news about cheap fares and airlines from travel search engine Trabber

JetBlue Airways Corp. said Thursday its traffic rose 11.8 percent in September as occupancy fell on increased capacity.

The carrier’s traffic rose to 1.84 billion revenue passenger miles last month from 1.64 billion a year earlier. A revenue passenger mile is an industry unit measuring one paying passenger flown one mile.

Capacity rose 13.7 percent to 2.57 billion available seat miles from 2.26 billion in September 2006. An available seat mile is an industry unit that factors in the number of seats available and the number of miles flown.

source: Forbes

Air Berlin reports positive figures for September 2007. The number of passengers transported amounted to 2,454,637 passengers, i.e. a 21 percent increase in comparison with the corresponding month of the previous year.

source: Boarding.no

Aer Lingus passengers look set to face disruption to their flights from next week as the dispute over the establishment of a new base in Belfast threatens to ground the airline.

The airline yesterday wrote to all of the airline’s 480 pilots asking them to confirm by next Monday that they would carry out duties to facilitate the opening of the new Belfast operation. Failure to do so would result in being suspended without pay, chief executive Dermot Mannion said in the letter.

The president of the Irish Airline Pilots’ Association (Ialpa), Evan Cullan, accused the airline of “‘a lock-out'”. Impact, the union that represents the pilots, said mass suspensions would effectively shut the airline down.

source: ireland.com

Budget airline bmibaby has announced the launch of services from Cardiff to Warsaw and the port of Gdansk in the wake of a growing Polish immigration.

Flights went on sale today with fares starting from just £21.99 one way, including all taxes and charges.

The new route to Warsaw starts with a three times a week service operating from Cardiff on Mondays, Wednesdays and Sundays, commencing on February 10.

Flights to Gdansk run twice weekly from Cardiff, departing on Tuesdays and Thursdays, with flights beginning on February 9.

source: icWales

Aer Lingus said on Monday it would suspend pilots who failed to help the Irish airline recruit and train new staff at its planned new Belfast base, in a further dispute between workers and management.

Aer Lingus said in August it would transfer valuable Heathrow slots from Shannon to a new Belfast base in Northern Ireland.

The move has triggered strike threats by Aer Lingus pilots who fear staff in Belfast will be employed on lower pay than those in the Republic of Ireland.

source: iii.co.uk

Romanian low-cost airline Blue Air has started its new direct service between Stansted Airport and Bucharest.

Blue Air said return flights will start from £1.50 excluding tax, and will operate twice daily on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.

“‘This is a new direct link and is the first of a number of new route launches set to start from here this month,'” Nick Barton, from Stansted, said.

source: BBC

Low cost airline Ryanair will launch its new daily service from December 13th 2007, seeing the number of routes from Cork rise to six.

“‘We are delighted to announce these two new daily flights to East Midlands and Glasgow from Cork. This expansion will see Ryanair carry over one million passengers on its six routes from Cork in 2008,'” commented Ryanair head of communications Peter Sherrard.

source: Travelbite.co.uk

To offer fares as low as $1 on some flights, Spirit must fiercely control costs, which can lead to understaffing. Tight cost control helped Spirit turn a profit from operations of $22 million in the first half of 2007, following three straight years of losses. However, Spirit’s strategy appears to wager that consumers dazzled by ultra-low fares will overlook reports by passengers unhappy with its service.

source: CRM Buyer

Zoom Airlines has largely been flying under the radar screen of the big transatlantic carriers for the past couple of months, since it began its attempt to bring its own brand of low fares to the crowded London-New York market.

The latest upstart to seek to carve out a living in this lucrative but highly competitive route launched its initial once-a-day service between London Gatwick and New York JFK in June with relatively little fanfare, but it has big ambitions.

source: MSNBC

Spirit Airlines is No. 6 in the nation for the number of passenger complaints about service in August, as total complaints nearly doubled, transportation officials said.

The 88 complaints lodged against the Miramar-based low-cost airline were primarily related to refunds, baggage issues and flight problems. Spirit made up 6.5 percent of the total complaints, the Air Travel Consumer Report showed.

The rate of on-time flights at the nation’s 20 largest airlines was 71.7 percent in August, down from 75.8 in August 2006, the report showed.

source: South Florida Business Journal