news about cheap fares and airlines from travel search engine Trabber

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

Aviation entrepreneur Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou announced plans for Fastjet – a start-up rival for established operators such as Ryanair.

Relations between easyJet and Sir Stelios have been decidedly uneasy in the last 18 months.

Although the tycoon and his family still own 38 per cent of easyJet that he began from scratch in 1995 (with a £5million loan from his shipping-magnate father), discussions between the two parties have been icy since Haji-Ioannou resigned from the carrier’s board in May 2010 in a row over strategy.

source: dailymail.co.uk

Low-cost carrier Easyjet is to offer passengers in-flight entertainment for the first time.

Personal TVs will be available on selected flights for £7.50.

The new partnership with bespoke travel services provider Mezzo starts this week, with passengers able to hire personal devices loaded with “‘a range of blockbuster movies, TV programmes, music and games’”.

source: abtn.co.uk

The ‘Netherlands Board of Tourism & Conventions (NBTC)’ and low-cost carrier easyJet have strengthened their joint cooperation in Europe.

The two companies will work closely over the coming three years to push city breaks to Holland from the German, Spanish, Italian and British markets.

The decision comes just days after easyJet was recognised as Europe’s Leading Low-cost Airline by the prestigious World Travel Awards.

source: breakingtravelnews.com

Low-fare airline easyJet is to start services to Fuerteventura in the Canary Islands.

From March 28 next year, the budget carrier will operate twice-weekly flights to the second-largest of the Canary Islands from Gatwick airport.

Fuerteventura is the ninth new route to be introduced by easyJet from Gatwick since the beginning of this year.

source: Independent.co.uk

easyJet launches its UK spring schedule this week with around 300 low fare destinations.

More than 60,000 spring flights are now on sale, enabling passengers to secure the best fares early with 10 million seats available for travel from 25th March through to 24th June 2012.

Additional flights have been added to popular destinations including Madrid, Barcelona, Alicante and Rome, making Europe more accessible than ever before for passengers travelling from easyJet’s 10 UK bases.

source: 4-traders.com

The long-running war between the easyJet board and the airline’s founder and largest shareholder, Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou, has erupted again.

Sir Stelios has sent a letter to the easyJet board to call for a shareholders’ meeting to vote on the removal of Sir David Michels as a director.

This latest initiative by Sir Stelios is part of his campaign to get the company to limit its purchases of new planes and pay a dividend.

source: This is Money

Passengers on a budget airline last weekend were treated to the surreal experience of having a Royal prince in their midst.

Shunning the usual VIP treatment, Prince Harry took an easyJet flight home from Edinburgh with several other guests who had been attending the wedding of his cousin, Zara Phillips.

The story of Prince Harry’s cost-saving flight from Edinburgh to London came to light when rugby star and fellow passenger Olly Barkley, 29, posted a message on Twitter.

source: News Letter

One of EasyJet‘s biggest institutional shareholders has called on Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou, the airline’s founder and largest shareholder, to either stop attacking the company or make a bid for it if he is not happy with the way it is run.

Sir Stelios, who controls 38 per cent of the airline’s shares, has reignited his dispute with EasyJet by demanding the board call a shareholder vote over the airline’s plans to buy new aircraft from Airbus.

He demanded it halt any payments to the European aircraft maker for those aircraft until it has addressed his concerns.

source: FT.com