Agency regulations say only pilots with commercial pilot licenses can fly for hire. The pilots of the plane for the group, Operation Migration, are instead licensed to fly sport [...]]]> Now the birds and the plane are grounded in Alabama while the Federal Aviation Administration investigates whether the journey violates regulations because the pilot was being paid by a conservation group to lead the cranes on their first migration instead of working for free.

Agency regulations say only pilots with commercial pilot licenses can fly for hire. The pilots of the plane for the group, Operation Migration, are instead licensed to fly sport aircraft because that is how the group’s small, open plane with a rear propeller and birdlike wings is categorized. Regulations also prohibit sport aircraft from being flown to benefit a business or charity.

The rules are intended, in part, to prevent businesses or charities from taking passengers for joyrides in sometimes risky aircraft.

“That’s a valid rule; they shouldn’t be hired to do that,” said Joe Duff, an Operation Migration co-founder and one of its pilots. “But it wasn’t written, I believe, to stop a wildlife reintroduction.” The conservation group has agreed voluntarily to stop flying and has applied for a waiver.

“We’re considering that waiver,” said Lynn Lunsford, an F.A.A. spokesman. He said he did not know when a decision would be made or whether it would be made before spring, when the birds would return to Wisconsin.

“The same regulations that we’re applying to these pilots we’re applying to everybody who holds that type of certificate,” Mr. Lunsford said. “The regulations are very clear, and anyone who is a pilot holding that certificate is expected to know what the duties, privileges and limitations are.”

Operation Migration is part of a United States-Canadian partnership of government and private organizations trying to re-establish migrating flocks of whooping cranes. The cranes nearly became extinct, dwindling to 15 birds in 1941. One flyway has already been re-established, but that flock of over 100 birds is vulnerable should a disaster strike, Mr. Duff said.

The grounded birds are part of the organization’s 10-year effort to re-establish an Eastern flyway that disappeared in the late 1800s when the last whooping cranes flying that route died off, he said. Since there were no birds still flying the route, conservationists had to teach young cranes how to make the journey.

The birds are bred and hatched at the Patuxent Wildlife Research Center in Maryland. A small group of conservationists in baggy bird suits that conceal their human features are the first thing the birds see when they begin pecking their way out of their shells. The conservationists also give the birds their first nourishment, thus imprinting themselves as “parent.” The first thing they hear is a recording of a crane’s brood call combined with the purr of the small plane’s engine.

The birds are later transferred to a wildlife refuge in Wisconsin, where they are conditioned to follow the baggy-suited humans and purring plane. By fall, they are ready to begin a 1,285-mile journey to two wildlife refuges in Florida. The cranes glide behind the plane, surfing on the wake created by its wings. The pilots wear the same baggy white suits and have a fake bird beak attached to one arm, adding to the illusion that the plane is a bird.

It is a slow trip, primarily because of the plane’s limitations: no flying on windy or rainy days. On this trip, one young whooping crane took a wrong turn and wound up spending a few days with some sandhill cranes in wetlands before being herded back to the flock. Rain kept the flock on the ground in Illinois for 16 days.

Then, just before Christmas, Federal Aviation Administration officials told Operation Migration that they had opened an investigation into possible violations. The birds are now safely penned in Franklin County, Ala., while conservationists await a decision on their waiver request.

If the waiver does not come through, “the only option we can think of as a contingency would be to transport them by ground to release sites in Alabama or in Florida,” said Peter Fasbender, a field supervisor in Green Bay, Wis., for the federal Fish and Wildlife Service, which is part of the partnership to re-establish the cranes.

But Mr. Fasbender says he is confident the young cranes will make it back to Wisconsin in the spring. Once they meet up with other cranes making the journey, he said, they usually do not have a problem.

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Picture the business traveler who has already passed through security only to discover a flight delay of several hours. At most airports, such a traveler has few options: wandering through the nearby shops and restaurants, waiting in a chair near the gate or, for a fee, waiting in an airline lounge.

This was the situation in which Rossana Magalhaes found herself recently when her flight was eight hours late leaving Atlanta.

“I walked and took naps sitting up, had [...]]]>

Picture the business traveler who has already passed through security only to discover a flight delay of several hours. At most airports, such a traveler has few options: wandering through the nearby shops and restaurants, waiting in a chair near the gate or, for a fee, waiting in an airline lounge.

This was the situation in which Rossana Magalhaes found herself recently when her flight was eight hours late leaving Atlanta.

“I walked and took naps sitting up, had about five cups of coffee,” she said.

But at two airports in the United States and about a half-dozen overseas, travelers like Magalhaes have a new option: a little room for rent right in the terminal. The room has a desk and Internet access for work and a daybed for a nap.

Magalhaes booked a room for her next trip, when she knows she will have to change planes in Atlanta again.

At the moment, just one company, Minute Suites, is providing these rooms, which it calls suites, at two airports, Hartsfield-Jackson airport in Atlanta and Philadelphia International Airport. The suites are not the equivalent of a hotel room because there is no plumbing. And for short stays, the cost is usually lower than a hotel room — $30 for the first hour and $7.50 for each 15 minutes thereafter, although there are discounts for stays longer than four hours.

Still, since the company opened the suites at the two airports last year, Dan Solomon, the chief executive of Minute Suites,

said, 18,000 people have visited, and 24 percent of them have been repeat customers.

“It really does boil down to people having privacy in an otherwise stressful environment,” Solomon said. “They shut the door, the airport disappears, and they have their privacy.”

There are some hotels at airports in the U.S. and overseas — Chicago, Dallas, Dubai, Bangkok and Copenhagen among them — and each has its own policies on room rentals for less than a day. But few airport hotels are accessible once travelers pass through security checkpoints.

