news about cheap fares and airlines from travel search engine Trabber

For the sake of its staff, its customers and its shareholders, it is time to take the British out of British Airways.

This defenestration is not intended as a punishment, but as a liberation. The airline, rebranded as BA and rebooted as a global carrier challenging for dominance in Europe, could finally unburden itself of its lingering tendency to expect more from Government than it gets, recast its relationship with the British people and refocus attention on the many things it is getting right.

For BA, under the leadership of Willie Walsh has been a success. Since he took over in 2005, the company has reduced debt levels to their lowest in nearly 20 years, halved the pension deficit, renegotiated working practices with the vast majority of staff ahead of the move to Terminal 5 and seen its share price rise by 66 per cent.

source: timesonline.co.uk

Ryanair yesterday announced two new routes from Nottingham East Midlands to Budapest and Riga starting in October.

The carrier is East Midlands’ largest airline and will carry 1.8m passengers to / from the airport this year.

Ryanair also launched a new European price war by giving away 1 million free seats.

source: Avionews

US Airways will stop direct flights to Baltimore and four other cities it serves from Pittsburgh International Airport and also plans to reduce service to 10 other cities.

The airline also says that service to San Diego and Seattle will not return on a seasonal basis as it has in the past.

Starting in July, the airline will eliminate nonstop service between Pittsburgh and Altoona, Baltimore, San Diego, Seattle and Buffalo, New York.

source: wusa9.com

Ryanair, Europe’s fastest-growing airline, on Thursday said it will launch flights four times a week between Budapest and Nottingham, Britain, from the end of October.

Tomas Kulakowski, the budget carrier’s business and marketing director for Central Europe, said Ryanair was expecting 60,000 passengers to fly the route in its first year.

Although Kulakowski did not disclose whether the airline planned to launch additional flights from Hungary, he said “this is not the last route” that Ryanair hoped to operate from Budapest airport. He said within a month new routes could be established.

source: International Herald Tribune

The German airline LTU has agreed to start flying between Melbourne international Airport flights and Berlin or Hamburg, Germany, starting in November, the airport director said.

Melbourne Aviation Director Richard Ennis said German-based M-Touristik has until August to determine whether there is enough interest, both in Germany and Florida, to justify flights once a week.

The deal will provide the airport its first scheduled international flights. Delta Air Lines provides daily flights between Melbourne and Atlanta.

source: TCpalm

Aer Lingus Group PLC said it is launching six new routes for this coming winter and adding capacity to some existing routes.

The Irish flag carrier said new services from Dublin to Helsinki, Bucharest, Agadir and Funchal will begin at the end of October, in addition to the restart of services from Dublin to Copenhagen and Cork to Munich.

source: Forbes

Southwest Airlines Co. has signed a 10-year contract to sell tickets through the Galileo distribution service to win more business travelers.

The agreement, Southwest’s second with a ticketing company, will be “‘a significant revenue growth opportunity,'” Chief Executive Gary Kelly said Wednesday at the airline’s annual meeting.

Kelly is betting that wider availability of tickets will lure more corporate travel accounts, bolstering Southwest’s bid to add revenue while limiting fare increases. Jet fuel and labor costs rose 59 percent and 9.7 percent, respectively, in 2006.

source: Chicago Tribune

Jetstar is about to face its first challenge on the long-haul “low-cost” airline market between Asia and Australia, after the Chinese budget carrier Viva Macau confirmed plans to fly to Sydney by late July.

The airline, which is based in Macau, plans to launch three weekly services to Sydney once it takes delivery of its third Boeing 767 next month.

source: smh.com.au

Icelandic airline Icelandair Group said last week that it had signed a letter of intent to buy Czech charter and airline operator Travel Service for an undisclosed amount.

The acquisition, expected to be completed next month, will push Icelandair’s expected 2007 turnover to more than $1 billion (Kč 20.9 billion), up 30 percent from 2006. Travel Service, which operates low-cost airline Smartwings and has turnover of € 190 million and passenger numbers of 1.8 million, had been in talks last year about a tie-up with state airline Czech Airlines (ÄŒSA).

source: cbw.cz

Italian rival airline Air One emerged Monday as the frontrunner in the three-way race for Alitalia as Treasury officials met to discuss which bidders will make it to the next phase of the auction.

Three consortiums are vying for a minimum 39.9 per cent stake in the troubled national carrier, which according to figures published ahead of Tuesday’s board meeting lost more than 400 million euros (542 million dollars) during the course of 2006.

Of these, Air One is the favourite among analysts because it is seen as being in the best position to guarantee the company’s Italian identity, as requested by the Treasury.

source: monstersandcritics.com