October 12, 2017

Air Berlin, the 10th largest European airline, is closing operations at the end of this month, meaning there will be no more flights. However, Lufthansa has agreed to buy large parts of Air Berlin’s business.

According to The Telegraph on October 10:

After months of uncertainty Air Berlin has announced it will be ending all flights in a matter of the weeks. The bankrupt airline – Germany’s second largest and Europe’s 10th biggest overall – says it’s preparing to stop all services by October 28 “at the latest”.

In a letter to its employees on Monday, the airline said that flights under the airline code AB “according to the current state of things, will no longer be possible.”

ABC News now reports:

Lufthansa would reportedly take over 81 planes from Air Berlin for its main brand and lower-cost Eurowings operation. Air Berlin said that Lufthansa would pay 210 million euros for Air Berlin assets, enabling it to repay a 150 million credit from the German federal government that had allowed it to keep flying.

The sale still needs approval from creditors and European Union anti-trust authorities to take effect.

Air Berlin has provided a list of frequently asked questions for customers and travel professionals regarding this change.

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October 10, 2017

California’s “Wine Country” regions of Napa and Sonoma have suffered severe forest fires beginning on Sunday, with some areas forced to evacuate. At the time of this writing, at least 10 people have died.

The New York Times reports:

Fast-moving wildfires raged across Northern California on Monday, killing at least 10 people, sending well over 100 to hospitals, forcing up to 20,000 to evacuate and destroying more than 1,500 buildings in one of the most destructive fire emergencies in the state’s history.

Firefighters were battling blazes in eight counties, officials said.

The fires raged through the hills that are home to some of the country’s most prized vineyards. The main north-south highway that connects San Francisco to the northernmost parts of California was closed Monday as fire engulfed both sides of the freeway. Santa Rosa is a hub for tours into wine country, and at least two large hotels that cater to the wine tourism trade were destroyed by the fires.

The San Francisco Chronicle wrote that many of the vineyards popular with tourists suffered fire damage:

Of the hundreds of wineries in the region, nearly all were forced to close Monday, and a handful of wineries were burned to the ground, such as Signorello Estate in Napa and Paradise Ridge in Santa Rosa. Others, including Continuum Estate on Napa’s Pritchard Hill and Cliff Lede Vineyards in Yountville, remained untouched, but were being vigilantly watched as fires surged closer and closer.

Some historic properties were lost. White Rock Vineyards, whose Soda Canyon area winery was first established in 1870, was completely gone, a staff member confirmed. And some historic vineyards, especially in Sonoma Valley — irreplaceable old vines dating back to the 19th century, in some cases — were feared singed.

Please contact the PR Team if you have any questions or concerns: TravelLeadersGroupPR@TravelLeaders.com.

October 9, 2017

An American Airlines flight from Hong Kong to Los Angeles caught fire today during cargo loading, and the flight was canceled.

According to the Washington Post:

An American Airlines flight from Hong Kong to Los Angeles was canceled Monday after a piece of loading equipment caught fire while it was preparing to put cargo in the hold of the plane, the airline said. One person was hurt.

The container that was on the loading equipment also caught fire in the process, said Martha Thomas, a spokeswoman for the airline.

The cargo it contained was “non–hazardous,” Thomas said, without providing details. She added that the airline was looking into the cause of the mechanical issue that triggered the fire.

Boarding had not yet started and no passengers or crew on Flight 192 were injured, she said.

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October 9, 2017

Due to a disagreement on diplomatic relations, the United States and Turkey have stopped issuing visas for citizens of the other country.

Bloomberg reports:

Markets in Istanbul tumbled after the U.S. and Turkey stopped issuing visas for each other’s citizens in a spat related to last year’s failed coup against President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, deepening divisions between two NATO members already at odds over the war in Syria.

The Trump administration halted visa services for Turks on Sunday, citing the Oct. 4 arrest of a Turkish citizen employed at the U.S. consulate in Istanbul for alleged involvement in the July 2016 putsch attempt. Erdogan’s government responded in kind within hours, repeating verbatim much of the U.S. statement.

According to Fortune:

The move represents a swift deterioration of a long-simmering diplomatic conflict between the two countries. Turkey suspects the U.S. of having helped to plan the failed coup of President Erdogan in 2016 and claims it is now protecting Turks who were involved; The U.S. says Turkey has flouted due process in its arrest of the embassy worker and that there is no evidence of U.S. involvement in the coup. To make matters worse, Erdogan has now all but admitted that he is holding Americans hostage in Turkey as bargaining chips for the extradition of Fethullah Gulen, a Turkish spiritual leader living in self-imposed exile in the U.S.