So until now, the best option for travelers with long layovers was a membership in a premium-class lounge. But some users complain that the lounges have gotten more crowded as carriers, in search of more revenue, offer paid day access and give guest passes to airline credit card holders. The lounges have comfortable waiting rooms, task lighting, computers, reading material, clean restrooms and sometimes free food and cocktails.

By contrast, users of the Minute Suites must bring their own food and drink and use the restrooms in the airport terminal.

Still, Harriet Baskas, an author of airport guides and a writer about airports and air travel, says she prefers the suite to the airline lounge. “I sat there one day listening to this man clearly making the first phone call to follow up on a matchmaker site,” she said. “If you’re a business traveler, I suppose you do those sorts of things on the road as well, but there’s no privacy.”

Baskas says female travelers may find privacy particularly valuable. “I’ve seen people sleeping in the business-class lounge, but I don’t feel comfortable sleeping there. I’m not going to sit and drool across from that business guy. As a woman, if I’m going to take a nap at the airport, I better have a door I can close.”

While Minute Suites is the only company in the U.S. offering this kind of by-the-hour private accommodation in an airport terminal, several companies offer similar services at overseas airports. In 2007, the London-based Yotel opened pod-like hotel rooms at Heathrow and Gatwick and followed up at Schiphol in Amsterdam a year later. More recently, Sheremetyevo International Airport in Moscow added Sleepboxes, Munich Airport installed Napcabs, and Indira Gandhi International Airport introduced sleep boxes called Sam’s Snooze.

For several years, Vancouver Airport had MetroNaps, a lounge chair where travelers could sleep under a large canopy that provided privacy. An alarm ensured that they did not miss their flights. But MetroNaps, based in New York, found it too difficult to manage the site long distance. It no longer has the chairs in Vancouver Airport but is marketing the product to airline lounges.

“Airline lounges do need to be careful that they don’t miss this trend because it’s something that people are going to wake up to,” said Christopher Lindholst, co-founder of MetroNaps. “They’re the ones who should have provided this all along.”

U.S. travelers found themselves with more time at the airport when security tightened after Sept. 11, according to Ron Baltruzak, an airport consultant from Austin, Texas. Baltruzak and a partner owned Unique Retreats, a company, now defunct, that had contracts to build sleep suites at airports in San Francisco and Anchorage. Baltruzak said he had difficulty finding investors. Despite that, he maintains that the suites concept is “a no-brainer,” because it gives travelers a respite from the tumult of the modern airport.

Not every airport sees the need for this kind of amenity. Cheryl Marcell, a spokeswoman for Airport Council International, a trade association, said, “For those types of things to work, they are at the airports with a lot of connecting traffic, not an origin and destination airport.”

Indeed, Anna DiGregorio, marketing director for the Philadelphia airport concessions, said business at the suites had been “phenomenal,” in part because of its location in the terminal of US Airways, which has a hub in Philadelphia. “A passenger flying into the United States and connecting domestically, they will walk directly by Minute Suites,” as will domestic travelers, DiGregorio said.

Airports in the U.S. are subject to government regulations that make running a business in them complicated, and evolving airport security can affect future operations so that even a good idea is no guarantee of success. “Getting space is hard, getting the right space is key,” said Solomon of Minute Suites.

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Higher hotel prices, airline capacity cuts and rising travel demand mean travelers will have to work harder to find a good deal in 2012. However, plenty of online tools can help keep your vacation expenses in check. Here are 19 go-to websites to help you save money this year.

Flights

Looking for sales on a specific route, or just want to go somewhere inexpensive? AirfareWatchdog.com hunts down deals computers tend to miss, such as promo codes that airlines [...]]]>

Higher hotel prices, airline capacity cuts and rising travel demand mean travelers will have to work harder to find a good deal in 2012. However, plenty of online tools can help keep your vacation expenses in check. Here are 19 go-to websites to help you save money this year.

Flights

Looking for sales on a specific route, or just want to go somewhere inexpensive? AirfareWatchdog.com hunts down deals computers tend to miss, such as promo codes that airlines include in email newsletters. It also finds sales from Allegiant and Southwest, which typically aren’t listed on major airfare search engines. You can sign up for specific fare alerts or a list of all the low-cost round-trip fares from your local airport.

Where can you go for $500 or less? Kayak.com/explore will show you where you can vacation for a particular price and display the results on a map. You can narrow your search by month, region, flight length, weather or activity. Clicking on a price reveals dates the fare is available.

If you already know where you want to go, use ITAsoftware.com to find the least expensive dates to fly. Click on “airfare search” in the middle of the home page, enter your departure date and destination, and select “see calendar of lowest fares.” To purchase, you must go to the airline’s website or

online agencies.

To figure out whether to buy that plane ticket now or wait, go to Bing.com/travel. Its Price Predictor can determine how likely a fare is to rise or fall during the next seven days from more than 250 U.S. cities to top domestic destinations and major hubs in Europe.

After you’ve booked your tickets at an airline site, enter your flight information at Yapta.com to track the price so you don’t miss out on savings if the price drops. If the difference in price exceeds the rebooking fee (typically $75 to $150), Yapta will send you, without charge, an email or tweet so you can call the airline to claim the credit.

Hotels

To get the best deal on Priceline.com, where travelers name their own price and pay before learning the hotel’s name, sites such as Biddingfortravel.com and Betterbidding.com have long offered strategic advice on how to game the system. Now, a new site, Biddingtraveler.com, goes a step further. Enter the city, dates, neighborhood and star ratings for the hotel you want. Then, after reviewing the site’s recommendations, enter a “lowball” bid and “final offer.” The Bidding Traveler then calculates and helps you execute the optimal bidding strategy on Priceline.

