news about cheap fares and airlines from travel search engine Trabber

Rising baggage charges and weakening competition helped EasyJet push up revenues per seat by 8 per cent in the three months to December, buoying investor confidence.

The mild winter also helped Europe’s second-biggest budget carrier, with an absence of snow-related disruptions boosting the number of seats flown in its first quarter and subduing unit costs other than fuel.

But innovations aimed at boosting the number of higher-paying business passengers are not yet proving drivers of top-line growth. Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou, EasyJet’s founder and biggest shareholder, on Thursday lambasted management for trumpeting an incremental, 200,000-person rise in the number of passengers who said they were travelling on business.

source: FT.com

Airline Easyjet has amended its pricing amid government plans to ban excessive surcharges when buying tickets online.

The company has introduced a £9 flat administration fee to replace the previous £8 booking fee levied on anyone paying with most debit cards.

The government vowed in December to make online prices clearer so consumers could shop around.

However, Easyjet believes its new fee will not be subject to new legislation.

source: BBC.co.uk

easyJet has announced increased capacity on five of its most popular ski routes making it the UK’s largest ski airline. This season the airline is offering more than one million seats to ski destinations – a four percent increase on last season – to ensure that winter thrill seekers can secure affordable flights to the widest range of ski resorts.

Fresh snowfall, particularly at high altitude western European resorts, has prompted resorts in Austria, France, Italy and Switzerland to open up for the first time this season.

source: traveldailynews.com

easyJet founder Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou has announced plans for ‘The Car Club’ – a car rental scheme where customers can ‘share’.

He has already joined the car hire business with easyCar rental company and the new scheme would run through its website.

A joint launch-project with Brent Hoberman, the co-founder of late bookings website LastMinute.com, The Car Club, due to launch in the New Year, will see registered owners pool their vehicles and allow them to be rented out for an hourly fee.

source: travelmole.com

Technology that allows aircraft to measure volcanic ash concentrations so they can steer clear of dangerous clouds in mid-flight has been successfully tested by EasyJet.

The system used by the low-cost carrier could improve the mapping of ash clouds, helping regulators avoid shutting down large swathes of commercial airspace in response to volcanic eruptions.

source: FT.com

Ryanair and easyJet are going head-to-head on the new battleground of paid-for allocated seating, as they seek to ramp up passenger numbers.

Ryanair is to extend its allocated seating service across all of its routes from January 2012.

EasyJet said that its prices for allocated seating would “stay true to easyJet’s commitments to low fares“.

Both airlines operate a priority boarding service, which means for an extra charge, passengers can get first choice on seats.

source: marketingmagazine.co.uk

EasyJet is breaking with one of the key principles of low-cost airlines as it begins a trial of allocating seats on some routes.

Starting this spring, the budget carrier will allow passengers on some flights to pay a surcharge to choose a seat in advance. Carolyn McCall, chief executive, said it was too early to say how much this option would cost travellers, nor how many or which routes would be included in the trial. She added that “if it increases boarding time we won’t do it”.

source: FT.com

Carolyn McCall, chief executive of EasyJet, does not want to answer many detailed questions about its short or long-term growth strategy, including opportunities to expand into new markets or buy aircraft.

EasyJet is seeking to turn itself into a higher quality brand because it is targeting affluent consumers who fly more than once a year, and also trying to woo more business people. This strategy underlines how EasyJet regards its main competitors as the European flag carriers rather than Ryanair, Europe’s largest budget airline by revenue.

She wants EasyJet to concentrate on securing more revenues in its existing markets – such as the UK, France and Spain – and hopes the airline can raise its dividend over time.

source: FT.com

Low-fare airline easyJet will  announce that it is opening two new bases in Nice and Toulouse – a pre-emptive strike against Air France.

The move is an attempt to steal the thunder from the Gallic flag-carrier, which has recently unveiled its own plans to operate a low-cost model from new regional bases.

Air France opened a new base in Marseille on October 2 but is stuck in negotiations with the unions over other bases, including in Nice and Toulouse.

source: Telegraph.co.uk

In a move that has astonished the airline industry, not to mention EasyJet, Haji-Ioannou is preparing to launch a new airline, Fastjet. There are few further details as yet – simply a single, bright red webpage, Fastjet.com, bearing the message “by Stelios. Coming soon!”.

We don’t yet know what sort of fleet he is planning, whether he has leased any aircraft, which routes Fastjet will fly or whether it will go head to head with EasyJet, in which the billionaire entrepreneur and his family retain a 38 per cent stake.

Haji-Ioannou has been engaged in a long and increasingly bitter battle with EasyJet management on a number of fronts, peace seemed to have broken out between the two sides just last week, when the board bowed to pressure to pay a special dividend to shareholders.

source: irishtimes.com