I'm not usually a worry-wort (sp?), so sorry if this is a silly question. We are in Vietnam now and will be flying home from Hong Kong via Tokyo on ANA in 1-1/2 weeks. Should we be concerned about the radiation leaks at Fukusima Daiichi or elsewhere in Japan? (i.e. should we talk to United about rerouting, or is this not a legitimate concern)?

I would certainly ask United if you could go home a different route, just because the airports may be chaotic if lots of tourists, Japanese, or ex-Pats start wanting to leave for a while.

As far as the radiation, you wouldn't be outside, so probably safe, but who knows? Things seem to be getting worse, not better.

The radiation leaks are really not a concern in terms of changing planes at Narita. What may be a concern is how overloaded the infrastructure may be at Narita. However, Narita is United's hub in Asia, and it will be difficult to re-route you.

Kathie, we flew here (to Hanoi) on United through Seoul. I wonder if HKG-Seoul-SFO is possible for the return. We'll be Saigon tomorrow, so we'll check with United.

It never hurts to ask. United used to have a non-stop HKG-SFO flight as well, I don't know it it still exists.

UA has a daily SGN-HKG flight, which connects to HKG-ORD, HKG-SFO, as well as CO's HKG-EWR. HKG is a mini-focus city for UA, with also has a crew base there too.

I knew Ray would know the options!

Well, we spent some time at the United ticket office in Saigon today. They were very nice, and tried to be helpful, unfortunately, there's nothing available around our dates. So at the moment, we're still flying HKG-Narita-SFO.

You'll be fine changing planes in Narita.

According to flyertalk, the Red Carpet Club at Narita was closed (yesterday?) and I have asked if anyone knows why and for how long... waiting for a reply, if anyone knows the answers. The international first lounge is closed, probably for some damage repairs.

RCC was open until yesterday, so I'm really curious why it closed, and for how long?? I really like taking a quick shower in the Red Carpet Club, so I hope things are back up and running by mid-April when I'll be transitting through NRT on my way to BKK. I also read that the ANA lounge was closed for repairs.

I agree that transitting thru NRT should not be a problem. But only time will tell... hopefully the situation gets resolved soon.

Good news... RCC at NRT is open once again.

I'm having this same dilemma.

We rebooked our Japan trip (for 1st week of April) to China now--but I still have mileage reward tix that connect through Tokyo to Beijing.

I can either leave those (for April 8th departure) and risk that it could work out -- or worse, Tokyo airport could close and we'll have no way of getting to China at the last minute.

...or I can cancel our tickets completely and pay a decent chunk of change for tickets to China that don't connect in Japan.

I'm leaning towards the latter over the former if only for the sheer uncertainty of what will happen in the next few weeks...and the chance that we could end up with a pre-paid vacation and no flight to get to it on.

What is the situation like now at NRT, did you connect sf7307, how was it?

> Should we be concerned about the radiation leaks at Fukusima
> Daiichi or elsewhere in Japan?

Worldwide, the average background radiation is 2,400
micro sieverts/year. Some places are higher (due to altitude, rock
types etc.), such as Denver at 10,000, others are lower. Tokyo is one
of those places with low background radiation; even with the current
spikes from Fukushima it's about 1,200/year.

Contrast that with a commercial flight, which will give you 3 to 6 micro sv per
HOUR (because the atmosphere, which shields you from cosmic rays, is
mostly below you at cruising altitude).

So a flight such as SFO-NRT will give you the equivalent dose of 12
days in contaminated Tokyo.

There's a nifty calculator here:
http://www.sievert-system.org/WebMas...valuation.html
Enter your itinerary and discover your dose.

And, of course, a CAT scan will give you 20,000.

Thank you, someotherguy, for your post. I've been meaning to look up some of that comparative data to post, but have been too busy. People get so panicky about radiation, and of course, the media is stirring it up as well.

How many micro sieverts will a TSA rapescan give you?

Airport scanners are supposed to be less than 0.1 micro sv per scan, but the relevance of the number has been challenged. See the letter below.
http://www.npr.org/assets/news/2010/05/17/concern.pdf

Basically, the hazard of X-rays is based on the assumption that the
energy is absorbed by your entire body, whereas the energy of these
scanners is such that it is mostly absorbed at the skin. Hence
(according to these guys), the dose at the cells affected is much
geater than assumed by the standard model.

Others dispute this. Wikipedia has a good article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Full_body_scanner
See also
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backscatter_X-ray