Not willing to gamble? Hotels.com offers nearly 145,000 properties in more than 60 countries from national chain hotels and all-inclusive resorts to bed-and-breakfasts. You can find particularly good last-minute deals on Tuesdays and Thursdays. The site also has a loyalty program through which members earn a free-night voucher after they book 10 nights.

For hotel fanciers, Luxurylink.com offers discounts on high-end hotels and villas through online auctions and deals. Last month, the site was auctioning off a five-night package at La Samanna on St. Martin in the Caribbean that included a deluxe ocean-view room with a private terrace, airport transfers, a bottle of rum upon arrival, two 45-minute massages and a one-day car rental with a minimum starting bid of $2,475. The package normally costs $6,171.

Vacation rentals

As hotel prices rise, vacation rentals can be the better deal. HomeAway.com offers more than 290,000 listings in 145 countries, including rentals by owners that cut out the middleman.

Airbnb.com connects travelers with locals who are offering a place to stay, whether it is a couch, a private apartment or a castle. It currently has about 100,000 listings in 19,000 cities and towns in 192 countries, and charges booking fees of 6 percent to 12 percent. Wimdu.com offers a similar service focused mostly on places in Europe with 35,000 listings across 100 countries. Do as much due diligence as you can when using such sites; some hosts have been known to cancel confirmed reservations at the last minute.

For luxury seekers, Jetsetter.com/homes, a members-only site, offers discounts of up to 50 percent on five to 10 carefully selected vacation rentals. Membership is free and by invitation only. You can also request a free membership on Jetsetter.com.

Everything else

Tired of sifting through daily-deal or group-shopping sites such as Groupon and LivingSocial for local bargains? YipIt.com collects those deals from 787 services in 118 North American cities. Travelers who sign up with an email can filter results by checking categories like wine tasting, museum, golf or other activities. A recent search for restaurant and spa deals in New York turned up a $60 three-course dinner for two with wine (worth $136) at Tenpenny, the Gotham Hotel’s restaurant; and a $199 Moroccan Spa treatment at the Trump SoHo, worth $339. Pay close attention to expiration dates to be sure the deals will be good for your travel plans.

Autoslash.com searches the Web for discount coupons on car rentals and applies them after you book. It then continually checks for lower rates and coupons until your trip date and automatically applies any discounts it finds.

Cayole.com lets you search cruises by price, destination, room type or cruise line, then offers price predictions to give cruisers an idea of whether they should buy now or wait for a possible price drop. For example, by clicking “get more details” for a five-night Western Mediterranean cruise in September, the site recommended that travelers booking balcony cabins buy “as soon as possible, because prices are likely to increase.” For interior ocean-view rooms or suites it suggested waiting.

If you’re willing to swap places with a stranger, list your home and find travelers willing to trade on Homeexchange.com, which facilitates about 60,000 swaps a year. Recent listings included a two-bedroom apartment on Lake Como in Italy and a six-bedroom oceanfront lodge in Cape Town, South Africa, with a resident game ranger. Members pay $119.40 to list their home for a year, or $47.85 for three months.

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The Wall Street Journal released its annual Middle Seat scorecard Thursday, ranking airlines’ customer service. Using data culled from Dept. of Transportation records and Flightstats.com, WSJ looked at everything from late flights to lost bags in compiling its rankings.

Here’s how some of the worst performers ranked and some insights into why:

American Airlines

The last place airline was American, the airline that attained notoriety after losing Jack the Cat in its John F. [...]]]>

The Wall Street Journal released its annual Middle Seat scorecard Thursday, ranking airlines’ customer service. Using data culled from Dept. of Transportation records and Flightstats.com, WSJ looked at everything from late flights to lost bags in compiling its rankings.

Here’s how some of the worst performers ranked and some insights into why:

American Airlines

The last place airline was American, the airline that attained notoriety after losing Jack the Cat in its John F. Kennedy Airport baggage hold earlier this year. Jack the Cat became an internet celebrity. AA desperately tried to lure the feline out of hiding and return him to owner Karen Pascoe for two months as public pressure mounted. ABC News announced Oct. 26 that Jack had been found and also disclosed how he got lost: when airline employees stacked his cat kennel atop another, Jack’s crashed to the floor and opened. The kennel was supposed to be sealed with plastic ties to prevent such mishaps. The airline returned a malnourished and wounded Jack to his owner, but he died of his injuries several days later, the Daily Mail noted.

WSJ said American ranked worst in baggage handling and canceled the most flights. American is undergoing bankruptcy reorganization.

United Airlines

When United Airlines merged with Continental, there were customer service headaches for passengers lost in the cracks, the WSJ said. That’s also why United was saddled with the distinction of meanest airline by U.S. News and World Report.

United was the subject of a 2009 internet sensation ‘United Breaks Guitars’ after its baggage handlers threw Canadian musician Dave Carroll’s Taylor guitar across the tarmac when loading it. Customer service refused to compensate him, he said, and after 9 months of complaining, he used his talents to produce a video that went viral. At that point, United promised redress and promised to use the video to improve its customer service. Two years later, it’s still near the bottom of the customer service rankings.

Continental

Middle Seat’s low ranking is consistent with U.S. News and World Report’s assessment naming Continental fourth meanest airline for 2011 due to an almost 50 percent spurt in customer service complaints and a spike in denied boardings.

