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British Airways’ cabin crew have voted for strike action over two consecutive weekends in March: a three-day walkout March 20-22 and a four-day walkout March 27-30.

The strikes will involve 12,000 flight attendants and will affect more than half a million BA passengers. As promised, there will be no strikes over the Easter period, but further strike action will take place after April 14 if no deal has been reached by then.

source: OnTheShow.com

Unions representing Spanish airline Iberia’s cabin crews have announced a further eight days of strikes unless a pay agreement can be reached. The dates for the proposed strikes are 30 November to 2 December, and 14 December to 18 December.

The airline has already been forced to ground hundreds of flights this week due to strike action.

Most of the affected flights have been short and medium-haul.

source: BBC

Thousands of people were forced to wait for hours at the Essex airport as police grappled with protesters who invaded the runway after using bolt cutters to slice through a perimeter fence.

The strike – just after 3am when the airport closed for maintenance – was organised by Plane Stupid to highlight Government’s “hypocrisy” for allowing a new runway at the airport while claiming to be looking for ways to cut CO2 emissions.

The result was 57 arrests, 52 cancelled flights and around 100 more – operated by some 30 airlines – delayed.

source: telegraph.co.uk

Travellers to Greece face further disruptions today as a strike by airport staff forces the cancellation of hundreds of flights. The 24-hour strike is part of a general strike orchestrated by Greece’s largest union, the GSEE, against the government’s economic policies.

The disruption comes as violent protests in Greece entered a fourth day, with 6000 people attending the teenage boy’s funeral whose death sparked the civil unrest.

source: the age

France faces more transport disruption this week as the Air France strike continues. Workers are protesting against government reforms to raise the retirement age of flight crew members up from 60 to 65 years of age.

So far the strike has affected over 35% of overseas flights and is estimated to cost Air France more than 100m euros.

source: lost-in-france.com

Spanish low-cost airline LTE says it is suspending services because it cannot cover the cost of operating.A statement on its Web site Friday says the 20-year-old company with bases in Palma de Mallorca, the Canary Islands and Milan, Italy is “doing everything to minimize the impact of this suspension of services on its clients and providers.”

The company which runs flights from Spain to England, Italy and Saudi Arabia, has 300 employees and a fleet of seven Airbus 320s.

source: International Herald Tribune

British Airways has been criticised for regularly blaming cancelled flights on ‘extraordinary circumstances’ to avoid paying compensation.

A Dutch campaigner says BA uses the ploy to bypass EU laws created to protect passengers.

BA has scrapped one in 50 of flights to and from Heathrow this year, with the 6.35pm plane to Frankfurt cancelled 27 times.

source: DailyMail.co.uk

Airports across the south of England saw hundreds of flights cancelled yesterday following a computer problem affecting the air traffic control system.

National Air Traffic Services (Nats), which oversees much of air traffic control in the UK, suffered a glitch that stopped data reaching workstations at its London area control centre at Swanwick in Hampshire.

In a statement, Ian Hall, director of operational performance at Nats, said: “We take every step to avoid any problems but are always aware, that in maintaining and updating highly complex systems, we can experience difficulties.”

He added that safety was not compromised at any stage.

source: Silicon.com

The holidays of more than quarter of a million people have been wrecked following the collapse of Britain’s third largest tour operator as the crisis engulfing the travel industry intensified.  

XL’s failure, which grounded flights around the world, is the biggest to hit the industry in 17 years as soaring oil prices and a collapse in consumer confidence hit home.

More than two dozen carriers have now folded in less than a year, the victims of surging fuel costs and the credit crisis.

source: Telegraph.co.uk

Low-cost airline Ryanair has been forced to cancel flights from its new Edinburgh base for the next six weeks because of strike action at Boeing.

Ryanair said the strike meant US aircraft manufacturers Boeing was unable to deliver two 737 planes it purchased to operate on the new routes.

source: BBC