Workers at Greece’s national railway service will halt train services on Saturday, Sunday and Monday during the Easter holidays. Employees in cargo services to strike this week throughout Holy Week until Easter Sunday.

Department of State warns U.S. citizens to defer all travel to several regions of Ukraine, including the Crimean Peninsula and eastern regions of Kharkiv, Donetsk, and Lugansk due to the presence of Russian military forces in the Crimean Peninsula and on the eastern border of Ukraine. While the transition to a new government has been largely peaceful in most parts of Ukraine, in several eastern Ukrainian cities armed militants, including personnel who appear to be members of the Russian military, have seized government buildings, and attacked police. The situation in Ukraine is unpredictable and could change quickly. U.S. citizens throughout Ukraine should avoid large crowds and be prepared to remain indoors for extended periods of time should clashes occur in their vicinity.

Air France ground personnel will strike April 18 and 19 from 11a-3p at the following airports: Paris-Orly, Ajaccio, Bâle-Mulhouse, Bastia, Bordeaux, Lyon, Marseille, Montpellier, Nantes, Nice, Strasbourg, Toulon, Toulouse. The strike may cause disruption. Please reconfirm your flights if travelling with Air France today and tomorrow.

We’ve all had the experience of being ticketed on, say, flight 129 and then being notified that the flight is now known as 256. There are a number of reasons this may happen. Sometimes the change is a result of a merger or a new codeshare arrangement. Sometimes it is to prevent two airlines flying flights with the same number in the same area at the same time. There is also unconfirmed speculation that the airlines may change the number on a flight that has a history of delays so that when potential travelers look for on-time statistics the unattractive history of delays will not be attached to the new flight number.

• There are 397 areas in the National Park System, including at least one in every state except Delaware
• The National Parks range is size from 13.2 million acres (Wrangell-St. Elias in Alaska) to 0.02 acres (Thaddeus Kosciuszko Memorial in Pennsylvania)
• Theodore Roosevelt has the most sites of the National Park System named for him (4), plus he is featured on Mt. Rushmore
• The Blueridge Parkway, a 496-mile drive through the Appalachians in Virginia and North Carolina, gets the most annual visitors of any National Park
• Kobuk Valley National Park in Alaska is the least visited with less than 2,000 guests a year
• All total, the National Parks equal more than 84 million acres, roughly the size of Germany
• Alaska and California have the most National Parks at 8 each
• Carlsbad Caverns National Park in west Texas is home to the world’s largest bat colony

Effective April 16, 2014, Frequent Flyer AAdvantage® Gold, Dividend Mile Silver Preferred, oneworld® Ruby, and Alaska MVP status members and their companions will be able to access Main Cabin Extra seats through one of two options: 1) receive a 50 percent discount when reserving a Main Cabin Extra seat in advance, or 2) enjoy complimentary access to Main Cabin Extra within 24hrs of departure (if seats are available). Any changes made to existing Main Cabin Extra seats already assigned prior to April 16, will fall under the new policy. Preferred seats will continue to be free of charge.

“I can’t tell you enough how excellent your help was this morning. I was very nervous about calling and setting this up because travel scheduling is usually pretty difficult, but you made it so easy.”