Japan Devesated by Earthquake…Flights Halted

All Nippon Airways, a leading Japanese airline and member of Star Alliance, has been in touch with my office in Frankfurt all day concerning the massive 8.9 earthquake that struck Japan late this afternoon.

Over 100 deaths are already confirmed and billions of dollars in damage to private and public property has occurred, worsened by tsunamis that hit shortly after the quake. I was in a meeting this morning when my colleague turned his laptop toward me just as a huge tidal wave hit the coast of Hawaii. Let’s just say it suddenly became very hard to focus on the voices across the table.

Flight operations have been severely interrupted, although limited service is operating, and as Damian reports, some commercial flights from the United States were diverted to Yokota Air Base.

My thoughts and prayers are with the families of all those affected by today’s events. I’m not about to cancel my trip to Tokyo in a few weeks, but I must say I am having second thoughts about my destination choice…