Until further notice no visas for travel, business, temporary work, study, or medical purposes will be processed by either embassy. That will mean a huge reduction in the number of visas issued between the countries. According to the State Department, American outfits in Turkey issued 113,240 non-settlement visas issued in fiscal year 2016 and only 4,834 settlement visas. U.S. tourism in Turkey has fallen off in recent years. More than 88,000 Americans visited Turkey in 2015, but that number plummeted to just over 37,000 in 2016.

Please contact the PR Team if you have any questions or concerns: TravelLeadersGroupPR@TravelLeaders.com.

Monday, October 2, 2017

Alert – Las Vegas Shooting: At Least 50 Dead, 200-plus Injured

All,

More than 110,000 customers of the United Kingdom’s Monarch Airlines are stranded abroad today after the airline financially collapsed and cancelled all of its flights at 3 a.m. local time. All flights from the UK, including some 300,000 future bookings, have been cancelled and will not be rescheduled. Passengers are encouraged to visit monarch.caa.co.uk, or call the helpline on 0300 303 2800 if calling from the UK or +44 1753 330330 from abroad, reported the Daily Mail.

According to the CNN/Money:

Monarch had been under enormous financial pressure from rising costs, low demand on some routes because of terrorism fears, as well as a drop in the value of the pound, according to accounting firm KPMG.

About 110,000 U.K.-based Monarch customers are stranded overseas and need to be brought back. The biggest airline collapse in U.K. history also affects 750,000 people booked on future flights or holidays.

The New York Times reports:

Monarch Airlines, a struggling British low-cost carrier and tour operator, collapsed into bankruptcy early Monday, ceasing its flights and forcing the government to step in and bring home more than 100,000 passengers stranded abroad.

Britain’s aviation regulator called the collapse of Monarch the “biggest ever U.K. airline failure.” The airline is one of many that have struggled to grapple with Europe’s highly competitive airline market.

Just this year, the Italian carrier Alitalia went into administration, which is similar to bankruptcy protection in the United States, and is currently seeking a buyer. Air Berlin, a German low-cost carrier, filed for insolvency and has put its assets up for sale.

Ryanair, an Irish discount airline, has expressed interest in making a bid for Alitalia’s assets, but it has faced its own public backlash after it was forced to cancel more than 1,000 flights in September and October because of mistakes in its handling of vacation time for pilots. Last week, Ryanair said it would cancel an additional 18,000 flights on 34 routes between November and March to avoid further cancellations.

For Monarch, “mounting cost pressures and increasingly competitive market conditions in the European short-haul market” led to “a sustained period of trading losses,” Blair Nimmo, a partner at the accounting firm KPMG, which is acting as administrator for company, said in a news release.

Monarch’s problems have been building for some time.

Terrorist attacks in Egypt and Tunisia and unrest in Turkey dented demand for tourism to those destinations, weighing on the carrier’s results. That forced the airline to rely more on routes to popular vacation spots in southern Europe, such as Spain, where it faced stiff competition.

Monarch was founded in 1968 and operated flights to 40 destinations from Britain, as well as providing tour packages. It employed about 2,750 people, according to the company’s website.

Please contact the PR Team if you have any concerns: TravelLeadersGroupPR@TravelLeaders.com.

Friday, October 2, 2017

Alert – Las Vegas Shooting: At Least 50 Dead, 200-plus Injured

All,

At least 50 people were killed and more than 200 injured in a shooting outside the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino on the Las Vegas Strip during a music festival on Sunday night around 10 p.m. local time. Shots were being fired from the 32nd floor of the resort by a lone gunman before being killed during a standoff with police, authorities said. Reports say this is the worst mass shooting in U.S. history, surpassing the June 2016 shootings at Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Fla., where 49 people were killed. Police identified suspect Stephen Paddock, age 64.

According to the New York Times:

A gunman firing from a Las Vegas hotel rained a rapid-fire barrage on a huge outdoor concert festival on Sunday night, sending thousands of people fleeing until SWAT units found and killed him. More than 20 victims died, and more than 100 others were wounded, officials said.

Online video of the attack outside the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino showed the country singer Jason Aldean performing outside at the Route 91 Harvest Festival, a three-day country music event, interrupted by the sound of automatic gunfire. The music stopped, and concertgoers ducked for cover. “Get down,” one shouted. “Stay down,” screamed another.