One customer recounted a nightmare experience with Continental Airlines when he flew from Dallas to Rabat in December for Consumer Affairs. Although an airline agent told him when he bought his ticket that the airline would transfer his bags at the transfer stop in Frankfurt since he lacked a Schengen visa to do so himself, the airline switched gears and “bullied” him to do it himself, “hespress” of San Francisco posted. The airline reportedly told him it didn’t have a convention in place with Royal Maroc airlines permitting the airline to do the transfer. He was forced to wait 12 hours, take a rerouted itinerary, and when all was said and done, he didn’t see his luggage for 10 days.

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* Traffic, measured in RPK, up 12.2 pct yr-on-yr

* IAG premium Dec traffic up 13.6 pct

* IAG non-premium traffic up 12 pct

* Ryanair Dec traffic down 5 pct

* IAG shares down 2.8 pct

LONDON, Jan 5 (Reuters) – International Airlines Group , formed by the merger of BA and Iberia (Madrid: IBLA.MC – news) , posted a strong rise in traffic in December, boosted by continued growth in first and business class passenger numbers.

Traffic, measured in [...]]]>

* Traffic, measured in RPK, up 12.2 pct yr-on-yr

* IAG premium Dec traffic up 13.6 pct

* IAG non-premium traffic up 12 pct

* Ryanair Dec traffic down 5 pct

* IAG shares down 2.8 pct

LONDON, Jan 5 (Reuters) – International Airlines Group
, formed by the merger of BA and Iberia (Madrid: IBLA.MC – news) , posted a strong
rise in traffic in December, boosted by continued growth in
first and business class passenger numbers.

Traffic, measured in revenue passenger kilometres, rose 12.2
percent versus December 2010, while passenger load factor — a
measure of how well it fills its planes — was up 0.6 percentage
points at 77.6 percent, it said on Thursday.

IAG said its first and business-class travel — the most
profitable part of its passenger business – rose 13.6 percent,
while non-premium traffic was up 12 percent.

Earlier on Thursday Ireland’s Ryanair ,
Europe (Chicago Options: ^REURUSD – news) ‘s largest airline, said it carried 4.8 million passengers
in December, 5 percent less than a year ago, after it grounded
80 aircraft to avoid flying routes made unprofitable by high
fuel prices.

Industry body IATA last month said international passenger
traffic growth had slowed in recent months and that it expects
airlines to suffer from waning consumer confidence, sluggish
international trade and high fuel prices in 2012. [ID:
nL6E7NU1OV]

The company said that underlying market conditions were
unchanged but that it had seen a significant reduction in
Iberia’s short haul premium traffic compared to last year,
influenced by the strikes during the month.

IAG, which recently agreed to buy Lufthansa (Xetra: 823212 – news) ‘s British unit
bmi, last October reported a 31 percent fall in third-quarter
profit, better than expected and outperforming peers. However,
its traffic growth has slowed in recent months. [ID:nASM00017F

IAG shares, which have fallen 2.7 percent in the last month,
were 2.8 percent down at 145.25 pence by 1508 GMT, valuing the
company at around 2.7 billion pounds ($4.21 billion).

($1 = 0.6406 British pounds)

(Reporting by Rhys Jones; editing by Matt Scuffham)

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Photo by Courtesy photo

Contributed photo Exchange students from Mosul University in Iraq spent a summer session at Angelo State University in 1990 before the invasion of Kuwait.

SAN ANGELO, Texas — For a few weeks in the summer of 1990, 10 students from a university in Iraq attended Angelo State University, the start of a much anticipated international student exchange program.

That promising start was crushed by Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait on Aug. 2, 1990, launching what became the [...]]]>

Photo by Courtesy photo

Contributed photo
Exchange students from Mosul University in Iraq spent a summer session at Angelo State University in 1990 before the invasion of Kuwait.

SAN ANGELO, Texas —
For a few weeks in the summer of 1990, 10 students from a university in Iraq attended Angelo State University, the start of a much anticipated international student exchange program.

That promising start was crushed by Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait on Aug. 2, 1990, launching what became the first Gulf War and briefly stranding the students in a foreign land about to go to war with their country.

“We were kind of caught when that invasion took place,” E. James Holland said about that summer 21 years ago.

The six women and four men from Mosul University in northern Iraq came to improve their English but also took a variety of other classes, he said. At that time, Holland was dean of ASU’s College of Liberal and Fine Arts and worked extensively with international exchange programs.

“They were very bright students and very interested in being here and I think they just captured the hearts of everyone here, so when they had that crisis at the end there was great concern that they be taken care of and helped to return.”

The Iraqi students were at ASU thanks to then-ASU President Lloyd Vincent, who was chairman of the executive committee of the Texas International Education Consortium, which began with a handful of Texas universities.

In 1989 Abdul Al-Khashab, president of Mosul University in Iraq, visited Angelo State while touring several consortium universities, according to an article in The Ram Page.

Johnell Vincent, widow of Lloyd Vincent, said the Mosul University president was a graduate of the University of Texas and had married a Texan.

She and Lloyd Vincent, in turn, visited the university in Mosul, a city of about 1 million people, during the holiday break of 1989-90.

“We went over there with representatives from TIEC,” Vincent said. “We were not on a political trip. It was strictly an educational trip. I loved the people I met.

“They were very, very nice. Mosul is in a very pretty part of Iraq.”

According to The Ram Page, the consortium signed an agreement in the spring of 1990 for short-term, voluntary faculty exchanges. Mosul University was particularly interested in faculty for English as a second language and for agriculture, “especially research and genetic engineering.”

Then in a Sept. 19, 1990, edition of The Ram Page, a report on ASU students spending their summer studying in Germany concluded with a mention of 10 students from Mosul University attending ASU that summer.

