Some airlines have begun issuing waivers in anticipation of what is expected to be a major snowstorm in the Northeast United States this weekend.
20.12.2023 - 10:35 / nytimes.com / Henry Harteveldt
It was a year that was to mark the post-pandemic recovery of travel, bringing economic relief to local communities that had been hit hard by the prolonged loss of tourism revenue. Borders fully reopened, pandemic restrictions were lifted and traveler bookings surged, sparking a social media trend called “revenge travel.” But even as demand in 2023 reached near 2019 levels — with an estimated 975 million tourists traveling internationally between January and September, according to the World Tourism Organization — a series of disasters, upheavals and unparalleled weather events devastated destinations across the globe.
Flooding. Wildfires. Heat waves. Blizzards. In the United States alone, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration designated 23 separate weather disasters, the largest number of billion-dollar disasters ever recorded. The year also brought prolonged labor strikes, technology glitches, civil unrest and a record number of complaints lodged against U.S. airlines.
This year “took chaos to a new level,” said Henry Harteveldt, a travel industry analyst for Atmosphere Research. “It seems that the world is on fire and the travel industry and travelers are affected by all of these disruptions everywhere.”
“The take-home lesson is you can’t just book a trip and forget about it until you are ready to go,” Mr. Harteveldt said. “You have to be an informed traveler.”
Here are some of the year’s most disruptive and devastating events for travelers and local residents.
Technological trouble — at least in the United States — seemed to seep over from 2022 into the new year. Just weeks after Southwest Airlines upended holiday vacations for as many as 2 million passengers by canceling thousands of flights in late December 2022, another air travel meltdown struck in early January. This time, a technology system failure at the Federal Aviation Administration temporarily grounded domestic departures nationwide, causing thousands of flights across major airlines to be delayed or canceled. The trouble highlighted the fragile airspace system and renewed calls for greater funding for the F.A.A.
The breadth of the outage shocked some passengers traveling that day. Jaime Vallejo was flying from Newark to Ecuador with his wife and three children when he learned that his flight was delayed because of the F.A.A. outage. “That’s the computer system for the whole country, and that’s something that should make you a little nervous,” he said.
As powerful winter storms swept across the western and northern United States, hundreds of thousands of people went without electricity. (In Michigan, outages lasted for days.) Thousands of flights were disrupted. Roads were shut down by freezing rain and heavy snowfall,
Some airlines have begun issuing waivers in anticipation of what is expected to be a major snowstorm in the Northeast United States this weekend.
The new year brings travel predictions that cover everything from where we’ll be vacationing in 2024 to how we’ll be getting there, plus the new hotels that are worth getting excited about. But what about the travel trends that are falling out of fashion?
A new pre-security sensory room at a New Jersey airport is aiming to make it easier for neurodiverse travelers, providing them with a space to wait for their flight as well as an easier way to get through security screening.
If you’re seeking a special place for a vacation, honeymoon or business conference, you may just want to consider Maui in 2024. Always a spectacular destination, there is a reason for the saying “Maui No Ka Oi,” which means “Maui is the best.”
The principals of the innovative London and New York-based travel company Black Tomato made their name by assembling detail-oriented and sometimes very out of the way travel plans for exceedingly curious, adventurous clients. Having surveyed the market to ascertain what their clients are interested in now and the changes they see in the travel landscape, they’ve come up with the ways they see that travel happening in the next year and in what parts of the world those ambitious travelers could be.
Junkanoo, a polychromatic burst of music, dance, storytelling, and parades practiced in the Bahamas, was recently inscribed on the 2023 UNESCO Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. It’s the first intangible—a practice, skill, tradition, or craft—in the island nation recognized by the international cultural organization.
New Year’s Eve can be an expensive affair if you plan on traveling—even, as it turns out, if you plan on doing a staycation stateside. In a recent study conducted by TravelMag.com, New Orleans was found to be the priciest city in the world to book a hotel room on New Year’s Eve.
New Orleans is the most expensive destination in the world for hotel stays over this year’s New Year’s Eve period, a new survey has revealed. he survey by TravelMag.com compared accommodation rates across 60 major global cities. For each destination, the price for the most affordable available double room for a 3-night stay from December 30 to January 2 was recorded. Only hotels with a central location and rated three stars or more were considered.
More than ever, I've been skipping the airport lounge and heading straight to the gate.
Another year has come and gone, and boy was this was a busy one for airline network planners across the country and around the world.
I used to really like air travel—largely because of a Disney movie from the late seventies called The Rescuers. The leads are mice: a chic one, voiced by Eva Gabor; and a frumpy one, voiced by Bob Newhart. They’re on assignment to save an orphan girl who was abducted for the purpose of retrieving a diamond from the Louisiana bayou—but first they have to get there from New York City, which involves riding in a sardine tin strapped to an albatross. When the bird wings off the roof of a skyscraper at sunset, poor Bob is practically peeing himself. But not Eva. “Oooo! I just luv takeoffs!” she says. “It’s just like being on a rollerscoater.”
Southeast Mexico is brimming with archeological sites, biodiversity, and Pueblos Mágicos known for their rich cultural heritage. Many visitors barely make a dent in the region’s offerings, though, by flying to Cancún and heading straight for the beach, perhaps booking an excursion or two to Chichen Itza or Tulum, but generally not venturing further.