Trabber News

news about cheap fares and airlines from travel search engine Trabber


News of January 2008


Low cost airline launches carbon offsetting

26 January 2008

Low cost airline Atlas Blue is introducing a carbon offsetting programme so environmentally conscious passengers can pay to offset their emissions.

Atlas Blue, which offers flights from Gatwick to Marrakech in Morocco, is the first airline in Africa and the second in Europe to offer carbon offsetting to passengers as part of its booking platform.

source: Holidayextras


Bermuda-Toronto – Low cost airline breaks monopoly

26 January 2008

Low cost airline Zoom is launching a Toronto service starting May 1, breaking Air Canada’s monopoly.

The airline is also dropping its JFK service in the summer and flying to Fort Lauderdale, Florida instead. That route starts on May 22.

Making the announcement yesterday, Premier and Tourism Minster Ewart Brown, said healthy competition means lower prices. “We expect the same to be true now for people flying on the Toronto route. This is good news for a great number of people,” he said.

source: BDASun


Ryanair puts up check-in charges

24 January 2008

RyanAir has raised check-in costs for passengers and baggage on all new bookings with immediate effect.

They want to encourage passengers to travel without checking baggage into the hold and to check-in free online.

From now the cost of checking in a bag will rise from £5 to £6 per bag and to check-in at the airport will cost £3, up from £2.

source: Liverpool Echo


Jetstar delays its launch of services to Europe

24 January 2008

Jetstar, the low-cost airline owned by Australia’s Qantas, has been forced to postpone the start of services to Europe following delays in the delivery of Boeing’s 787 Dreamliner.

Alan Joyce, Jetstar’s chief executive, said the problems at Boeing would have a knock-on effect to the start of its new services of at least a few months.

Jetstar had initially hoped to begin services to Europe in early 2009. However, it now expects the timetable to slip until later that year or early 2010.

Qantas had previously said that delays to deliveries from both Boeing and Airbus were causing capacity shortages. However, the shortages have allowed the airline to increase load factors, helping to push profits to record highs.

source: FT.com


Norwegian airline declares bankruptcy

24 January 2008

The small Norwegian airline Coast Air declared bankruptcy and immediately canceled all flights on Wednesday, saying it had been stunned by unexpected and unsustainable fourth-quarter losses.

Coast Air was Norway’s fourth-largest airline, after SAS Norway, Norwegian Air Shuttle and Wideroe. It had eight routes in Norway and two international connections, to Copenhagen, Denmark, and Gdansk, Poland.

source: Chron.com


Wi-Fi for airline passengers moves closer to reality

24 January 2008

That’s the choice air passengers are likely to have later this year as progress in both systems was announced this week.

Southwest Airlines on Wednesday said it is testing satellite-based service developed by Row 44. Southwest said it hopes to begin testing Internet service on four of its aircraft this summer.

Meanwhile, American Airlines on Tuesday reported that it has installed Aircell’s Internet broadband on one of its 15 Boeing 767-200 aircraft. The air-to-ground technology utilizes a network of 92 cell towers scattered across the continental U.S.

Both technologies are expected to deliver Wi-Fi service — likely for a fee — to passengers. While users will be able to surf the Web and access their e-mail accounts, they will be blocked from using cell phones and VoIP.

source: Information Week


clickair extends online check-in initiative to London

22 January 2008

Spanish airline clickair has launched ”click&fly” check-in at London Heathrow and plans to roll the service out to Gatwick shortly.

The service allows UK and European-originating passengers to select their seat and print their boarding pass as soon as the booking is confirmed, even if the date of travel is six months away.

source: Travelmole


Ryanair action on Aer Lingus switch

22 January 2008

Ryanair has begun legal action against the Financial Regulator.

The airline is challenging what it claims is a decision of the regulator not to investigate why the Government was the only party given what it called ‘inside information’ on the decision to transfer the Aer Lingus Shannon-Heathrow link to Belfast.

Ryanair was given leave to seek a judicial review of a decision of the regulator not to carry out an investigation of the matter after Aer Lingus chief executive, Dermot Mannion, revealed on radio that the Minister for Transport, Noel Dempsey, had been informed of the Heathrow decision before it was publicly announced.


Low cost airlines capture 41.7 pct Spanish market share in December

22 January 2008

Low-cost airlines captured 41.7 pct of Spanish market share in December, up 35.4 pct from a year earlier, the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Tourism said.

In a statement, the ministry said the no-frills airlines’ load factor for the month was 80.2 pct compared with the 77.3 pct registered by traditional airlines.

source: Forbes


New low-cost airline from SA to Europe

21 January 2008

A new low-cost airline will soon be whisking South Africans from Cape Town and Durban to London’s Stansted airport.

The airline, to be named Redair, is the brainchild of airline entrepreneur Andy Cluver, who runs local charter company Civair.

Redair has been granted air traffic rights to fly five weekly round-trip flights from Cape Town or Durban to London. There are also hopes that four slots currently not being used by South African Airways will be made available. London’s Telegraph newspaper also reports that the airline will offer services between Cape Town and Barcelona and Malaga.

source: iafrica.com