“Dr. Vincent was very interested in and supported international travel,” ASU Vice Provost Nancy Allen said. “For some time it was a question of who was going to go first. Fortunately, as events turned out, they went first.”

Allen, who had Iraqi students in her English class that summer, remembers Dr. Vincent had wanted her to visit Mosul University herself in the spring of 1991.

In The Ram Page, Vincent is quoted as saying that 10 students from ASU were to attend Mosul University in January, “but with the current crisis in the Persian Gulf, those plans have been canceled.”

“The program here was a success from this point of view,” Vincent said in The Ram Page. “They were 10 of the nicest young people you could meet. They were just innocent victims.

“We treated them just as we hoped they would have treated our students if ours were over there,” Vincent said. “We hoped we demonstrated what America is all about.”

Perry Gragg was then head of ASU’s English department. He said some of the concern was how the Mosul students would feel as the conflict escalated.

“It took them a week and a half or 10 days to get home,” Gragg said. “We felt sorry for them because the war started when they were here. We felt they had never heard anything ugly about Saddam Hussein and suddenly that was all they were hearing on American television.”

Vincent said Paul “Buddy” Horn was dean of men and it was his charge to get the students back home because their airline tickets were canceled immediately.

“The university didn’t have a whole lot of money to pay for their tickets home,” she said.

They were accompanied by Dr. Ameen, a Mosul University faculty member. Allen said he asked the students to return as many souvenirs as possible to raise cash.

Allen and Gragg said an embassy was able to arrange flights for the students.

“The students flew to Jordan and drove overland back to their homes because they couldn’t go directly,” she said. “We did receive word they had all gotten back home safely.”

Their full names are lost in memory but Susan Brooks, who was then the associate dean of student life, has kept a typed list of their first names — Amal, Angham, Nida, Narmin, Sa’adiya, Khalida, Luay, Ziyad, Marwan, Ismail — followed by their signatures in Arabic script.

“For all these years, I’ve had on my shelf here at the house a picture of myself and the Iraqi students and a necklace they gave me,” she said. “I got to help coordinate all the fun stuff. We took them to Austin, the state Capitol, and we took them to a local ranch. It was a great cultural experience for my husband and me at the time.”

Gragg said some of the students kept in touch with him and his wife, Marilyn, sporadically over the years.

“There are two or three people who would write, give us an update,” Gragg said. “One went on to get a Ph.D. Several of them moved from Iraq to different countries, Jordan, Libya and Tunisia.”

He said most of the students were Kurdish, an ethnic group found in parts of Turkey, Iraq, Iran and Syria, and most were Muslims. Allen said one of the students was Catholic and asked to attend Mass in San Angelo.

“We would have social gatherings all the time and I was more involved in that, arranging that,” Gragg said.

In addition to visiting Austin, the Iraqis went to San Antonio to visit HemisFair Park.

“One of them tried to negotiate the price of the ticket to the HemisFair,” Gragg said. “We found out one of them went to the grocery store and was very successful negotiating the price of groceries.”

Embargoes and continuing conflict with Saddam Hussein, resulting in the just-concluded nearly nine-year Iraq War, ended the educational exchange for all the years since.

Ronald Aqua, president of the Texas International Education Consortium, said the group has not yet tried to re-establish an exchange program with Iraqi universities.

“There has been a lot going on between American universities and the government of Iraq and Iraq universities after things opened up after 2003,” he said. “Our organization has not been involved directly.”

The consortium, which has grown to include 32 Texas universities, has established ties with universities in Jordan, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Yemen, Aqua said.

Brooks said she remembers the Iraqi students’ visit “as a very good experience.”

“I think if a similar type trip happened nowadays it would be a lot easier to stay in touch with them,” she said.

Iraq War timeline

Jan. 29, 2002 — President George W. Bush labels Iraq, Iran and North Korea an “axis of evil” in his State of the Union address.

July 8, 2002 — Bush promises to “use all the tools at our disposal” to bring down Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.

Oct. 16, 2002 — Congress passes a joint resolution authorizing the use of military action against Iraq.

March 17, 2003 — Bush gives Saddam Hussein 48 hours to give up power.

March 20, 2003 — The U.S.-led invasion of Iraq begins.

April 9, 2003 — American Marines help Iraqis pull down a statue of Saddam Hussein in Baghdad. U.S. military declares Saddam’s regime is no longer in control of the capital.

May 1, 2003 — On an aircraft carrier under a “Mission Accomplished” banner, Bush declares “major combat operations in Iraq have ended.”

Dec. 13, 2003 — Saddam Hussein is captured in Tikrit.

Jan. 3, 2004 — A military policeman tips Army investigators to abuse at Abu Ghraib prison. CBS News airs photos that trigger an international outcry. Over the next two years, 11 U.S. soldiers are convicted of crimes for human rights violations.

April 9, 2004 — Marine Lance Cpl. Elias Torrez III, 21, of Veribest is killed in combat in Al Anbar province.

June 28, 2004 — Iraqis celebrate as the U.S.-led occupation authority turns over formal power to an interim Iraqi government two days ahead of schedule.

Sept. 12, 2004 — Marine Pfc. Jason Poindexter, 20, of San Angelo is killed in combat in Al Anbar province.

Sept. 13, 2004 — Marine Lance Cpl. Matthew Puckett, 19, of Mason is killed in combat in Al Anbar province.

Sept. 24, 2004 — Marine Sgt. Timothy Folmar, 21, of Sonora is killed in combat in Al Anbar province.

