Amazing things can happen in the air...

Hello again,

I feel in a talkative mood today, so here I am again. I want to tell you the story of one of my friends who lives in South Africa (beautiful country!!!). She took a flight from a major airport down there to London. Here is the story of her difficult flight:

Her plane took off at 9 pm, as scheduled. After two hours in the air, the pilot advised the passengers that they

would be returning to [South Africa] due to unidentified baggage in the flight hold. The flight duly returned and did not depart again until approx 12.00 pm. Consequently, the flight only arrived in London some 5 hrs later than expected, but also had been diverted to land at

a different airport. Because of this delay, my friend could not connect to her final destination on the scheduled flight. She had to purchase another flight. She wrote to the company to ask them to reimburse this additional ticket. I hope this will work, because, if it is true that security is the matter of everyone, there has been a major flaw in the security checking in the South African airport, for which the company (I believe) should feel responsible.

Besides, how did the pilot found out about the unidentified baggage? Do companies have salves in the baggage compartment that check the loading en route? Maybe trained dogs could do the job, who knows...

Good luck my friend, Tara-George is with you.

Good night

TGV

Oscillating ticket fares

Dear reader,

I have a lot of stories in preparation. Today I will talk about a recent and still strange event.
An unexpected event happened and I have to go to Paris urgently tomorrow. I started looking up online for price of plane tickets on Tuesday afternoon. I followed the price of the same trip over several days on the website of a big Canadian company. Here is the outcome:
Tuesday afternoon: ~1130$
Wednesday morning before 10 am: ~930$
Wednesday after 10 am: ~1010$
Today, morning: ~1010$
Today after 2pm: ~930$
Here I compare tickets in the exact same category, with the same service and stuff. I have no understanding of the parameters than can induce such a change. Is it because one or two other persons in the plane have booked or canceled over that period? Is it fair? More importantly... it is commonly though that booking way in advance is the best choice. In my case, in this special situation, it wasn't true. I probably would have had a much better deal two weeks ago. But I had today a better deal than two days ago. So can we do?
Some airlines offer the possibilily to temporarily book a flight and confirm it a couple of days later. Given that option, you should book temporarily only and shop for another couple of days for cheaper. In my situation I saved a significant shunk of money by doing so.

This is my advice of the day... and if someone can explain to me how those big oscillations occur...

Love

Tara George, always on the move.