Passenger rights tips

If you’ve ever excitedly booked a cheap transatlantic flight on a budget airline only to realize you’ll pay in airport time spent waiting in a long, non-PreCheck security line, rejoice: The chances of that happening just got slimmer. Two popular foreign budget airlines now participate in TSA PreCheck: Norwegian Air and Icelandair. This means PreCheck travelers booked on either airline can use the PreCheck lane, where available, when departing from the U.S.

Calling any year the “worst year to fly” is a bold statement. But that’s just what AirHelp, a passenger rights company, is saying about 2018.

It’s not exactly news when one of the big three airlines does something to make its economy seats worse, but it is when one actually makes them better. Kudos to Delta for its newly refurbished Boeing 777-200s, which feature fewer economy seats per row to maintain some elbow room.

Has it snowed at your home airport yet? It could soon. And while everyone knows that flights generally face more delays and cancellations in winter than in summer, mainly because winter weather can wreak havoc on schedules and plans, not everyone knows just how much travel insurance can offset the financial risk of those winter problems—at least partially.

Analysis from AirHelp, a company that (for a fee) helps people get refunds and compensation from airlines following disrupted flights, says airlines already owe an estimated $290 million for delayed, cancelled or overbooked flights this year. The data refers specifically to U.S. travelers onboard flights operating under European Union jurisdiction.

This April was a good month for airlines and travelers alike. The latest numbers from the Department of Transportation show airlines canceled just one percent of flights for the month, down from 2.8 percent in March. That also beats the airline cancellation rate from April 2017, which was 1.6 percent.

During a lengthy government shutdown, travelers are often rightfully concerned about the strain on TSA workers, who are required to continue airport screenings without pay. A poll by Airfarewatchdog (SmarterTravel’s sister company) recently found that 62 percent of travelers are concerned about safety at airports during a shutdown. Plus, 47 percent think that airlines should have to pay for private security to fill gaps during worker shortages.

In the three weeks since the FAA grounded Boeing’s 737 MAX aircraft, we’ve learned a lot about the plane and what likely caused the Lion Air and Ethiopian Airlines crashes. But we’re still waiting to hear when, exactly, Boeing will have a fix for the aircraft to return to the skies.

If you’ve ever sat with your knees wedged up against the seatback in front of you, you might be wondering which North American carrier is the airline with the most legroom. And the answer depends entirely on an aircraft measurement called “seat pitch.”

Facial recognition is slowly making its way into U.S. airports, with the technology thus far being limited to non-U.S. citizens who are entering or departing the country. But that might be changing soon: The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) says it wants to expand the practice of airport face scans to include U.S. citizens entering and exiting the country, too.

A new plane seat design from a startup called Molon Labe Seating aims to provide a wider middle seat on short-haul flights, and the company says two unnamed airlines are set to try out the change in 2020. The design would afford three extra inches of shoulder room to anyone who gets stuck in the middle seat, changing its seatback width from 18 to 21 inches.

Two models of Boeing’s latest twin 737 MAX 8 jet have crashed in the last six months: An Ethiopian Airlines flight headed for Nairobi on March 8, and October’s Lion Air flight that crashed off Jakarta. Both flights went down shortly after takeoff, killing all onboard. Since Sunday’s crash over 25 airlines grounded their models of the plane. On Wednesday the Trump administration followed other governments, including those of Canada, China, Germany, France, Indonesia, Malaysia, Qatar, and the United Kingdom, in calling for the planes to be grounded and banned the aircraft from domestic airspace.

WOW Air ceased operations overnight and has canceled all flights, effective immediately. WOW broke the news in a very brief statement, with no details about the future of the airline or much direction for travelers affected by the cancellation.

Most car rental companies have long required that their customers use a credit card when reserving a car. Renting a car with a debit card has always meant incurring restrictions and extra fees. But thanks to the rising number of frugal customers who don’t have or don’t want to use credit cards, that’s finally changing.

The Dominican Republic has been in the news a lot lately, but not for the reasons its tourism industry would like. The tropical island getaway, home to miles of fabulous beaches and countless resorts, grabbed headlines recently following a spate of suspicious Dominican Republic deaths and one very high-profile shooting.

On Wednesday, the United States and Canada joined almost every other country and dozens of airlines in grounding Boeing’s 737 MAX 8 planes closely following the second deadly crash of the brand-new aircraft model in recent months. A tragic Ethiopian Airlines crash that killed everyone onboard Sunday followed the deadly October Lion Air crash the went down near Jakarta. Both planes went down without warning, just after takeoff, and in both crashes, all passengers and crew were killed.

Travel to Europe is going to get slightly more complicated in 2021. Starting that year, visitors from the U.S. will need to get an ETIAS (European Travel Information and Authorization System) approval before entering countries in the Schengen zone. According to the delegation of the European Union to the U.S., the measure is not a Europe visa, but an authorization that “will enable us to get more comprehensive information from travelers coming from visa-exempt, third-country [nations] arriving at the Schengen external borders.”

By now, you’ve undoubtedly heard that Thomas Cook Group, the British travel operator—which encapsulates retail travel agencies, wholesale tour packagers, and even airlines—has shuttered under bankruptcy. This is the largest tour operator failure in not-so-recent memory; it’s left some 600,000 travelers stranded at their foreign destinations, and many tour buyers who haven’t started their trips yet are unlikely to see the tours they bought or any money they prepaid. The issue raises the question: What happens to customers when a tour operator they paid shuts down; are there any legal guarantees of reimbursement? The short answer: only for some people.

Renewing a passport, like most official government matters, is a long process. The State Department’s expedited passport service costs an extra $60 and still takes a cool six weeks. Faster expedited service (three weeks or fewer) requires an in-person visit to a passport center. And standard passport renewal is subject to ever-changing processing times. Which is why horror stories of travelers discovering their passport expired (or is about to expire; some countries require passport validity of three to six months for entry) the weekend before an international trip are so cringe-worthy—there’s never been much you can do about it. But a new and fast passport renewal service via FedEx is aiming to change that.

Do you rely on a Citi travel card for perks like insurance and lost baggage protection? You might want to take a look at your card’s newly updated benefits: Citibank is sharply reducing the travel add-ons, dropping a slew of protection benefits on all the cards that previously offered them.

If you can’t imagine flying again on the Boeing model that was grounded following two deadly crashes that killed all on board in a span of five months, you’re not alone. A poll by SmarterTravel’s sister site Airfarewatchdog recently found that 73 percent of respondents would not want to travel on the model. Our own survey of a smaller group found more of the same. So where do travelers go from here?