The Las Vegas Sun reports:

A gunman on the 32nd floor of a Las Vegas Strip casino opened fire Sunday night on an outdoor music below, killing at least 20 people — including two off-duty police officers — and wounding more than 100, authorities said.

Officers confronted the suspect at Mandalay Bay, across the street from the concert grounds, and he was killed, Clark County Sheriff Joseph Lombardo said. Authorities did not release the suspect’s name but said he was a local resident.

Lombardo said police believe the shooting was a “lone wolf” attack but were looking for a roommate of the dead suspect for questioning. Police identified her as 62-year-old Marilou Danley.

They were also looking for two vehicles, a Hyundai Tucson with Nevada license plate 114B40 and a Chrysler Pacifica Touring with Nevada plates 79D401, police said.

Dozens of police vehicles swarmed the Strip after authorities received reports of an active shooter near the Route 91 Harvest Festival. Concert-goers reported seeing muzzle flashes from the upper floors of Mandalay Bay and the sound of what they described as automatic gun fire.

Witnesses said they saw multiple victims as they fled the concert venue. Some later huddled in the basement of the nearby Tropicana.

“All I heard was a lot of bang, bang, bang, and everybody hit the ground, and everybody started running,” said Patrick Martin, a Southern California resident, who was at the concert with his wife and son.

Twenty-six people were admitted to the hospital, University Medical Center spokeswoman Danita Cohen said. Of those, at least two died, 12 were in critical condition and the rest were being evaluated, she said.

With at least 20 deaths, a total that could rise, the shooting is already among the worst in U.S. history. The most deadly occurred in June 2016 at Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Fla., where 49 people were killed.

Kodiak Yazzi, 36, said he and his girlfriend were watching Aldean’s performance when he heard what sounded like fireworks. The music stopped temporarily and started up again before another round of pops sent the performers ducking for cover and fleeing the stage.

Thousands fled as bursts of gunfire could be heard for more than five minutes, Yazzi said.

“We were all dancing, we were having a good time, all of a sudden I heard all of these shots,” said Candace LaRosa, 48, of Huntington Beach, Calif. She said that she thought it was a part of a fireworks show. “It was just mass, mass blood everywhere.”

According to CNN Live Updates:

Facebook has activated its safety check for “The violent incident in Las Vegas, Nevada.”

The social media site is providing updates on the situation and collating offers of help from local residents.

Please contact the PR Team if you have any concerns: TravelLeadersGroupPR@TravelLeaders.com.

Friday, September 29, 2017

Alert – Cuba: State Department Orders Embassy Personnel to Leave

All,

It was announced today that the U.S. State Department has ordered all non-essential U.S. Embassy personnel out of the country. This is due to a mysterious illness that has affected embassy workers.

According to the New York Times:

The State Department announced on Friday that it is pulling more than half of its staff out of the American embassy in Havana in the wake of mysterious attacks that have injured 21 people associated with the embassy.

Some of those attacked have suffered significant injuries, with symptoms including hearing loss, dizziness, tinnitus, balance and visual problems, headache, fatigue, cognitive issues and difficulty sleeping. But despite an intensive investigation by the F.B.I., the cause and perpetrators of the attacks remain a mystery, with some experts speculating that some kind of sonic weapon or faulty surveillance device may have been at fault.

CNN noted that the weapon speculated to be used is not widely known:

Investigators haven’t determined the cause of the incidents, but US officials told CNN they are convinced someone has targeted American diplomats in Havana with a sophisticated device never deployed before, at least not against US personnel.

Additionally, the withdrawal also affects Cubans in the United States. The Miami Herald reports:

Cuban Americans seeking to have their relatives join them from the island will not be able to do so — at least for the time being — as a result of a significant withdrawal of staff from the U.S. Embassy in Havana announced on Friday.

It is not known how long the suspension of the visa reunification program will last.

The State Department has updated its longstanding Travel Warning for Cuba due to these developments.

We will keep you updated on this developing situation, and provide talking points next week. Please let me or anyone on the PR team know if you have any questions.

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Thursday, September 28, 2017

Alert – Amadeus: Systems Crash Disrupts Airline Check-ins Worldwide; System Back Online

Air passengers are suffering major disruption at airports around the world after Amadeus’ Altea computer check-in systems crashed. Amadeus IT Group tweeted moments ago: “Our systems are recovered and are now functioning normally.” More than 130 airlines worldwide use Amadeus’ Altea passenger-service system.

