Travel

How much will it cost to visit a museum, zoo or aquarium this summer? The answer, increasingly, is: It depends.John Linehan can rattle off almost two dozen factors that Zoo New England’s dynamic pricing contractor, Digonex, uses to recommend what to charge guests.“It’s complicated,” said Linehan, president and CEO of the operator of two zoos in eastern Massachusetts.Before adopting dynamic pricing, the organization was changing prices seasonally and increasing entry rates little by little. “As we watched that pattern, we were afraid some families were going to get priced out,” he said of the earlier approach. “I’m a father of four and I know what it is like.”Now, Zoo New England’s system provides cheaper rates for tickets purchased far in advance. That, coupled with the zoo’s participat...

There appeared to be no survivors among the 242 passengers and crew aboard an Air India plane that crashed near a major international airport in the western Indian city of Ahmedabad, the city's police commissioner said Thursday.Footage posted to social media shortly after the crash and verified by NBC News, shows plumes of thick black smoke rising into the sky from a civilian location to the south of the airport. “It appears there are no survivors in the plane crash,” G.S. Malik, police commissioner for Ahmedabad told The Associated Press, adding that “some locals would have also died” when the plane crashed into a residential area where offices were also located.“Exact figures on casualties are being ascertained,” he said.The flight crashed midday local time shortly after takeoff from ...

Los Angeles took a huge step toward linking airplanes to trains on Friday, as the nation's fifth busiest hub joined the modern travel world and offered car-loving Southern Californians an off-ramp from traffic-clogged freeways.The LAX/Metro Transit Center is set to open at 5 p.m. PT and will connect travelers to the K or C rail lines, which can then whisk them north in the direction of central Los Angeles, south toward beach cities or east along Interstate 105.The breakthrough is an absolute necessity for organizers of the 2028 Olympics if they're going to fulfill their vow of making it a "no car Games." "This is a big day for L.A.," County Supervisor Janice Hahn said in a statement shortly after a ceremonial ride at the new station.Hahn, the MTA chair, used good humor and invoked the m...

President Donald Trump announced Wednesday night that nationals from 12 countries would be banned from entering the United States starting on Monday.Trump said that the ban, which primarily targets countries in Africa and the Middle East, was necessary to preserve national security and prevent terrorism in the U.S. "As President, I must act to protect the national security and national interest of the United States and its people," Trump's proclamation reads. "I remain committed to engaging with those countries willing to cooperate to improve information-sharing and identity-management procedures, and to address both terrorism-related and public-safety risks."Who is banned?Citizens of the following 12 countries will be blocked from entering the United States: Afghanistan, Chad, Equatori...

Newark Liberty International Airport on Monday will reopen a closed runway that has contributed to weeks of delays and chaos at the travel hub.Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy will lead a news conference from the airport Monday to mark the runway’s reopening.Runway 4L-22R — which is 11,000 feet long — has been undergoing “planned rehabilitation” after showing “significant signs of wear” and has now been deemed safe and up to the Federal Aviation Administration’s standards, according to a release from the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which operates Newark Airport.It had last been rehabilitated in 2014, and runways are typically updated about every 10 years, the statement said.According to the release, the $121 million project began in early March and was set to be finish...

For many European gays, the festive Eurovision Song Contest each May marks the unofficial kickoff to the global Pride season.As usual, there were soaring highlights and scandalous lowlights among the competing Eurovision nations at the 2025 edition of the contest in Basel, Switzerland, this month. But another country was on the lips of many queer jet-setters this year: the United States, with its spate of new anti-trans and anti-immigrant policies that are causing some LGBTQ travelers to reconsider their upcoming American itineraries. Several European countries, including Denmark, Finland and Germany, have issued official cautions for LGBTQ travelers visiting the U.S., particularly those with an “X” gender listed on their passport. Meanwhile, out of concerns for participant safety, Cana...

A Delta flight erupted into chaos on Saturday when two pigeons were discovered in the plane's main cabin, video of the pandemonium shows. According to an Instagram post from another passenger, Tom Caw was the passenger who spotted the first pigeon before the plane departed from Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport. Caw said the pilot announced the pigeon sighting and returned the plane to the gate to have the bird removed.As the flight taxied out to take off again, a second pigeon emerged and flew down the main aisle of the cabin, video Caw posted on Instagram and NBC News obtained shows. The bird prompted several passengers to scream. "Pilot said when he radioed the control tower about us coming back due to a pigeon, the guy said that was a first for him," Caw wrote. "Pilot tol...

A series of destructive storms across parts of the South and central U.S. could wash out Memorial Day plans and snarl millions of Americans’ return trek home.As of Monday morning, hundreds of flights had been delayed in the U.S., with dozens of others canceled, according to data on FlightAware.com. The Dallas-Fort Worth area, which has seen several rounds of thunderstorms and gusting winds over the weekend and into Monday, has been the most affected by those delays, the flight-tracking site said.Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport, American Airlines' largest hub, said it was expecting to serve about 1.4 million travelers over the holiday. Over the weekend, lines hundreds of people deep snaked around the airport's terminals.It's also the first Memorial Day weekend and major holiday t...

Consumers aren’t ready to ditch their travel plans despite growing economic gloom. But they are hunting for bargains — and hoping to find them on the open road.Some 53% of U.S. consumers are planning vacations this season, up from 48% a year ago, Deloitte researchers reported Tuesday. There’s especially strong interest in brief but more frequent trips closer to home, including by car, as travelers take a “more frugal approach” this year, the analysts said.Chris Narvaez, 45, had planned to visit London and Rome this summer. Airfares to Europe are down 8%, according to travel booking platform Hopper, but the New York City-based human resources director said he’s “hitting the pause button” on overseas travel.Chris Narvaez scrapped European travel plans and is sticking to shorter trips arou...

Summer’s unofficial kickoff is here and Americans are wasting no time getting out of town. From crowded airports to congested highways, Memorial Day travel is heating up, thanks in part to a dip in gas prices.A record 45.1 million people are expected to travel between Thursday May 22 and Monday May 26, breaking the 2005 holiday weekend record of 44 million travelers, according to AAA. Of those travelers, more than 38 million are expected to hit the road, marking the highest number of Memorial Day drivers AAA has ever recorded. Fueling this travel frenzy is good news at the pump: A gallon of regular gasoline was $3.17 as of May 19, down 11% compared to the same time last year, according to AAA. Airports are also bracing for the holiday rush. More than 3.5 million people are expected to f...