A Russian tennis player was refused boarding to a flight operated by Polish flag carrier LOT, the airline confirmed on Tuesday, in an incident that drew an angry response from the athlete on social media. Tennis player Vitalia Diatchenko said on Monday she was refused boarding to a LOT flight in Cairo, with German airline Lufthansa then also refusing to sell her a ticket. "I slept at the airport, I was treated like a third class citizen (because of my nationality), spent a few thousand euro," Diatchenko wrote. The 32-year old said she had been attempting to travel to a tournament in Corsica via Warsaw and Nice. In an emailed statement, LOT confirmed it had not allowed the player to board, citing restrictions introduced by Poland's interior ministry during the COVID-19 pandemic and updated in 2022 following Russia's invasion of Ukraine. "The provisions of the regulation introduce restrictions at certain border crossings, including airport crossings, in relation to citizens of the Russian Federation traveling from outside the Schengen area," LOT said in an emailed statement. The European Union has banned all flights from Russia and has agreed to limit issuing free-travel Schengen zone visas. In September, Finland joined the Baltic states and Poland in closing its borders to Russian tourists.<br/>
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ANA Holdings is canceling flight tickets that were sold at bargain-basement prices last week following a currency conversion error on its Vietnam website. Opportunists had jumped upon the mistake, snapping up tickets cheaply. Some spent just a few hundred dollars for business- and first-class seats rather than the thousands they’d usually go for. “For the flights which were erroneously processed, ANA will cancel and fully refund all itineraries,” the Japanese airline said Tuesday. “ANA will notify each customer affected by the error. We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience, and appreciate your cooperation in communicating with us.” ANA said the currency conversion error was related to a technical issue in a fare-quote system provided by Amadeus IT Group SA. An Amadeus spokesperson confirmed that a technical error relating to currency conversion “temporarily led, in some instances, to incorrect pricing being displayed for specific cabin classes for ANA.” Amadeus said it has fixed this issue. <br/>