According to Bloomberg:

Airlines worldwide were forced to delay flights Thursday as a global flight-bookings system operated by Amadeus IT Group SA suffered what the company called a “network issue.”

Major carriers including British Airways, Deutsche Lufthansa AG, Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd. and Qantas Airways Ltd. were among those reportedly impacted by the outage. Singapore’s Changi airport said via Twitter that a technical issue affecting some operators was delaying the check-in process, with boarding passes having to be issued manually.

“Amadeus confirms that, during the morning, we experienced a network issue that caused disruption to some of our systems,” the Madrid-based company said in a statement. Technical teams took immediate action to identify the cause of the issue and services are “gradually being restored,” it said.

More than 130 airlines worldwide use Amadeus’s Altea passenger-service system, which helps manage flight reservations, inventory and departure-control capabilities, according to its website.

The company said it couldn’t comment on the extent of the disruption. Dublin airport said its systems were down for about 12 minutes, while Manchester in northern England reported a 15-minute failure. The knock-on effect on flights could have lasted much longer, based on previous outages.

Amadeus competes with Sabre Corp. and Travelport Worldwide Ltd., with the Spanish company the dominant bookings-systems provider in Europe.

CNN has confirmed that the following airlines and airports have been affected:

Airlines: Air France Southwest China Air Qantas Korean Air Lufthansa

Airports: Incheon, Seoul Haneda, Tokyo Charles de Gaulle, Paris Zurich Frankfurt Gatwick, London Heathrow, London

Amadeus said in a statement posted just after 9 a.m. ET, Thursday:

Amadeus can confirm that our systems are recovered and are now functioning normally. During the morning, we experienced a network issue that caused disruption to some of our systems. As a result of the incident, customers experienced disruption to certain services.

Our technical teams took immediate action to identify the cause of the issue and mitigate against the impact on customers.

Amadeus regrets any inconvenience caused to customers.

Sabre earlier sent a notice to users:

Amadeus Hosted carriers are experiencing connectivity issues. Sabre customers might receive pending status when trying to sell, Unconfirmed status (UC) when ending the record. They might also get ETR UNAVAILABLE responses when trying to display electronic tickets, or the error 999, when trying to issue tickets. This might affect Air France, Air Baltic, British Airways, Iberia, Qantas, Qatar Airways, Lufthansa, Scandinavian Airlines, among other Amadeus airlines. This has been reported to Amadeus. We will update the bulletin when having further news.

Please contact the PR Team if you have any concerns: TravelLeadersGroupPR@TravelLeaders.com.

September 22, 2017

The 2017 hurricane season continues to cause destruction in the Caribbean, with Hurricane Maria as the latest storm to make landfall on various islands. As of this writing, at least 32 people have died.

The United States territory of Puerto Rico was particularly affected by Hurricane Maria, as the storm knocked out the electrical grid for the entire island. According to the New York Times:

Puerto Rico remained in the throes of chaos and devastation Thursday as the remnants of Hurricane Maria continued to dump rain on the island — up to three feet in some areas.

Flash flood warnings persisted, according to the National Hurricane Center, with “catastrophic” flooding “especially in areas of mountainous terrain.”

The strikingly powerful storm had rendered an estimated 3.4 million people without power, and with the territory’s energy grid all but destroyed, Gov. Ricardo Rosselló predicted a long period of recovery.

The Los Angeles Times notes that Maria caused numerous deaths in Puerto Rico:

At least 15 people were killed in Puerto Rico, according to El Nuevo Día newspaper, including eight drowned just west of San Juan and several buried in a landslide farther west in Utuado. Puerto Rico Gov. Ricardo Rossello told CNN he had reports of at least 13 storm fatalities.

Currently, all international airports in Puerto Rico are closed.

The storm continues towards The Bahamas and Turks and Caicos as a Category 3 hurricane. CBS News reports: 

The U.S. National Hurricane Center says the eye of Hurricane Maria is near the Turks and Caicos Islands while rains and dangerous high waves are starting to subside along the northern coast of Haiti and the Dominican Republic.

As of 5 a.m. EDT, the storm was centered about 35 miles east-northeast of Grand Turk Island and is moving northwest at 7 mph.

The Category 3 hurricane has maximum sustained winds near 125 mph but gradual weakening is expected during the next two days.

Please contact the PR Team if you have any questions or concerns: TravelLeadersGroupPR@TravelLeaders.com.

