Fresh from the Eurostar incident just ten days ago, you might expect major airlines and the large transatlantic hubs in Europe to be using every communication tool available to warn passengers about the inevitable delays this week.

Following the alleged failed bomb attack on Northwest Airlines Flight 253 from Amsterdam Schipol to Detroit on Christmas Day, flights between Europe and the US are being delayed as extra security measures are put in place.

Screening at check-in side is also slowing things down considerably in what is a busy period as passengers return home from Christmas visits or prepare for New Year’s Eve trips – for example, there are around 100 transatlantic flights every day from the UK alone, mostly from London Heathrow.

As the new security measures kick in, some of the hubs in Europe are forewarning passengers what to expect via messages on their websites – probably the most obvious place passengers travelling will look over the next few days.

Of the four main European jump-points to the US, Heathrow Airport has given off a large space on its homepage for security information on US flights; Charles de Gaulle in Paris has a ticker bar in a prominent position at the top of the site with similar headlines; Frankfurt Main has no obvious signage; and Schipol, where the accused man boarded the plane with his explosive device, is also keeping any information low-key.

As for the airlines, BA has a been using its Twitter feed to let passengers know about what to expect on flights to US.

Virgin Atlantic, at the time of writing, is quite a  few days behind.

Given the number of passengers being affected and the number of followers (4,000 for Virgin), perhaps they could be doing a little bit more here to pass on information about flight and check-in delays.

On website homepages of the main transatlantic carriers, BA and Air France have said there are additional security measures in place and provided a link to an additional page explaining what to expect.

In contrast, Aer Lingus,Virgin Atlantic, Lufthansa, Iberia, SAS and KLM, amongst the other main carriers, have all avoided highlighting the delays many passengers are experiencing at airports across Europe as a result of increased security checks – sometimes up to two hours.

The counterpoint to this lack of obvious information is perhaps the airlines are warning cusotmers via text message or at the online check-in point for departing passengers.

But given the vast amount of criticism Eurostar faced last week simply because it failed to keep passengers informed of what was going on, perhaps airlines and airports should be doing everything they can to tell passengers that any journey to the US is likely to face a fair amount of upheaval in the coming days and weeks.

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