Oct. 6, 2004 — The top U.S. arms inspector in Iraq finds no evidence that Saddam Hussein’s regime produced weapons of mass destruction after 1991‚ the primary reason the Bush administration gave for going to war.

May 3, 2005 — The first democratically elected Iraqi government is sworn in.

Sept. 28, 2005 — Airman First Class Elizabeth Nicole Jacobson, 21, of Riviera Beach, Fla., and deployed out of Goodfellow Air Force Base, is killed in combat at Camp Bucca.

Oct. 31, 2005 — Army Spc. William Byler, 23, of Ballinger is killed in combat in Mamuhdiyah.

Feb. 22, 2006 — Suspected Sunni insurgents detonate two bombs inside the revered Shiite Askariya shrine in Samarra, blowing the top off its landmark golden dome. The attack becomes a flash point for sectarian slaughter that pushes the country to the brink of civil war.

Jan. 10, 2007 — President Bush announces more than 20,000 additional U.S. troops will be sent to Iraq in a mission dubbed “the surge.”

Oct. 23, 2007 — The U.N. says nearly 2.3 million people are displaced inside Iraq, and more than 2.2 million have fled to neighboring countries.

April 30, 2008 — Army Sgt. 1st Class Lawrence David Ezell, 30, of Portland, Texas, who spent part of his life in San Angelo, is killed in combat in northern Baghdad.

Nov. 15, 2008 — The U.S. and Iraq agree on a security pact that envisions a complete withdrawal of U.S. troops by the end of 2011.

Jan. 1, 2009 — The U.S. hands over control of the Green Zone, Saddam’s Republican Palace-turned-temporary U.S. Embassy, to Iraqis. The U.S. opens a new American Embassy in Baghdad.

Feb. 27, 2009 — President Barack Obama announces a timetable for withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq.

June 16, 2009 — Army Sgt. Joshua Soto, 25, of San Angelo is killed in combat in Muthanna Sumawah.

July 28, 2009 — Australia withdraws troops, three months after British troops end combat operations, bringing to an end the so-called coalition of the willing that invaded Iraq.

March 26, 2010 — Former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi’s secular, anti-Iranian coalition wins a narrow victory over the bloc of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki in Iraq’s parliamentary elections. But after months of strenuous negotiations, al-Maliki remains as prime minister when a new government is seated in December.

Aug. 19, 2010 — The last American combat troops leave. Some 50,000 American soldiers remain to advise Iraqis.

Oct. 15, 2011 — A senior Obama administration official in Washington says that all American troops will leave Iraq as scheduled at the end of the year — except for about 160 active-duty soldiers attached to the U.S. Embassy. There had been talk of some U.S. troops remaining on a training mission, but Iraq objected to U.S. insistence on legal immunity for its troops.

Oct. 21, 2011 — Obama announces that all U.S. troops will be out of Iraq by the end of the year.

Dec. 2, 2011 — Camp Victory, originally used as a country club for the Baghdad elite under Saddam, is handed over to the Iraqi government as part of American efforts to move all U.S. troops out of the country by the end of the year. “The base is no longer under U.S. control and is under the full authority of the government of Iraq,” said U.S. military spokesman Col. Barry Johnson.

Dec. 18, 2011 — The last U.S. soldiers roll out of Iraq across the border into neighboring Kuwait, marking the end of the Iraq War that raged for nearly nine years.

– The Associated Press, Standard-Times archives

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Low deposits

These are a classic way of tempting you to commit to a holiday. They can be helpful – you secure the deal you want, while forking out less than you thought you might have to initially. But you are still committing fully to buying the [...]]]> Verdict The only price that matters is the one on the bottom line. Make
sure you are happy with that, rather than be distracted by an apparent
discount or incentive.

Low deposits

These are a classic way of tempting you to commit to a holiday. They can be
helpful – you secure the deal you want, while forking out less than you
thought you might have to initially. But you are still committing fully to
buying the holiday.

Currently, for example, on its short-haul holidays, Thomas Cook is offering a
deposit of £75 instead of £175 per person. But you still have to pay the
extra £100 to make up the rest of the £175 within eight weeks of booking –
and the terms and conditions state that if you cancel, you must also pay the
full £175 deposit – not simply sacrifice the lower amount.

Also, if you go ahead, you must pay the balance of the full cost of the
holiday 14 weeks before departure. So, if you are booking for July, you
could be paying the full price in March – a low deposit doesn’t buy you much
breathing space.

Verdict Not worth having on their own account. The overall price you
will pay is much more important.

Free child places

These can make a real difference to the cost of a family holiday and amount to
a considerable saving on the overall price – but not always. As a rule you
are effectively saving on the child’s air fare and meals, because to get the
deal, children will be expected to share their parents’ room.

There are a few things to take into account, however, and the value of such
deals can quickly be eroded.

Take the small print in the latest Skytours brochure, for example, which is
typical of the industry. It makes clear that children will still be charged
full deposits, insurance premiums, and flight, room and board supplements.

And most critically, a child with a “free” place does not count
towards room occupancy – so if, as a family of four, you book an apartment
based on four sharing, and opt for a free place for one of your children,
the other three in the family will have to pay extra “under-occupancy
supplements”.

In such cases, as Skytours points out, your overall holiday price might be
cheaper if you were to pay an ordinary adult fare for the child.

Verdict Often worth having for hotel-based holidays, but check the
bottom line if booking an apartment.

Price-match promise

These can be a useful reassurance and are often used as a selling point.

Typically a company offers to match or beat a price of a hotel stay or holiday
if you find it cheaper within a certain time-frame after booking (the Telegraph
website itself offers such a guarantee).

