Important Flight Update

Post date: Mar 14, 2013 4:13:39 AM

I must make you all aware of an important flight change. This involves mostly students and families on British Airways flight 4 (originally #188/#950 and #955/#189). I unfortunately have to report that flight #950 (London to Munich) has been canceled. Fortunately, it was rescheduled, but at an earlier period - which means that the first part of this flight (#188) will not make it to London in time to catch the next flight. I am extremely upset about this and have been communicating with Kim Martin at Discovera Tours nearly non-stop for the past week. Kim, in turn, has been in touch with British Airways trying to get them to reverse this decision, which they will not do. She and I have played out different flight scenarios, attempting to cause the least amount of inconvenience for students, chaperones, and parents. After dismissing a great many scenarios, we have come up with a new flight plan for the flight 4 passengers that - while not by any means perfect - will still get those students and parents to Salzburg as quickly as possible. Please keep in mind that we had to consider many factors when making these decisions. Again, this is not a perfect situation, and I thank you all in advance for your patience and flexibility.

Here is how the new flight schedule looks:

• Flight #413 (the one that includes flights 1, 2 and 3 students, parents and chaperones flying directly to Munich) pretty much remains the same for just about everyone on board.

• 10 Students originally on flight 4 are now moved to flight 1 (413). These students and their parents have been contacted separately.

• 28 Passengers will be moved to a new flight - Which is flight number 116 - British Airways out of JFK to London. You depart by coach bus to JFK at the same time as the other passengers leave for Newark. When you arrive in London, you will be able to make the rescheduled flight 950, which arrives in Munich 12:35 pm. Cheryl Copeland will be the chaperone for this group and Nancy Braddee will be the nurse traveling on this flight.

  • The final 31 passengers will remain on flight 188 from Newark to London. Upon your arrival in London, the only flight that we were able to get for all 31 remaining passengers has a 6 hour, 41 minute layover. This is very unfortunate, because these passengers will miss the entire first day in Salzburg. We are compensating these passengers for this by hopefully providing a Windsor tour during their layover. Once these students' names are released, it is recommended that those students bring some British Currency (Pound or Pound Sterling), available at most banks and at AAA. Prepaid bank/AAA cards will also work. Dave Berger will be Lead Chaperone on this flight, with assistance from Ray and Cathy Force. Chris Grand will be the nurse for this flight.

With the above set up, there are now TWO flights of students going out of Newark and ONE flight of students and another flight of parents going out of JFK on March 21st. Kim Martin is contacting the families involved with this change right now and I will send out the new flight lists shortly. As of right now, we are trying to move all checked instrument and equipment from the canceled flight to the first flight (to avoid possibly rental of another truck to take to JFK). Once we establish which flights all the equipment will be assigned, updated flight lists will be sent out for everybody.

If you have any questions about this change, I would ask that you contact Kim Martin directly at 978 536 6900 or kmartin@discovera.com

Again, I apologize for this inconvenience and I thank everyone for understanding.