news about cheap fares and airlines from travel search engine Trabber

Shares in tour operator MyTravel tumbled 8% today after it warned that profits would be hit by the recent UK security alert and attacks in Turkey and Jordan.MyTravel, which owns Going Places travel agencies and also has an aviation division, said it expects pre-tax profit for the full year to come in at £40-45m on operating profit of £55-60m. This compares to initial expectations of operating profits of £75-£85m.

MyTravel said UK winter trading had started slowly and was also affected by security concerns. Winter charter holiday bookings are down 11% on 10% less capacity.

source: Guardian Unlimited

Jetstar announced today it had commenced selling fares to Honolulu, Hawaii, confirming its six-strong stable of international long-haul destinations was readily available to New Zealand travelers through the low fare carrier’s ability to deliver connecting flights from Christchurch.

Jetstar is now offering amazing low fare direct flights to the popular holiday destination from Sydney and for the first time from Melbourne for a Qantas Group airline.

As many as five companies have applied for licences to launch new airlines in the country, Civil Aviation Secretary Ajay Prasad said on Wednesday.

While decision to grant them operating licenses have not yet been taken, new guidelines would be in place in the proposed Civil Aviation Policy, he told reporters on the sidelines of the Indo-US Economic Summit in New Delhi.

Under the existing guidelines, a new airline has to have a fleet of five aircraft and an equity capital of at least Rs 30 crore, among other things, to get a scheduled operator license allowing them to operate in the domestic sector with a published timetable.

source: Hindustan Times

Spain is poised to become the next battleground for budget airlines, with the price of internal flights expected to tumble. After years in which Iberia, the Spanish flag-carrier, has had the internal market nearly to itself, half a dozen low-cost carriers are moving in, including easyJet, Ryanair, Spanair, Vueling and Air Europa.

EasyJet is investing â?¬100 million (£68 million) to make Madridâ??s Barajas airport its new hub in Spain. The British low-cost carrier is expected to shake up the Spanish market this week by unveiling a string of new routes from Madrid, both domestic and international. The company is thought to have been granted slots to fly from Madrid to the Canary Islands and the northern cities of Asturias and Bilbao. EasyJet will make the new routes public this week, but promises that they will transform Spainâ??s domestic air travel market.

source: Times On Line

Continental Airlines said it is applying for permission to launch a daily service from Newark to Shanghai. The US will award one new flight designation next year.

Continental is competing against applications from American Airlines, United Airlines and Northwest Airlines.  American Airlines hopes to launch a service from Dallas Fort Worth to Beijing, United is looking to fly from Washington DC to Beijing, while Northwest will apply for a service to Shanghai from Detroit.

source: Forbes

Tuesday’s abrupt announcement that Halifax-based CanJet is abandoning its scheduled flights suggests that Canada does not have the population to sustain three national air services.

There was surprise that only five days’ notice was given about the move to end flights on Sunday. CanJet is a division of privately owned IMP Group Ltd., so its results and its “load factor” â?? the percentage of seats occupied by paying customers â?? weren’t being made public every three months as is customary with WestJet and Air Canada.

Running a scheduled airline when your main selling feature is the low price is tough to do year-round. It was probably no coincidence that the service suspension was announced after the Labour Day weekend, when casual fliers taking family vacations across Canada begin to stay home.

source: TheStar.com

Low-fare carrier Spirit Airlines said Thursday its traffic in August climbed 2.4 percent. Revenue passenger miles, which equate to one mile flown by one paying passenger, increased to 393.9 million from 384.6 million last year.

Ben Baldanza, president and CEO of Spirit Airlines, said, “This increase in passengers is a testament to Spirit’s popular service both in the Caribbean and in the US including new service to Boston’s Logan International Airport which began in August. Advanced bookings continue to be strong into the fall and I’m delighted to share that as of this week Spirit’s fleet transition is complete making it an all-Airbus airline with the youngest Airbus fleet in the Americas.”

Spirit Airlines, with hubs in Detroit and Fort Lauderdale, offers service to 29 cities in the United States, the Bahamas and the Caribbean.

source: chron.com

European airlines and the European Union’s justice and security commissioner said on Wednesday they opposed any attempt to ban passengers from carrying all forms of liquids on flights.

EU security experts were meeting on Wednesday and Thursday to make recommendations after Britain said on August 10 it had foiled a plot to blow up U.S.-bound trans-atlantic airliners. Officials said the plot involved homemade liquid explosives.

Any change to the rules on the transport of goods on flights would be decided by the European Commission as a whole after the security experts made their recommendations, said a Commission official.

source: scotsman.com

Southwest Airlines Co said it flew 6.2 bln revenue passenger miles in August, up 10 pct from the same month last year, while the load factor for the month rose to 77.1 pct from 76.1 pct a year ago.

The airline said available seat miles increased 8.5 pct to 8.1 bln in August from 7.5 bln a year ago.

source: Forbes

Southwest Airlines Co., Ryanair Holdings Plc and the world’s other low-cost carriers have doubled capacity in the past four years, OAG Worldwide, a travel and transportation data provider, said.Low-cost carriers are offering 46 million seats on more than 323,000 flights this month compared with 22 million seats on 169,000 flights in September 2002, Dunstable, England-based OAG said in an e-mailed statement today.

Budget airlines now account for 17 percent of all seats on sale worldwide. Discounters have been taking market share from network carriers since Southwest cut costs, slashed prices and increased demand in the U.S., and Ryanair adapted the model to the European market.

source: Bloomberg