news about cheap fares and airlines from travel search engine Trabber

Spain’s Iberia is a takeover target from Germany’s Lufthansa according to a report in the French economic daily newspaper La Tribune.

It said Lufthansa has opened discussions – but not negotiations – on possibly buying a key stake. Iberia has denied the report and Lufthansa refused to comment.

Such a tie up would create an airline carrying carry 100 million passengers annually, bigger than the current European number one – Air France-KLM with 70 million.

source: Euronews.net

Air Berlin has improved its market position and is well ahead of all other competitors at the airport of Palma de Mallorca. Already every third passenger embarking or disembarking in Palma de Mallorca uses an Air Berlin aircraft.

The German airline Air Berlin accounts for more than 36 per cent of passenger volume at the Spanish airport. The second largest airline there is Air Europe with a share of 17.9 per cent, and the third largest carrier is Iberia with 9.71 per cent. Easy jet, the UK airline, has a share of 5.87 per cent. These are the results of the airport’s statistics for January.

source: Boarding.no

JetBlue Airways has taken a beating in recent days, facing withering criticism for cancellations and delays wrought by a winter storm last week.

But investors should remember an important facet about airlines, analysts say: “‘Our view is that these things happen in the airline industry, and that at the end of the day, customers will return to JetBlue,'” Merrill Lynch analyst Michael Linenberg wrote in a recent research report.

An icy winter blast helped lead to over 1,000 canceled flights for New York-based JetBlue and tales of woe from some passengers who were stuck on planes for hours. Its stock has wobbled since the Feb. 14 storm hit.

source: BusinessWeek

Australia’s Virgin Blue has conceded it has moved away from being a pure low-cost carrier but adds it is now considering establishing an “ultra low-cost carrier”, a move that comes just weeks after Singapore-based low-cost carrier Tiger Airways disclosed it would be establishing a domestic operation in Australia.

Virgin Blue still operates aircraft in all-economy class configurations but in more recent years has, for example, tried to win over wealthier travellers such as businesspeople by offering loyalty programmes, more comfortable airport waiting lounges and extra legroom through the use of exit-row seating.

source: Flight Global

American Airlines is adding flights to and from New York, raising the stakes in a showdown pitting the nation’s largest carrier against Continental Airlines Inc. and storm-battered JetBlue Airways Corp.

American said Thursday that it will begin nonstop service between New York and Las Vegas — a JetBlue stronghold — in September, and add a few flights to other cities, including San Francisco.

The appeal of New York is obvious. It is the nation’s largest city, a major tourist destination and a hub for international flights.

The low-cost airline Ryanair starts a new route from Granada Airport from Tuesday, to East Midlands Airport in Nottingham.

The airline will fly the link three times a week and forecasts 2007 passenger volume of 40,000 people for the new route.
Ryanair began their Granada operation at the beginning of 2005 and also flies to Liverpool, London Stansted, Frankfurt and Milan from the airport which is now known as ‘’Federico García Lorca Granada-Jaén.”

source: Tipically Spanish

Bmibaby has announced further development at the airport of Cardiff which sees the introduction of a new route, increased frequencies on existing routes and a new early morning departure on a key domestic route.

For summer 2007, the airline will be introducing a new four times weekly service to Murcia which is the perfect gateway to the fast developing La Manga strip on Spain’s Costa Calida. Flights commence on 27 March 2007 but are available for booking now from just £29.99 one way including taxes.

source: Easier

Low cost fares, quirky blue potato chips and even a mea culpa from JetBlue Airways’ founder may not be enough to ease passenger anxiety Monday as the airline braces for another day of disrupted flights.

The company said it would be canceling almost a quarter of the day’s flights but hopes to be fully operational on Tuesday, almost a week after a Valentine’s Day snowstorm created a meltdown for the airline.

David G. Neeleman, the company’s founder and chief executive, said he was “humiliated and mortified” by the breakdown in the airline’s operations. He promised in an interview with The New York Times for its Monday editions that in the future the company would pay penalties to customers should they be stranded on a plane for too long.

fuente: ABC Actions News

Frontier Airlines and the Frontier Airline Pilots Association (FAPA) announced that FAPA membership has ratified a new collective bargaining agreement by a vote of 289 (67%) for to 140 (33%) against, which represents 429 votes out of 553 eligible voters, or 78%. The new four-year agreement amends the previous five-year contract signed in May 2000. Implementation of the approved agreement will begin in March, 2007.

source: Yahoo!

As an ice storm stranded JetBlue airplanes for up to 10½ hours, passengers sat within sight of the terminal without food, adequate restrooms or a reasonable explanation as to why they weren’t moving.

They could have been evacuated much sooner if the airline hadn’t waited so long to ask airport officials for help. JetBlue acknowledged Thursday that it hesitated nearly five hours before calling in shuttle buses to unload 10 jets that spent much of Wednesday sitting on runways because of icy weather and gate congestion.

source: TheGlobe&Mail