News

The state of California’s lawsuit against the multilevel marketing travel company YTB and its founders (see posting of Jan. 8, 2009) has been settled. In addition to paying $1 million in penalties costs and restitution, YTB will have more difficulty selling websites to prospective travel sellers. Plus, limits were imposed on recruiters’ earning potential. YTB […]

The Australian Travel Compensation Fund says booking with a licensed agent is “more important than ever’”as more businesses struggle in the tough economic climate. The TCF has exceeded $50 million in payments to Australian travellers who have been left out of pocket after their travel agencies collapsed. However, travellers are eligible for financial protection only

As the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) released its sixth monthly data installment for diverted commercial airline flights – flights that make unscheduled stops before they reach their final destinations, either to refuel, or because of a weather problem or some other in-flight emergency – a FlyersRights.org analysis shows that some airlines routinely denied passengers

The 85th session of the UNWTO Executive Council, meeting in Mali, recommended Taleb Rifai for the post as Secretary-General for the four-year-period starting January 2010. The candidature of Mr. Rifai (Jordan) was supported by the Executive Council, in accordance with the UNWTO statutes. The recommendation will be presented for ratification by the UNWTO General Assembly,

In a judgment of April 30, 2009 (Xa ZR 78/08), German Supreme Court (BGH) held that the miss of a connecting flight due to a delay of the feeder (both flights operated by the same airline and jointly booked as parts of one and the same contract for carriage) would not constitute “denied boarding” under

Current rules force airlines to use the time slots at busy airports at least 80 percent of the time or face losing them the following season. After the European Parliament agreed to loosen these “use-or-lose rules”, airlines will gain more flexibility in how they use take-off and landing slots: They will be entitled to the

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has made its entire Bird Strike database available on a public website by April 24. Portions of the database have been publicly available since the information was first collected in 1990, but the public is now able to access all of the database’s fields. Over the next four months, the

The Namibia Tourism Board (NTB), a statutory body to regulate and market the tourism industry established by an Act of Parliament (Act 21 of 2000), has introduced a number amendments to the Namibian Tourism Board Act, 2000 ( Act no. 21 of 2000), key elements of which are• Fostering of corporate governance by introducing fiduciary

Starwood Hotels & Resorts has filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York accusing Hilton Hotels Corp. and two former Starwood executives of corporate espionage in the development of Hilton’s new lifestyle brand “Denizen Hotels”.Starwood is seeking preliminary and permanent injunctive relief plus compensatory and punitive damages from

Reference for a preliminary ruling from the Juzgado de lo Mercantil 4, BarcelonaCase C-69/09 (Walz/Clickair)Question referred:Does the limit of liability referred to in Article 22.2 of the Convention for the Unification of Certain Rules for International Carriage, signed in Montreal on 28 May 1999, include both non-material damage and material damage resulting from the loss