Welcome to the July 2007 issue of "Smart Traveler". The newsletter with tips and information to help make your traveling smoother.

Be “In The Know” When The Wind Blows!

With the arrival of hurricane season on June 1, some of our clients are expressing concern about cruising during severe weather. We  want to provide you with most current information to help allay your concerns.

• Cruise Lines make the safety of its guests, crew and vessels their highest priority.

• Unlike other vacation settings, by virtue of being a completely mobile vacation, cruising allows passengers to continue their vacations by altering itineraries should Mother Nature intervene.

• Modern cruise ships feature technologically-advanced weather forecasting systems that enable them to reposition a ship well in advance of significant weather-related disturbances.

• In the event that ports of embarkation and debarkation are closed due to severe weather conditions, cruise lines can use a nearby alternative port. In these cases, cruise lines coordinate the logistics of loading food and supplies and getting passengers to and from the original port.

• Be mindful that cruise lines can change an itinerary in order to keep out of
harm’s way. Safety always remains the first priority. Travelers should monitor cruise line Web sites and contact their travel agent for modifications to itineraries prior to finalizing travel.

• The purchase of travel insurance, always an important element of any vacation, assumes additional significance in instances of severe weather.

Can airlines do a better job of accommodating families?

That's the question Southwest Airlines is asking by experimenting with various ways to board and seat traveling families.

"We began testing about two weeks ago on all flights departing from San Antonio," Linda Rutherford, the airline's vice president of public relations, said Thursday. "We are testing several different ways to conduct family boarding."

Options being considered include "having designated rows for family seating; having them board with no onboard designated area, and pre-boarding them as we would normally," Rutherford said. She said the experiments would continue for a few weeks, and that it was too early to draw conclusions.

Alison Duquette, spokeswoman for the Federal Aviation Administration, said an airline that wanted to seat families in a separate area would not need FAA approval. "It is not a safety issue so the FAA would have nothing to do with it," she said.

David Castelveter, spokesman for the Air Transport Association, the trade organization for U.S. airlines, said the ATA had no position on it.

A recent online Maritz survey found 73 percent of respondents said they would like to see family sections on airplanes.

The Southwest experiment follows several high-profile incidents involving passengers with children, including Kate Penland, who said she was forced to disembark because her toddler was saying "Bye-bye plane!" In another instance, the Transportation Security Administration took the unusual step of posting a video on its Web site that appeared to show a mother dumping the contents of her child's sippy cup on an airport floor after security officials said she couldn't bring the liquid with her. Earlier this year, a family was taken off an AirTran flight when their child threw a tantrum and refused to wear a seatbelt. Last year, protests were held nationwide in support of a nursing mother who was ordered off a plane because she refused to cover up.

Many passengers are surprisingly passionate about issues associated with children on airplanes. Some complain about unruly children and crying babies; others say passengers and even flight attendants are sometimes needlessly hostile to families traveling under difficult circumstances

 
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