But some price promises don’t look so tempting once you read the small print.
For example, the travel agent Going Places offers a “Price Beat
Challenge” which “is not a guarantee” and states “we are
under no obligation to match or beat your quoted price”. You just have
to give them the chance to do so…

Verdict Obviously, for such promises to work you have to carry on
checking prices after you have booked – and relatively few people do that.

Agent offers

The value of a good travel agency is that it has an overview of many of the
offers on the market at any one time – and may have access to deals that you
don’t.

Trailfinders (trailfinders.com), for example, is promoting a “January Sale”
of its own, but this is less of a sale than a combination of offers from
lots of different sources – such as first-class seat offers on Emirates, the
BA sale (see below), a sale from Celebrity Cruises and special offers of its
own on holidays to Thailand. The advantage of getting a quote from them is
that you are less likely to miss out on an offer you didn’t know existed –
you might think a BA fare to Bangkok looks excellent value, but you might
not realise a cheaper deal is available with Thai.

Verdict Always worth checking, but do your own research too.

Free nights

These offers are couched in lots of different ways – from two weeks for the
price of one, to three nights for the price of two and so on. This is a
promising time of year for such offers – country house hotels in Britain in
particular have lots of spare capacity.

So, for example, The Montagu Arms hotel in Beaulieu in the New Forest (montaguarmshotel.co.uk)
is offering two nights with the third night free until March 31, 2012. City
hotels also often offer incentives. Marriott International (marriott.co.uk)
is offering 20 per cent off its Stay for Breakfast room rate at many hotels
(quote promotional code C9E) for weekend stays until April 15 if booked by
February 12.

Tour operators also package up deals based on free nights. Kirker (kirkerholidays.com),
a city break specialist, has many attractive-looking such offers currently
on its website, as does Kuoni (kuoni.co.uk).
But it is also worth going direct to the hotels, especially for a
destination as easy to get to as a European city.

At the Liassidi Palace hotel in Venice, for example, Kirker offers a deal for “three
nights for the price of two” (which also includes other incentives such
a private walking tour and entry tickets for the Doge’s Palace or the
Accademia or Guggenheim museums). If you go direct to the hotel’s website (liassidipalacehotel.com),
it also has special offers, including three nights for the price of two in a
junior suite.

Getting the best value will depend on when you are booking and whether or not
you want to travel with an operator or book your travel yourself.

Verdict Tread carefully – get a quote direct from the hotel, and watch
for excluded dates: Friday and Saturday nights are often not part of the
deal.

Air fares

One area where it is relatively easy to spot a deal (as long as you make sure
taxes and charges are included) is the regular round of offers on air fares.

These are usually confined to low season when airlines struggle to fill all
their seats, but the fares are often exceptionally attractive.

Some of the best offers running at the moment are in the current BA sale (ba.com/sale;
ends January 28). They have the added attraction of hotel offers, which can
be added to the fare to make a package.

Verdict Air fare sales generally do offer some good incentives, and
because fares tend to rise the nearer you get to the departure date, it is
worth snapping them up. The best thing to do is to sign up to distribution
lists on airline websites, so that you get early notice.

Contact Nick by email: nick.trend@telegraph.co.uk.

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While 2012 is likely to feature a variety of dramatic airline news stories, if only because most years in the volatile and hypercompetitive industry beget drama, some of the biggest developments will come from the world’s largest airline, United Continental Holdings Inc. of Chicago.

Behind the scenes, the company will attempt to merge United’s and Continental’s reservation computer systems, a huge and perilous undertaking. It will also be the first North American airline to take delivery of the [...]]]> <!–Saxotech Paragraph Count: 6
–>

While 2012 is likely to feature a variety of dramatic airline news stories, if only because most years in the volatile and hypercompetitive industry beget drama, some of the biggest developments will come from the world’s largest airline, United Continental Holdings Inc. of Chicago.

Behind the scenes, the company will attempt to merge United’s and Continental’s reservation computer systems, a huge and perilous undertaking. It will also be the first North American airline to take delivery of the Boeing 787 Dreamliner, considered a game-changing aircraft for fuel efficiency and passenger comfort. Perhaps most important, the company will roll up its sleeves and try to hammer out labor contracts with several of its unions, including the feisty pilots union that has been highly critical of the airline in recent months.

Developments elsewhere in the airline industry will include American Airlines making its way through bankruptcy protection, potentially cutting some service in Chicago and elsewhere.

There’s also the little matter of the sluggish U.S. and world economies with which the airline industry’s fate is tied. But fliers will also see more cabin amenities, such as Internet access, power supply in seats, and high-tech video choices for movies and television shows onboard.

For United Airlines customers, the change they might notice first will come when the company combines its reservation systems. That change is slated to happen in the first quarter of 2012.

After the switch, Continental.com will go away, and travelers no longer will be able book flights online there, for example. Continental as an airline technically ceased to exist after the company received Federal Aviation Administration approval on Nov. 30 to operate as a single airline, called United Airlines. But since then, the company has been operating two airline nameplates, United and Continental, until it can combine behind-the-scenes computer systems that run its bookings. Currently, those computer systems, which are the digital backbone of an airline, run on different brands of incompatible software. Airline officials chose to stick with Continental’s brand of booking software, called SHARES, sold by Hewlett-Packard.

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New horizons … Los Angeles airport.

Etihad’s first-class feasts

Chefs are in first-class kitchens on Etihad Airways flights to Sydney, Melbourne, London and Paris, and alongside the staff is a new menu from the airline’s Mezoon Grille.

The menu includes rib-eye steak, hammour and beef tenderloin. There’s a choice of desserts (warm cheese souffle, lemongrass panna cotta, triple chocolate cake, pandan sago with passionfruit coulis) or [...]]]>

New horizons … Los Angeles airport.

