Road Warrior: Changes in US visa waiver scheme

Smaller queues in sight for travellers to United States

Relief is in sight for the summer season in the United States with the hiring of 800 more transportation security administration staff and additional funding for overtime. The Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Homeland Security has approved a request to shift $34 million (€30 million) from the DHS budget to alleviate long passenger screening lines.

Why London's hotels are not filling up so fast London's five-star hotels are feeling the pinch this year with occupancy for the first quarter down to 65 per cent from 70 per cent last year, according to STR Global, the hotel data and benchmarking organisation.

Factors that are affecting business include the sensitivity to terrorism following the attacks in Brussels and Paris and uncertainty around the referendum to leave Europe in June. Business travellers are postponing investments and first quarter merger and acquisition activity was down 39 per cent.

Traditionally Americans travel less in an election year and wealthy Russians are staying at home.

Vladimir Putin has urged Russians to travel in their own country to support the weakened economy. UK visas granted to Russians last year fell 38 per cent.

Changes in US visa waiver scheme

The US Department of Homeland Security has implemented some changes in the visa waiver programme that may affect Irish business travellers. Under the Terrorist Travel Prevention Act of 2015 if you have visited certain countries since March 2011, you will no longer be able to use the visa waiver programme which allows easy access for 90 days to the United States.

Travellers must apply for a visa to visit the United States in future. The counties are Iran, Iraq, Sudan, Syria, Libya, Somalia and Yemen.

Information on visa applications can be found on travel.state.gov and ie.usembassy.gov.

Wifi being offered in the air on Delta Airlines flights

Delta Airlines, celebrating 30 years flying from Ireland, is installing Gogo’s 2Ku satellite internet to 600 aircraft in its fleet.

The 2Ku technology will offer in-flight video streaming bandwidth capability and access to wifi from take-off to landing. Installation has begun on the 737-800s and the Airbus A319s aircraft.