People gather to watch as the French aircraft carrier Charles De Gaulle, the flagship of the French fleet, leaves the naval base of Toulon March 20, 2011. the carrier is accompanied by an attack submarine, several frigates and a refuelling ship defense officials said. — Reuters pic PARIS, March 20 — France sent an aircraft carrier towards Libya today and its warplanes carried out further operations over the north African country, armed forces and defense officials said.

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Sunday, 20 March 2011, 2:40 pm Press Release: Air New Zealand

Grabaseat asks how low you can go? Air New Zealand ’s grabaseat is launching a newreverse auction feature tomorrow where the price of flightsto fabulous domestic and international destinations willtick down a dollar at a time until it gets so low it’sirresistible.

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Scores of flights to Japan were halted or rerouted on Tuesday and air travelers were avoiding Tokyo for fear of radiation from an earthquake-stricken nuclear plant.Asian and European carriers were most affected. Deutsche Lufthansa said it was diverting flights away from Tokyo to Osaka and Nagoya, at least until the weekend. It said planes returning from Tokyo on Monday were not contaminated.Air China said it had canceled flights to Tokyo from Beijing and Shanghai, mainly due to lack of operational capacity at some airports. Taiwan’s EVA Airways said it would cancel flights to Tokyo and Sapporo until the end of March.Online travel company Expedia said it saw “significant increases” in tickets sold from Japan to the United States, even as sales of tickets into Japan fell.US airlines reported no significant changes to their flight schedules to Japan, but US aviation authorities said they were prepared to take action, including rerouting flights, if the nuclear crisis worsened.Other governments, including Britain, Italy and the Netherlands, issued travel warnings.Meanwhile, skittish travelers canceled trips or rebooked on flights to avoid layovers in Tokyo, where low levels of radiation have been detected.”There’s definitely cancellation of trips. And if not cancellations of trips, in some cases people wanting a backup or an alternative,” said John Henry, senior vice president with Uniglobe Travel International in Vancouver, British Columbia.”We’re getting a lot of reports of this happening,” he said, adding that he had changed his own travel plans to avoid changing planes in Tokyo.Julie Barsamian, marketing and media relations representative with Cook Travel in New York, said several of her company’s clients had changed their travel plans to cut out the Japan legs of their trips.”Many business travelers have canceled their trips there and are returning to the United States with half of their work completed,” Barsamian said. “The ramifications of this disaster are far greater than a handful of business meetings, but we anticipate that this will have a swift effect on commerce.”Among US airlines, United Continental Holdings, parent of the newly merged United Airlines and Continental Airlines, said it was operating a full schedule to Japan and was working with government agencies and monitoring the situation.Danger and cautionThe Japanese government has imposed restrictions to keep civilian flights away from the Fukushima nuclear plant, north of Tokyo, which was damaged in the earthquake and tsunami last Friday.some airlines also took steps to limit staff presence in Tokyo. International companies such as SAP and Infineon are moving staff out of the capital to locations further south because of radiation concerns.Air France-KLM, Europe’s largest carrier by revenue, moved all of its crew out of Tokyo to Osaka on Monday, KLM spokeswoman Gedi Schrijver said.British Airways, Virgin Atlantic and Finnair said they were still flying to the Narita and Haneda airports in the Japanese capital.Reuters

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AIRLINE tickets sold out on Thursday and firms hired private jets to move staff out as foreign governments told their nationals to get out of Tokyo, fearing the nuclear crisis could escalate.

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American Airlines has not made any changes in its flight schedules from the U.S. to Tokyo in the wake of last week’s earthquake and the resulting radiation fears from damaged nuclear power plants.”We’ve flown our normal schedule every day since Saturday,” American spokesman Tim Smith said Thursday.American operates two flights daily from Dallas/Fort Worth Airport to Tokyo’s Narita Airport, one each from Chicago and Los Angeles, and one flight from New York’s JFK Airport to Narita and another to Tokyo Haneda.”We’re seeing our busiest traffic, not surprisingly, coming out” of Japan, Smith said, with few empty seats aboard American’s Boeing 247-seat 777-200ER jets.Flights from the U.S. to Tokyo “are by no means empty,” Smith said, although he declined to give any load factors. “More than 75 percent of our scheduled customers have been flying as usual.”The Tokyo airports are in good shape and operating near normal, Smith said, and transportation in the city to get people to and from the airports is functioning well.American has no plans to alter its current level of Tokyo service because of the earthquake, Smith said.but other airlines are adjusting their Tokyo flight plans.Delta Air Lines said Thursday that it will suspend new flights to Tokyo’s Haneda Airport beginning next week. and Singapore Airlines had planned to put the massive Airbus A380 on a flight from Singapore to Tokyo to Los Angeles later this month, but instead will keep using a Boeing 747 until further notice.United Continental Holdings, the biggest U.S. carrier to Asia, isn’t cutting flights but is monitoring the situation. Both United and Delta use Tokyo’s Narita Airport as a hub for Asian flights.Germany’s Lufthansa rerouted all its Tokyo flights to Osaka and Nagoya instead. “The natural disaster in Japan has left us all in deep shock,” Lufthansa CEO Christoph Franz said Thursday, when the carrier also announced financial results.Airlines had planned to increase U.S.-Japan flying by 10.2 percent next month compared with April 2010, according to Barclays Capital. Instead, Delta said it would “temporarily suspend” its daily flight to Haneda from Los Angeles beginning March 23, and one from Detroit beginning March 24.in the short run, however, more planes are going to Japan. several Asian carriers added flights as more governments urged their citizens to leave.Cathay Pacific Airways, Hong Kong’s biggest airline, usually operates seven flights a day to Japan; it added an extra flight to Tokyo for Thursday, after adding two Wednesday.”We are experiencing rapidly increasing demand from people wishing to return home to Hong Kong and elsewhere, and as Hong Kong’s home carrier we will do everything possible to meet this demand,” Cathay Pacific Chief Operating Officer John Slosar said in a statement Wednesday.A Cathay spokeswoman who declined to be identified because of company policy, said the airline has seen more empty seats on flights from Hong Kong to Tokyo.Air China, the country’s biggest airline, said it’s using bigger planes for flights to Japan this week. Shanghai-based China Eastern Airlines added an extra flight Wednesday to Niigata Airport in western Japan, where 1,500 Chinese nationals were waiting to get back home, according to a Xinhua News Agency report. and China Southern Airlines is adding an extra flight on its Dalian-Nagoya route until March 21, with a bigger jet “to meet the surging evacuation demands,” Xinhua said, citing a statement from the airline.Staff writer Bob Cox contributed to this report.

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David Koenig, AP Airlines Writer, on Friday March 11, 2011, 3:37 pm EST

DALLAS (AP) — Finally, score one for cheaper airfares.

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This month will see four percent more flights take to the skies than the same time last year, according to March figures from aviation analyst OAG Aviation.

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My cousin Karen just visited from Seattle. Many times as a child we loaded up our Mooney Aircraft and flew to the Northwest to visit.  This time, Karen flew commercially to visit us here on the Central Coast of California.

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The three rare treasures at the Wing of Freedom tour — are part of aviation history. they were also part of one of the largest wars known to mankind and for Ridgell McKinney it brings back memories of the days he almost died for his country’s freedom.

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FRANKFURT/CHICAGO – Scores of flights to Japan were halted or rerouted on Tuesday and air travellers were avoiding Tokyo for fear of radiation from an earthquake-stricken nuclear plant.
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