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News of October 2009


Air Berlin enters cooperation with Bangkok Airways

30 October 2009

German airline Air Berlin Plc has entered a codeshare cooperation with Bangkok Airways of Thailand, allowing Air Berlin passengers to book connecting flights on the Thai airline.

The German carrier will offer together with Bangkok Airways codeshared connecting flights within Thailand from Bangkok.

Air Berlin is Germany’s second largest airline after Deutsche Lufthansa AG.

source: Etaiwan News


Lufthansa postpones plane deliveries to cut costs

29 October 2009

Deutsche Lufthansa said on Thursday it had rescheduled some aircraft delivieries that had originally been planned for 2010-2013 to help cut costs amid the global economic crisis.

Airlines around the world have been grounding airplanes and cancelling aircraft orders to cope with lower demand. Plane makers Boeing and rival Airbus are headed for their worst annual order tally in at least 15 years.

source: Reuters


Miles soon also redeemable for Germanwings flights

29 October 2009

Miles & More members will soon have even more opportunities to take city breaks or book holiday trips to interesting destinations. From 1 December, when Germanwings becomes a new airline partner in Lufthansa’s frequent flyer programme Miles & More, participants in the scheme will also be able to exchange award miles they have earned to date for award flights with Germanwings.

Germanwings offers flights to Split, Barcelona, Salzburg, Rome and Mykonos – to name just a few of the 70 attractive destinations the low-cost carrier flies to in Europe.

source: Media Newswire


Ryanair threatens to pull Boeing orders in price spat

28 October 2009

Ryanair Holdings Plc said it will cancel existing aircraft orders with Boeing Co. if the U.S. manufacturer doesn’t cut the asking price for a new batch of planes.

Negotiations with Boeing over a contract for as many as 200 short-haul aircraft are progressing “‘slowly’,” Chief Executive Officer Michael O’Leary said today at a briefing in Hamburg. Ryanair may respond by shelving the requirement and scrapping and deferring some current contracts.

source: Daily Herald


Licenses of 2 Northwest pilots who overshot airport are revoked

28 October 2009

FAA administrator J. Randolph Babbitt revoked the licenses of the two Northwest Airlines pilots who said they were distracted by laptops when they flew 150 miles past the Minneapolis International Airport before circling back to land.

Air traffic controllers lost radio contact with Northwest Flight 188, carrying 147 passengers, for 90 minutes Oct. 21. Controllers and airline dispatchers repeatedly tried to reach them through radio and data contact, without success. The agency cited the pilots for ignoring air traffic control instructions and “‘operating in a reckless manner that endangered the lives and property of others.'”

source: Washington Post


Iberia prepares for tough future

24 October 2009

Iberia’s plans for a new airline, presented in the midst of merger talks with British Airways, shows the company bracing for a tough future, with or without a partner, analysts said on Friday.

The announcement of the new network airline within its 2012 strategic plan surprised the market, considering its merger plans with BA, which has hinted at a tie-up before the end of the year.

But regardless of a merger, Iberia warned of the need for innovative measures to ensure its viability as the industry weathers the worst crisis in a decade.

source: Reuters


Amadeus warming up for public offering

19 October 2009

The move towards a stock-market listing in Madrid, potentially one of Spain’s largest ever, comes as Amadeus rival Travelport also looks to revive its own, pre-credit crunch IPO plans.

The company, controlled by private-equity firms BC Partners and Cinven Group Ltd. has hired Goldman Sachs Group, JP Morgan Chase and Morgan Stanley as global coordinators. Air France has 23.14 percent of Amadeus and Iberia and Lufthansa both have 11.57 percent each.

source: breakingtravelnews.com


Germanwings and bmibaby to team up

19 October 2009

Low cost airlines Germanwings and bmibaby have announced an agreement to link their website and list flights of both airlines on germanwings.com and bmibaby.com. This means that customers will benefit from a wider range of available flights.

The link will make it possible to book additional connections through the Germanwings and bmibaby website. In order to minimise booking time, the airlines have combined to introduce an extremely simply ticketing procedure. Having selected a flight, the customer will be forwarded to the corresponding booking page of the partner airline where they will be able to buy to purchase a ticket for the next stage of their journey.

source: traveldailynews.com


Airline flies first passenger flight on natural gas

14 October 2009

The world’s first commercial passenger flight powered by a fuel made from natural gas completed late on Monday a six-hour journey from London to Qatar, one of the biggest producers of natural gas.

“‘Today’s flight opens the door to an alternative to oil-based aviation fuel,'” Malcolm Brinded, Royal Dutch Shell’s executive director upstream international, said in a statement late on Monday.

source: Reuters


Lufthansa to relaunch in-flight wi-fi

14 October 2009

Lufthansa is to relaunch its FlyNet in-flight internet service from the middle of next year. The airline was one of the pioneers of in-flight wi-fi, launching the Flynet service in 2003 and running it until 2006. The service ended when the company providing the service, Connexion by Boeing, turned it off. At the time, Boeing said that no market for the service had materialised. However, many American airlines now have in-flight wi-fi on large parts of their domestic fleets while OnAir is providing in-flight data services to a numebr of airlines, including British Airways.

source: Times Online