Hi, my mum is absolutely freaking out.

I am 3 months into a LONE5, I was in Tokyo but decided at the last minute to book a side trip to Seoul with KA, and I happened to leave the day before the earthquake. I am still here in Seoul now, and because of the situation in Japan, and to put my parents at ease, I decided to skip my Japan travels (in Osaka) and go straight to my next stop, ORD. I moved up my NRT-ORD flight on AA154 from 7th April to 20th March, which is the day I fly back from Seoul, so I am only transiting at NRT for 5 hours.

Now my mother is saying I should avoid NRT at all costs, because it is bananas. I do not have CNN or BBC here so I do not know what it looks like at the airport, by all accounts people are trying to get tickets, but I have a ticket already....she is pretty hyterical, telling me there is no food or water at the airport *sigh*

My family is willing to wear the cost of me changing things i.e. one way ticket to HKG. I booked the xONEx through Qantas, I do not know if the rebooking fee is $125 or Qantas charge more. Also, with the situation in NRT, would I be allowed to violate the rules and change my NRT-ORD flight to HKG-ORD or would this only be allowed if AA stopped flying the route?

My mother is concerned I will take the KA flight to NRT and then land there to find out there is no plane waiting for me, or I get bumped. I saw on flighttracker the flight was cancelled on the 11th and 12 of March, don't know why....

Incidentally, I assume I have to go through immigration, find my bag then wait 2 hours and check in again with the unwashed masses?

Should I consider cancelling and rebooking my ticket? How much of a refund can I get for my unused portion? So far I have gone AKL-xSYD-BKK-NRT, yet to do NRT-ORD-CUN-JFK-SFO-LIM-IGR-EZE-SCL-MAD-IST-xLHR-xHKG-AKL.

Thanks for your help, in this unique situation.

Ring QF and see what they can offer for a re-route if you really don't want to go through NRT. I can't see any problem with a day in NRT so long as you have a ticket out. Worst case is a reissue at $125 which is nothing in the scheme of things.

If you are considering make a travel insurance claim relating to problems in Japan, be aware that many insurance companies exclude radiation and related issues.

It's easy for me to say as I'm not the one trying to deal with the situation you are in but I would start by telling your mum to stop freaking out and get a grip.

You were in Japan and were due to fly out NRT-ORD on April 7. You decided to take a side trip to Seoul. I assume therefore you have a pretty flexible schedule that doesn't require you to be in any particular place any time soon. Why would you not finish your visit to Seoul and then head to Osaka as planned? If you can do that without transiting NRT, that would probably help, given that it will take a little time for things at NRT to settle down. Rushing back to NRT just so that you can then leave Japan again seems a bit pointless - if being there is such a major issue (for your mum), why go back there?

You shouldn't abandon or cancel your ticket. If you do, then technically you convert it into a series of one-way tickets for the legs you have flown and QF would be entitled to come after you for the cost of those one way tickets versus the cost of your LONE5 (and don't assume the LONE5 would be more than the cost of a few one-way flights - they'd probably start by charging you full Y fare for each of the one-way legs you've flown.) In the circumstances, QF might well agree to let you simply abandon the ticket or if you simply never show up for the rest of your ticketed flights, they would probably do nothing about it.

You can change the routing of your ticket for a $125 change fee. If the ticket currently has you in NRT but you're physically in ICN and don't want to go back to Japan, then have the ticket changed so it has you going NRT-own segment to ICN-HKG-USA (probably CX from HKG to LAX) and then pick up the rest of your trip. That may add a couple of segments to the trip so you may have to drop a couple of segments later - if so, do all the changes in one go so that you pay a single $125 fee for the changes. The biggest problem you will probably have is finding L inventory available out of HKG, so you may have to get creative. Try to figure out what the alternatives may be and then call QF ... or maybe just stick to the original plan and leave NRT on April 7. In any event, good luck!

As said before you should be able to change your RTW ticket to include a sufrface NRT-ICN and then continue from ICN, You still would need to stay inside the limitations of the RTW (number of sectors total, inside a continent etc) but with flexibility you should be able to find a way to go back - CX via HKG is likely your best bet.
If you don't find space you could also try to add a continent (possible cheaper than buying a new ticket) and go via Australia.
Otherwise your choices fom Asia to the US are pretty limited if you want to stay away from NRT.

The problem that I see is that the LONE is already max'ed out at 16 segments. To avoid NRT will require dropping a segment or two. My suggestion for your remaining segments would be ...BKK-NRT//PVG-ORD-CUN-JFK-SFO-LIM-IGR-EZE-MAD-IST-xLHR-xHKG-AKL. Separate ticket to Shanghi, replace NRT-ORD with PVG-ORD, drop the EZE-SCL segment and buy a cheap RT EZE-SCL. Keeps you within the 16 segment limit.

To start with, your mother is over reacting to nothing. The only parts of Japan that have any problems are the North East of Honshu. Tokyo and Chiba had some damage from the quake, but are in no danger at all from any radiation.
You shouldn't have any issues connecting through Narita. If you get a good check in agent at ICN, you should also be able to check through across the two tickets.

If you still go ahead and change the routing, you'd have to add NRT-ICN as a surface sector, which puts you over the sector limit and would require dropping a later flight.
You won't be able to do ICN-HKG-ORD. HKG-ORD service doesn't start until September.

If you must avoid NRT, I'd get yourself to HKG, reticket with a NRT-HKG surface sector, swap ORD/JFK or SFO/JFK around and drop SCL.

AKL-SYD-BKK-NRT/HKG-JFK-CUN-ORD-SFO-LIM-IGR-EZE-MAD-IST-LHR-HKG-AKL
AKL-SYD-BKK-NRT/HKG-SFO-ORD-CUN-JFK-LIM-IGR-EZE-MAD-IST-LHR-HKG-AKL