Etihad’s first-class feasts

Chefs are in first-class kitchens on Etihad Airways flights to Sydney, Melbourne, London and Paris, and alongside the staff is a new menu from the airline’s Mezoon Grille.

The menu includes rib-eye steak, hammour and beef tenderloin. There’s a choice of desserts (warm cheese souffle, lemongrass panna cotta, triple chocolate cake, pandan sago with passionfruit coulis) or warm Middle Eastern semolina pudding with saffron lemon syrup.

The degustation menu available to first-class passengers has been replaced with a Taste of Arabia theme that includes a mixed grill with aromatic rice, harissa and yoghurt sauce.

The airline won the Skytrax award for first-class catering last year and will introduce chefs on its Dusseldorf, Frankfurt, Geneva, Narita, Seoul, Brussels, Milan, Munich, Casablanca and New York flights this year. First-class fares from Sydney to Abu Dhabi cost from $10,970 and Melbourne from $10,951.

See etihad.com.

Terminal revamp

Los Angeles, the only airport to claim a hit song, is in the midst of a $US1.5-billion ($1.48 billion) redevelopment of its Tom Bradley International Terminal, part of the largest public works project in the history of the city.

Construction started in 2008 and will include 18 new boarding gates – nine of which will be able to accommodate aircraft such as the A380 and Boeing 787 Dreamliner – dual passenger loading bridges, and secured corridors between TBIT and terminals 3 and 4 for connections.

Of the 32 airlines that land at the terminal, Qantas is the only carrier that flies direct from Australia.

The airport operator, Los Angeles World Airports, says it will be able to accommodate 4000 passengers an hour (at present it’s 2800).

The airport’s great hall will have 13,000 square metres of dining and shopping areas and a children’s play zone. The project is expected to be complete by December next year, which is good news for the 60 million passengers who pass through LAX each year.

Those who arrive early for a flight before March may wish to check out Terminal 1′s contemporary art exhibition, featuring mixed-media installations, photographs, paintings and drawings.

See lawa.org.

Real-time reviews

A website devoted to passenger experiences in-flight and on the ground, airlikes.com, is harnessing the ire of (mostly) disgruntled air travellers. Paris-based site founder Nicolas Pellier says airlikes.com is a place for passengers to share their experiences in real time, via a mobile phone version of the site.

“Most travellers review the in-flight service and are complaining about the indifferent service they receive from the staff,” he says.

Opinions about airport design and reviews prompted by flight cancellations and the way airlines deal with them is an important part of the website, he says. “Charles de Gaulle Airport is sadly famous for being one of the worst, with an incomprehensible layout and staff who are not helpful … Singapore’s Changi Airport seems to be one of the most liked by travellers and is even considered as an attraction of the city.”

Australians represent 20 per cent of total visits to the site, ahead of travellers from the US (17 per cent) and Britain (11 per cent).

See airlikes.com.

On the road again

Camping and driving on Highway 1, Route 66 or the road to nowhere are all possible with Intrepid’s new self-drive journeys in the US.

The itineraries cater for road trippers ranging from singles to families. Vehicles include a four-door Dodge Charger or a seven-seater Chrysler. Trips include a 13-day journey from San Francisco to Los Angeles visiting Yosemite, Joshua Tree and Zion national parks ($930 a person); a six-day Los Angeles to San Francisco tour stopping at Santa Barbara, Malibu and Monterey ($480); and a 16-day south-west trip taking in the Grand Canyon, Monument Valley and Las Vegas ($1025).

The cost includes campsites and entry to national parks, tents, sleeping mats, camp chairs and cooking utensils, cooking stove and a cooler bin. The self-drive itineraries come with maps and a satellite navigator for an additional $US11 a day.

See intrepidtravel.com.

Food trucks conquer Manhattan

The mobile food-truck phenomenon, which uses Twitter and Facebook to alert would-be diners to truck locations, is said to have had its genesis in the US. Now, a new food-kiosk pilot program is fixed firmly in Times Square in Manhattan.

Four custom-built kiosks have opened in the square’s plazas, allowing the food-truck groups to add a permanent point-of-sale outlet. Rickshaw Dumpling Bar, Salumeria, Snackbar and Nuchas are serving customers without running foul of traffic police. Nuchas’s Argentinian-born founder, Ariel Barbouth, says the flavours offered are beyond a traditional empanada, with a menu of six rotating choices.

Empanadas cost $US3 a pop and include the traditional Argentinian variety (ground beef, onions, peppers in white dough) and portobello mushrooms or pork shoulder braised in a rosemary dough. All are good choices en route to a Broadway show. Nuchas kiosk is open 7am-2am.

See nuchas.com.

Send news items to smarttraveller@fairfax.com.au.

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Apparently, getting the unfortunate honor of occupying the middle seat on an airplane is not just an inconvenience for some people, but a full-on traumatic experience. The company 3M wanted to know just how many people hated the middle seat, so it commissioned a survey. According to 3M, 56% of Americans would rather get stuck in traffic or go on a blind date than sit in the middle seat. One out of every two people said they would rather take [...]]]>

Apparently, getting the unfortunate honor of occupying the middle seat on an airplane is not just an inconvenience for some people, but a full-on traumatic experience. The company 3M wanted to know just how many people hated the middle seat, so it commissioned a survey. According to 3M, 56% of Americans would rather get stuck in traffic or go on a blind date than sit in the middle seat. One out of every two people said they would rather take an aisle seat on a later flight, and 20% actually said that they would stay overnight in the airport rather than sit between two people.