Cold weather is wreaking havoc again for Canadian air passengers today. WestJet issued a statement this afternoon to say they’ve had to consolidate roughly 15% of their flights through the end of January. According to statistics from flightaware.com, which tracks flights around the world, there have been early 200 flights cancelled today involving just five Canadian airports. Toronto Pearson, by far the largest airport in Canada, was listed as having 53 cancellations, while Vancouver was at 51 and Calgary close behind at 48. There were 28 flights cancelled in Montreal as of noon Eastern Time today, while 14 were listed Read more

The U.S. is adding more countries to its “do not travel” list, which now numbers close to 90 countries and includes some of the most popular tourist destinations in the world. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Tuesday added Sweden, Malta and Moldova to its level-four COVID-19 advisory category, the highest level in its ranking of destinations for the coronavirus. Level four is for countries with a “very high” rate of COVID-19. The CDC tells U.S. residents to “avoid travel” to those destinations, and to make sure they’re fully vaccinated if they have to go. Also at level Read more

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is investigating some 86 cruise ships for COVID-19, according to multiple reports. The Washington Post said in today’s edition that 86 ships in U.S. waters are being looked at. BNN Bloomberg pegged the number of ships under investigation by the CDC at 89. Several cruise ships were turned away from ports in the Caribbean and Mexico over the past week due to concerns about COVID-19 and the Omicron variant. The website Axios said affected cruise lines include Disney, Carnival, Royal Caribbean and Norwegian. The CDC today lists cruise travel at level three in Read more

Messy weather in western North America is wreaking havoc on airlines and airline passengers again today. As of 5 p.m. Eastern Time on Monday (December 27), the website flightaware.com was reporting more than 2,850 flight cancellations for the day. More than 1/3 of those some 1,100 in all, were within, into or out of the United States. The biggest culprit appeared to be unusual winter weather in Seattle, where it was -4 Celsius at 2 p.m. local time. There was considerable snow in Seattle on Sunday. Seattle-Tacoma airport had 16% of its flights cancelled on Monday, flightaware.com reported. Alaska Airlines, Read more

Several ocean cruise ships were turned away from ports of call or were prohibited from letting passengers disembark in the Americas this week because of Covid-19 cases aboard, CNN reports. That’s nothing like the massive disruption when the pandemic hit in March of last year, but it comes at a time when the cruise industry was just getting back in the swing of things. An Expedia Group study released in late November found that there had been more than a 20% month on month increase in demand in Canadian cruise searches for travel in the fourth quarter of 2021 and Read more

A new survey conducted by JourneyWoman shows that the pandemic hasn’t diminished women’s desire for solo travel. Conducted between December 13 and 17, the JourneyWoman TravelReady Outlook 2022 survey reflects both optimism and caution, with 51% of women planning to travel internationally from January and June 2022 — dependent on pandemic guidance and travel advisories. In response to the new variant, the survey also shows that the majority of solo travellers (43%) are taking a ‘wait and see’ approach, and 30% have not cancelled or postponed travel plans for 2022. “Seasoned solo travellers travel on their own terms, and in Read more