news about cheap fares and airlines from travel search engine Trabber

Hong Kong Airlines has placed an order for 10 Airbus A380 aircraft worth about $3.8bn (£2.5bn) at list prices.

The contract will be a relief for the European planemaker, as the order risked being derailed by a dispute between the European Union and China.

Beijing opposes an EU plan that international airlines comply with a scheme to tackle carbon emissions.

But Kenneth Thong, HKA’s corporate governance head, told a television interview the order would go ahead.

source: BBC.co.uk

German carrier Deutsche Lufthansa plans to hire temporary staff as flight attendants for routes to and from Berlin’s new airport to cut costs.

A spokesman for Lufthansa told Reuters on Wednesday about 200 flight attendants will be employed by a Lufthansa-owned temp agency rather than by the airline itself.

While entry-level salaries will be on a par with those at Lufthansa — 1,700 euros ($2,200) gross salary per month plus benefits — contracts will end after two years. The temporary crew can then apply for a new job with Lufthansa.

source: Reuters

The first flights of the new airlines that will take tourists past the threshold of space are poised to take off in 2012, and getting a seat on one is not all that different from booking a trip someplace on Earth. You can sign up on the Web site of, say, Virgin Galactic, the most prominent of the new space tourism companies, or go to a travel agent and put down a hefty deposit. Soon you will be able to buy travel insurance, just as you can for any other vacation.

Virgin Galactic intends to start offering flights just beyond the space barrier on a rocket ship it has built, featuring five minutes of weightlessness during a two-and-a-half hour jaunt. At $200,000 a seat.

When the question of whether to offer space travel insurance first came up three or four years ago, “‘we said it was a joke at that time,”‘ recalled Erick Morazin, global accounts director at Allianz Global Assistance.

Currently, Virgin Galactic, XCOR and Space Adventures refund almost all of the deposit if someone wants to cancel, but Mr. Morazin said he expected their policies to become less forgiving in the future. “‘We will be prepared for this milestone,'” he said.

source: nytimes.com

Virgin Atlantic has been honoured with the ‘Best International Airline award’ in the ninth annual Readers’ Choice Awards.

Organised by leading industry publication Travel Weekly, the awards identify the best service across a number of categories.

Delta Airlines came top in the American carrier category, while Singapore Airlines was hailed the best for providing business and first class services.

source: travel.aol.co.uk

Dnata, the holidays and baggage handling arm of Emirates Airline, has bought control of one of the biggest online travel agents in Britain.

The deal struck at the end of last month for an undisclosed sum is the latest in a buying spree of travel firms by Dnata asit seeks to strengthen its position in the lucrative online travel market.

The acquisition of Travel Republic also has the potential to channel more UK traffic through the Dubai company.

source: thenational.ae

Swiss International Air Lines has carried a record number of passengers this year, surpassing the 15-million mark.

Swiss was created after the collapse of the national carrier Swissair ten years ago under a mountain of debts. After getting off to a rocky start, the fledgling airline was bought out by the Lufthansa group in 2005.

Under the wing of Lufthansa, Swiss has not only survived the financial crisis and boom in oil prices but has become one of the most commercially successful airlines.

source: swissinfo.ch

Boarding an airplane has never been safer.

The past decade has been the best in the country’s aviation history with 153 fatalities. That’s two deaths for every 100 million passengers on commercial flights, according to an Associated Press analysis of government accident data.

The improvement is remarkable. Just a decade earlier, at the time the safest, passengers were 10 times as likely to die when flying on a U.S. plane. The risk of death was even greater during the start of the jet age, with 1,696 people dying – 133 out of every 100 million passengers – from 1962 to 1971. The figures exclude acts of terrorism.

source: sfgate.com