My friend and I were planning to book our flights to Japan this week. I was in favour of direct flights on BA over the much cheaper layover Air China flights with a layover in Beijing (but also having to go through all the security stuff at the airport, and flights are apparently sometimes cancelled between the two countries due to geopolitical tensions but this doesn’t tend to affect Tokyo bound flights?)
However… with the latest developments in the war on Iran this week and energy infrastructure being targeted by both sides in addition to the Strait of Hormuz being blocked, I’ve seen people saying online that long haul travel will be seriously affected as a result, long haul flights being cancelled etc. force majeure is obviously not covered by holiday insurance.
I know this is the absolute most unimportant thing happening as a result of this war, but I wanted to gauge what better informed people think about this. No one can predict the future, but based on what we currently know, how much do we think this situation is going to impact long haul travel that doesn’t go over or via the Middle East?
My preference is to book the Air China flights now while they’re cheap (and before the increased price of fuel makes prices go up further) but is it even worth booking right now while everything is so uncertain? What would you do?
I am worried that delaying will mean the holiday never happens as it relies on my best mate being available and willing to come with me, and I don’t know if at some point she’ll decide she’d rather go with her boyfriend. And god knows what else is going to happen in the next few years. I can finally afford this holiday with my redundancy pay 
Also if you have any experience with Air China please let me know as the reviews are very mixed.
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Yeah it looks very bad. We booked to Aus for Easter in October last year and Qatar have been pure cunts.
Technically the law requires they find us alt flights with other One World carriers but they just keep trying to claim they are still running flights and there’s no need.
They want you to cancel and refund as it’s cheaper and you are against the clock.
Anyway fingers crossed we fly out on Wed evening on Turkish Airlines via Singapore with a 12 hour Istanbul layover.
But getting back? Holy shit who knows. Taking our work laptops so we can survive delays.
I think everywhere is getting hammered as a result and there’s fuel shortages of course.
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As for China, it would have been much cheaper for us to use Chinese airlines to get there. Back in October it was about £3K vs £5 for Qatar, but so many stories of online check-in not working etc that we scotched it and went Qatar (oh look how that turned out).
But we both reckoned if we hadn’t had a kid then we’d have done it because it’s only a small amount of crazy vs a huge cut in costs.
Technically by buying tickets in The UK you are very covered by UK261 but obviously in actuality they can fuck you over.
No advice to offer but I’m hoping to go to Manila for work again in October and I’m a bit anxious that it might not happen, it’s iffy as it is because of budget cuts. I’ve flown there via Doha twice and Istanbul once so I’m hoping there’s some way to get there and back but who knows. They usually don’t sort my travel out until summer time and maybe by then enough rich and powerful people will have kicked up enough of a fuss for the situation to be over. There’s just no predicting anything atm I guess
I’ve lost so much work over the past year cos of other decisions by 
and I’m fucking sick of it (obviously I know this is first world problems and nothing in comparison to the horrors people are facing in Iran and Lebanon but come on man let me do my job)
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No advice but in the same boat. Planning to start booking bits for a couple of weeks in Vietnam next January but now unsure whether to wait, to book now, or to maybe go to somewhere in south America or south Africa instead
Hoping our flights to Barbados won’t be affected but I see some unexpected routes being messed up by it all. Wouldn’t be so bad if it was cancelled caused they would have to refund us the flights. We’re staying in our own accomodation so wouldn’t cost us too much. But it would still be really upsetting cause we’ve been talking about this trip for years. And we deserve a nice holiday 
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Also really annoying cause there’s absolutely no way we would be chancing even transfering flights in the US so really limits things. I’ll be really worried if we get on a non direct flight via Miami or something.
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Lad I work with has just gone to Hong Kong for a few weeks. He was saying before he went, the main problem at the moment is that its adding 2 hours to the flight.
I suspect it would be better to book now and be able to get your money back. Because say you aren’t due to fly until August, if this isn’t fixed by then in someway, I don’t think anyone will be flying anyway at that point or air travel will be reduced.
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I think like a third of flights from China to Japan have been cancelled?
Were booked to go to Japan via Dubai in September for honeymoon, and half expecting it to be cancelled. Fortunately all hotels are free cancellation on booking.com .
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I can confirm China to Japan flights are between 33-50% cancelled at present. Had mine cancelled one week in advance in December, but the Chinese airline (China Eastern) rebooked me onto another the next day for no extra cost. Only problem was that it shortened my stay in Japan and affected my itinerary.
Tokyo flights less affected than other more regional Japanese airports. That said, those planes that do run have space as the demand for tickets has shrunk hugely too.
The Japanese government arent backing down on the spat that has angered China so there’s an economic war going on by the govt in China both persuading and making it hard for citizens to go to Japan (Chinese tourists are a massive part of Japan’s economy). I’d be surprised if it dies down by the time you go, but I guess at some point Japan has to kow-tow because it will affect the economy too much.
Were I in your shoes I would book accommodation with a free cancellation option. My bookings with Trip.com were modifiable so that I could take my first stay and just change the check in date for one day later. If your China to Japan flight got cancelled, it would not be at one day notice , it would probably be 1 or 2 weeks before you fly east and you should be able to get the flight rebooked easy enough. Booking the onward flight to Japan with an airline that has several flights a day (Air China or China Eastern) will also reduce your risk as it makes rebooking easier. The budget airline in this part of the world, Spring Airlines, would be a riskier choice for that flight, as would smaller regional Chinese state airlines as they may have less flights, or less space available for rebooking.
Do we think the price of holidays within Europe will go up as a result? Surely they will? Might look at booking something sooner rather than later
Probably tbh, airlines want to recoup some of their losses, and also packages etc. will get booked up more quickly.
On the other hand, people might be booking fewer holidays overall because of the recession
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Just had a thought. What if we get there but then the jet fuel runs out and we are stranded in Barbados without our work laptops 