008 when they created the website "MoreTravelChoices.com." Since even before then, Sir Richard Branson of Virgin Atlantic has been railing out against the proposed merger of BA and AA especially, arguing that they'd have a near monopoly on transatlantic routes—ones that Virgin also flies.

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