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Italy is seeking solutions for Alitalia that would keep it both Italian and privately owned, the government said Saturday, responding to EU warnings against renationalising the ailing air carrier.

Economics Minister Giulio Tremonti said the new government of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi was “seeking a solution which is Italian and fundamentally private“.

Tremonti said Berlusconi’s new government was committed to attracting Italian investors to Alitalia.

source: Yahoo!

Isle of Man airline EuroManx has ceased trading today, blaming rising fuel prices and falling passenger numbers.

The airline has become the latest airline casualty following the recent collapses of carriers Eos, Oasis, Nationwide and MAXJet.

Euromanx has provided services dedicated to the Isle of Man for the past five years.

source: Travelweekly.co.uk

EasyJet, bmibaby and a number of other airlines should no longer be considered as low-cost carriers (LCCs), according to travel technology provider Sabre Airline Solutions.

A survey of 540 airlines by the company revealed that of the 123 which said they were low-cost carriers, more than half offered services which were more in keeping with traditional airlines, such as codesharing and multiple classes of service.

source: Times On Line

The chaotic opening of Heathrow’s Terminal 5 last month led to British Airways’ worst April since the start of the Iraq war. Yesterday the airline said that passenger numbers had fallen by 7.9 per cent, or 221,000 people, to 2.5 million after the problematic opening of the £4.3 billion terminal.

The British flag carrier was forced to cancel more than 430 flights and lost about 20,000 pieces of luggage as it moved into its new home at T5. The negative publicity and cancelled flights are thought to have contributed substantially to the fall in passenger numbers during the month.

This particularly affected BA’s UK and European operations, which were the first to move into T5. Short-haul passenger numbers fell 8.5 per cent last month and BA’s aircraft were operating at only 70 per cent of capacity.

source: Times onLine

Budget airline easyJet said Wednesday that its losses in the first half more than tripled as rising fuel costs outweighed a 24 percent jump in revenues.

The company reported a loss of 43.3 million pounds ($85.4 million) in the six months ending March 31, compared with a loss of 12.7 million pounds in the same period a year earlier.

source: Forbes

Air Berlin PLC, Germany’s second-largest airline, said Wednesday the number of passengers who traveled with it in April rose 6.5 percent to 2.24 million passengers, compared with 2.1 million passengers a year earlier.The airline’s capacity utilization rose by 4.5 percentage points to 78.8 percent, compared with 74.3 percent in April a year ago. Capacity utilization is a measure of how full airplanes are.

source: iht.com

One in three European airline and travel Web sites conceal the true cost of flights until consumers are close to booking, according to a report from the European Commission, which on Thursday is to threaten new measures against the industry if the abuses continue.The warning from the commission follows a survey that found that dozens of well-known travel operators, budget airlines and national carriers are probably in breach of European Union consumer protection law.

The survey, coordinated by the European commissioner for consumer protection, Meglena Kuneva, found that many Web sites present more than one type of irregularity. The biggest reported problem was misleading pricing, affecting 79 Web sites under investigation, while 67 sites gave consumers contract details in the wrong language or had optional services added on automatically unless a box was unchecked.

source: iht.com

Irish flag carrier Aer Lingus has become the latest airline to hike charges in the face of surging fuel costs, raising bag check-in fees as the global oil price hit a new record today of $120.93 a barrel.

Aer Lingus announced the increase this morning in the wake of similar moves last week by British Airways, which raised fuel surcharges, and easyJet, which also increased bag check-in charges. From Thursday, online bag check-in at Aer Lingus will cost £8 while checking in luggage at the airport will cost £12 an item.

source: guardian.co.uk

As of May 1, passengers can fly direct between Toronto and Dusseldorf, Germany. Lufthansa, one of the world’s largest air carriers, is offering service to Dusseldorf six times a week, allowing passengers the convenience of 35-minute connections to more than 50 popular European destinations including Barcelona, Budapest, Moscow, Munich, Paris and many others.

source: Aviation.ca

With flights to India driving its growth, Nordic carrier Finnair is adding one more flight to India in June, even as it awaits permission from the government to add more destinations in addition to Mumbai and Delhi.

“‘Currently we have 12 flights a week between India and Helsinki. By June, we will fly daily from New Delhi and six times a week from Mumbai,'” Taina Tornstrom, the director for Indian subcontinent for the airline, told reporters.

Bangalore and Chennai are some of the Indian cities that Finnair is keen on starting new services to. The airline is also tapping the traffic to Europe from India, with Helsinki as the base.

source: The Economic Times