Goodbye for Now…

Sorry you didn’t get to buy me a drink Steve….where abouts in Melbourne do you live? I was staying with family near Burwood, it was a really nice city.
D

Yes what a pity..i’m down on the coast in Sorrento on the peninsula

Ha no I haven’t gone on a walkabout in Oz. Am currently in Cairns lapping up the sunshine having scuba dived on the reef yesterday, was pretty sweet. Had a slightly eventful flight on Jetstar flying up from Melbourne but probably best not mentioned on a public forum. Sorry you didn’t get to buy me a drink Steve….where abouts in Melbourne do you live? I was staying with family near Burwood, it was a really nice city.

Over halway through the trip now and everything going good….looking forward (to some extent) getting home at the end of June and finally being able to share some photos 😀

16th May Melbourne leaving 22/5 to Cairns.

He’ll be lapping up the tropical sunshine now then

Is he due here..i’ll buy the lad a drink

16th May Melbourne leaving 22/5 to Cairns.

Hasn’t been heard from for over a week, hope WB has not gone walkabout in Oz!:D

Is he due here..i’ll buy the lad a drink

Hasn’t been heard from for over a week, hope WB has not gone walkabout in Oz!:D

Well, after all that fiasco yesterday things are now looking up! Having paid $200 each to fly NWA instead straight to SFO, we got a call from expedia in the middle of the night teling us they had found alternate flights to LAX on the day we needed. On United…..first class! 😀 So all I gotta do now is try get my $200 back from NWA and then I’ll be sorted. Itinerary back on track, and I still get my Virgin America flight.

Aside from that everything has been going well so far….flights on Frontier were great and Denver was a nice airport. And my Grand Canyon flights on Scenic Airlines Twin Otters were quite possibly my favourite ever……people are seated according to weight and I was lucky enough to get 1B and C to myself right infront of the cockpit and infront of the engine. On the way back the pilots let me plug in and listen to ATC, pretty sweet!

….
Someone cheer me up! …..

Sorry, but jealously doesn’t allow me to! 😎

You’re right though, no one at ATA had a clue what was going on. Tuesday began as a normal day for the ordinary employees.

I bet those on the board knew or had an idea, and will likely award themselves bonuses for their efforts! (But thats something to be discussed elsewhere)

SAFI is what you need to look out for. Most travel agents and online agents use it to cover airline failures. (Scheduled Airline Failure Insurance)

Sorry to hear about you misfortune Dan 🙁
Regarding one of your questions – Protection of some sort MIGHT depend on whether the airlines mentioned are ATOL protected and if the travel agency (you booked your ticket through) are ABTA protected. Then again I don’t know if you are covered in these circumstances – Something that you will need to look into.
I dont work in the industry and so perhaps someone else with greater knowledge could expand or correct me.
Here are the two required links for the time being….

www.caa.co.uk/atol

http://www.abta.com/home

Chin up mate, just think, A380 at the end of it.
Look after yourself,
Adam

Fortunately for us NWA are accepting ATA ticketholders on their flights $100 standy or $200 confirmed. Seeing as standy will be close to impossible when two airlines have just been eliminated from Hawaii-West Coast routes our only sensible option was to go confirmed. However, there were absolutely no seats to LA til the end of April, so our only option is to skip LA and we’re now flying NWA direct to San Francisco. This means we’re missing out on our Virgin America flight 🙁

Someone cheer me up! The only thing I can tell myself is that in the grand scheme of things I’ve lost 2 flights….that still leaves me with 31 and a lot more to see yet. I just cant believe that when I flew ATA on Tuesday that was their last day of ops…..and no one appeared to have a clue.

Both sets of flights were booked through agent (Aloha on cheaptickets.com and ATA on expedia). Aren’t travel agents meant to protect you for this kind of thing, or does airline bankruptcy not count?

You’re screwed finance wise sadly. 🙁

Your only hope for getting a cheap ticket is to ring each and every airline and plead poverty, exceptional circumstances, whatever you can get away with, to get a good deal on a flight back to the mainland.

I can’t believe oneway flights are so expensive. 😡

Well this is pretty screwed up. What are the chances of 2 big airlines going bust in several days, and for me to be flying on both of them within a week? Especially when neither airline are offering refunds. This is when I wish the US had EU style consumer protection…. Ended up replacing my Aloha flights on Hawaiian airlines for about 50 pound but cheapest flight back to the West Coast is around 200 pound single. Which kinda messes up my entire budget 🙁 I really don’t know what else I can do, they were paid for by debit card. Any finance geeks out there have a clue?

Just to bring this back up as Dan is having a pretty rough time with flights currently.

First his 3 Aloha sectors got canned because the airline went bust, now today ATA have ceased flying operations so he doesn’t have a flight home from Hawaii!

I can think of worse places to be stranded but talk about a run of bad luck. 🙁

Was just thinking this. Was bad enough for Aloha to go bust, but then for ATA to follow a few days later when he had flights booked on both!
You’re right there are worst places to be stranded but it can’t be a great feeling being stranded on the other side of the world, be it Hawaii or not.
Hopefully he doesn’t have any problems finding alternative travel arrangements.

Just to bring this back up as Dan is having a pretty rough time with flights currently.

First his 3 Aloha sectors got canned because the airline went bust, now today ATA have ceased flying operations so he doesn’t have a flight home from Hawaii!

I can think of worse places to be stranded but talk about a run of bad luck. 🙁

Sounds like a great trip so far! I’ve been to Phoenix before, appropriately named! Closest place to hell (temperature wise) that I’ve ever been to!

Hi everyone, just a quick update for anyone interested….currently in Chicago having had a chilled out day….the first week was just so tiring and manic! Flight upto Buffalo on Jetblue E190 was great, lovely spacious plane and landed in a snow storm, a first for me. Had a great stay at Niagara Falls then flew to Chicago Midway on Southwest 737-700, nice flight but none of the fun/games that some have experienced on Southwest. Another full day in Chicago tomorrow before flying to Phoenix via Denver on Frontier. Will update about how that goes soon…

That’s quite a mission you’re on, best of luck with it

Hi everyone, landed in New York this afternoon just quickly catching up from the hostel. Had a great flight on G-VRED in the new livery. AVOD definitely lived up to its expectations, infact I could have spent a few more hours in the air happily surfing the various movies etc! Lovely clear day in New York and just had my first NY burger….it was about the size of my head! Best get sleeping now, shall try and update again soon….

have a good journey 🙂