Globaliser

But you asked when it was supposed to come into effect, not when the enabling legislation was passed.

2021, IIRC. I imagine that some of the delay will probably have been Covid-related, in which case it's perhaps not as bad as it seems. The latest slippage is apparently due to the entry-exit system (EES) not being ready in time, but that seems to be being actively worked on, and the plan appears to be that it should be operational about half a year ahead of ETIAS.

There seems to be a rolling delay. The next one has now been announced: spring 2025, possibly May.

I don't think that the connections necessarily have long connection times. I've had a look at the schedules for tomorrow (25 October), and Qantas has these options: Via Dallas-Fort Worth: 21:51 overall scheduled duration, including a 1:00 connection; Via Auckland: 23:10 overall, including a 2:00 stopover; Via Los Angeles: 23:26 overall, including a 2:15 connection. So if overall journey time is important to you, then picking the direct flight doesn't necessarily get you there in the shortest time, or with the shortest en route stop. If the duration of the longest sector is important to you, then you've probably seen that the JFK-AKL sector is scheduled at about 17:30. DFW-SYD is about 16:45, and LAX-SYD sector is about 15:00.

There are at least three possible reasons: The default is that the origin country won't accept earlier security screening done by a different country. There are exceptions, but this is the default. So it may be that Canada won't accept security screening done by Japan, so Canada will re-screen a connecting passenger arriving from Japan. Occasionally, the destination country imposes additional rules not required by the origin country, and also won't accept earlier security screening done by a different country. The effect in this scenario is also that the connecting passenger has to be re-screened in Canada. If the connecting passenger has any contact with checked baggage during the connection process, by definition that negates any security screening that has already taken place. Your description suggests that you didn't have any contact, but an international-to-international connection in the US almost always requires contact with checked baggage and hence re-screening, even if that's not required for any other reason.

Of course, you're free to believe and do what you prefer. But the great thing about threads like this is that CCers can read one person's anecdotes and compare them to the advice given by airlines and by those who work in the industry, and work out for themselves where the truth lies.

They didn't ask for your middle name because they neither needed nor wanted it. So why did you even bother calling? It just muddied the waters. There are many airlines that don't ask for your middle name and therefore don't ask you to input your middle name at all. To help dispel any confusion in this thread, here's what the airline I know best says about it: "We don't need our customers to add their middle names when making a booking with us, providing their First Name and Last Name are correct and match their passport. But if you provided yours and when you look at your booking/e-ticket receipt it's now 'joined together' with your first name, don't worry - airline computer reservation systems aren't able to process spaces between names, so they'll always appear joined. Similarly, this happens with double-barrelled Last Names, when you've got two First Names or Last Names, hyphenated First Names, and Last Names with apostrophes in them (i.e. O'Connor) - our systems can't show the characters or the space that separates the names. Again, please don't be worried about this, as airport security and passport control staff are used to seeing this and won't query that your boarding pass/e-ticket receipt differs very slightly from how your name appears in your passport. For example, it's easy for them to identify that "sarahjane" is the same as "Sarah Jane" in a passport." Things are slightly more complicated if you have only one given/first name and no family name, or if you have a family name only with no given/first name. The airline does give specific instructions about these situations, and then says: "Please don't worry about taking any of the steps above - airport Security and Border Control teams around the world will be used to seeing such things, and when they look at your passport and your boarding pass it will be clear to them why this has been done." This is part of the reason why Advance Passenger Information requests by airlines tend to be run in separate processes.

That's an excellent outcome.

If you're flying home to Southern Delaware, there must be dozens of options every day.

Is there anything in this thread that's unclear? If the merged word shows your first name and your middle name, you will have no issues for travel. You may have issues for automatic flight credit to your frequent flyer scheme, but if that happens then (as you have seen) it may well be that it's because the booking first name does not match the account first name, which in turn is because the booking first name consists of your actual first name and actual middle name run together. I can see how it can be more irritating when a cruise line does the air travel booking and you have no control over what information goes in to the airline booking.

You only need to give your passport first name and your passport family name. There are many airlines that don't even ask for anything more.

It’s absolutely fine and obviously marginally more convenient for the South Terminal and the station. From experience, I would say that the operative word is "marginally", when compared to the Sofitel at the North Terminal. IIRC, from the Hilton there's a rather unscenic walk through the multi-storey car park and then over the railway lines to get to the South Terminal; in contrast there's a shorter walk from the Sofitel to the transit and that tips you out almost inside the South Terminal. In other words, even if flying from the South Terminal, I would regard the Sofitel as pretty much an equal contender so far as location is concerned, and have used it more than once for that reason.

Because the systems' field formats don't allow spaces or non-alphabetical characters, and because any change to this standard would have to be effected across the entire industry worldwide, at vast cost but for negligible benefit. If anyone's actually concerned about this, it's actually much easier to give the airline only your first name and family name.

Mr Google might know: https://maps.app.goo.gl/sjZKdY4Vtvcc9AWXA

To me, the most interesting thing it said about Botti was "over 70% of the booked guests are new to Jazz Cruises". It almost sounds like it's a new market.

The reason that most people flying from NYC to Sydney connect through Los Angeles or Dallas is because until the last few months there haven't been any direct flights for some years. However you do it, you're going to have a stop somewhere between NYC and Sydney, so don't get hung up on the single factor of whether it's a direct stopping flight or a connection. As it happens, Qantas may suit your specific itinerary because (as I understand it) these new JFK flights stop in Auckland in both directions. So you may find it convenient to do JFK-Sydney direct and then Auckland-JFK non-stop, both on these new Qantas flights.

This actually means that you will be flying on Air France. Pretty much all that Delta has done is sold you a ticket. It's not necessarily on the same rules as if you'd bought a ticket from Air France, but don't be misled into thinking that you're flying on Delta. Maybe. This depends on the fare you've booked. Air France's website says "The complimentary wine and champagne you will receive on board has been selected by Paolo Basso, the World’s Best Sommelier 2013."

With that timing, it sounds like you're arriving in the morning. In that case, there's little reason to be concerned about safety, and just one top tip in relation to that: whatever you do, do not accept transport from anyone who offers it inside the terminal. If for some reason you really are concerned about safety, after you exit from Customs just follow the signs for taxis. These will direct you to the official taxi rank outside the terminal, where a fully licensed taxi (a classic London "black cab") will take you to your hotel.

You could probably get two black cabs for less money than that.

It's not a secret. It's Simply Airports - you can see it in the URL of the image. Unlike some other CCers, I don't push it here because frankly there's not a lot of difference between the various usual suspects in this business. This is simply the one that we use - except on the occasion that they were fully booked, when they immediately referred us to another of the usual suspects, which was equally good.

The website of the "usual suspect" that we use has just returned a quote of £100 for a trip from Victoria station to Heathrow airport in a "large MPV" (stated capacity: 6 passengers, 8 medium bags and 5 hand luggage):

This is a guess (as I've never done such a transfer by cab or car), but perhaps somewhere around £25 for a car big enough for all four of you and your luggage, doing a single drop at one terminal. This means paying only one drop-off fee; I think that if the car drops two of you at one terminal and two of you at the other terminal, the £5 fee has to be paid twice.

It won't be "nominal" - but it will be nothing like what you are paying, which is expensive even for a London --> Heathrow trip.

So more like a "normal day" than "extra people"!

Yes, they are: aerolopa takes a lot of care to get these right (including often marking locations where there is a physical window but it's been blanked - for example see this map at rows 1, 7 and 10, comparing the opposite sides of the aircraft).