September 20, 2017

As Mexico combs the rubble, authorities are reporting that at least 225 people died as a result of yesterday’s 7.1 earthquake. Mexico City’s international airport tweeted that it had suspended operations following the quake.

According to CNN:

Most of the deaths have been reported in Mexico City, where at least 94 people were killed, Luis Felipe Puente, head of Mexico’s national civil defense agency, said. Another 71 people were killed in Morelos state, 43 in Puebla, 12 in the State of Mexico, four in Guerrero and one in Oaxaca. The country has declared three days of mourning for those killed in the quake, according to Mexico’s Secretary of Public Function.

The deadly earthquake struck on the 32nd anniversary of the 1985 earthquake that killed 10,000 people. Residents in Mexico had conducted earthquake drills just hours earlier. The earthquake occurred just two weeks after a magnitude 8.1 tremor in the south of the country killed more than 90 people and caused buildings in Mexico City to sway for more than a minute. President Enrique Pena Nieto called that earthquake the biggest quake the country has seen in a century.

Late Tuesday, Mexico’s president issued a video statement urging people to stay calm in the aftermath of the quake. Nieto said many people will need help, but the initial focus has to be on finding people trapped in wrecked buildings.

“The priority at this moment is to keep rescuing people who are still trapped and to give medical attention to the injured people,” the president said, adding that 40 percent of Mexico City and 60 percent of Morelos state had no electricity.

The federal government declared a state of disaster in Mexico City, freeing up emergency funds. Nieto said he had ordered all hospitals to open their doors to the injured.

ABC News reports:

Mexico City’s airport descended into chaos as the ground rippled and chunks of plaster fell from the walls when the earthquake hit, Dallas resident George Smallwood told ABC News.

“I felt the ground shaking, and I heard everyone screaming and starting to run,” he said, adding that he initially thought he was in the middle of a terror attack.

Smallwood had stopped in Mexico City for a long layover after a vacation in Medellin, Colombia, and had spent the day exploring the capital. He was getting ready to go through security at Mexico City International Airport for his 3:35 p.m. flight back to Dallas when the earthquake struck.

Parts of the ceiling were “swinging back and forth,” he said, and the panicked crowd took off “running in every different direction.”

The tremors lasted for about six to seven minutes, he estimated. After the shaking subsided, first responders swooped in to help the injured and a fleet of military and police helicopters buzzed overhead, he said.

Smallwood’s flight was rescheduled for 8:30 a.m. today, so he needed to find somewhere to stay for the night, he said.

Tuesday’s earthquake — which hit at about 2:14 p.m. ET near the town of Raboso in Puebla state, according to the United States Geological Survey — comes 11 days after a magnitude-8.1 quake struck off Mexico’s southern Pacific coast, killing dozens of people.

According to NPR:

As the morning sun rose over the cities of Central Mexico on Wednesday, where once city blocks had lain neatly arranged, there was now a mess of rubble and despair-stricken residents, watching as thousands of earthquake volunteers and rescue workers dug through scattered stones searching for signs of life.

The 7.1-magnitude quake struck Tuesday in Puebla state, some 75 miles from Mexico City, but it devastated a vast expanse of the country. The head of Mexico’s civil defense agency said early Wednesday that 225 people had died in the temblor, in toppled buildings across five states and in the capital.

In Mexico City, where the agency says 94 people died, search efforts took on particular intensity at a collapsed school. Escuela Enrique Rebsamen — a school geared toward children ages 3 to 14, according to Reuters — caved in on dozens of students and their teachers Tuesday.

Rescue workers have found the bodies of at least 22 of those children and two adults, according to Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto. Reuters reports at least 40 more people are missing, though hope remains: At midnight, the wire service says three people were saved from the debris.

Yet the rescue efforts have also yielded terrible discoveries, too. One volunteer had managed to dig his way into a collapsed classroom, The Associated Press reports, “only to find all of its occupants dead.”

“We saw some chairs and wooden tables,” he told the news service. “The next thing we saw was a leg, and then we started to move rubble and we found a girl and two adults.”

Elsewhere, in the state of Morelos, at least 71 people died, while the earthquake’s effects killed at least 43 people in Puebla state. And 17 others died in three other states in the region.

In a stroke of terrible irony, Tuesday’s earthquake struck 32 years to the day to one of the worst temblors in the country’s history. That 1985 quake took thousands of lives and shattered cities, including Mexico City, wreaking such destruction that the country continues to mark its anniversary with simulated drills.

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