news about cheap fares and airlines from travel search engine Trabber

Argentina’s Senate gave final legislative approval to a government takeover of Spanish-owned Aerolineas Argentinas SA on Wednesday.

Supporters said the state will improve service by tackling constant flight cancellations and delays that have plagued the struggling flagship airline and its subsidiary Austral for years.

But the current owner, Madrid-based Grupo Marsans, has said in the past it might challenge the takeover before a World Bank arbitration body.

source: Associated Press

The ambitious consolidation strategy piloted by British Airways chief executive Willie Walsh started to unravel yesterday after merger talks with Australian rival Qantas were terminated.

Discussions to create a global airline based in London and Sydney have been under strain since they became public at the beginning of this month, with Qantas boss Alan Joyce warning of “‘significant hurdles'” to a deal.

Days earlier Walsh had extolled the virtues of creating a “truly global” airline, adding the simultaneous pursuit of deals with Spain’s Iberia and with American Airlines would not hamper progress.

source: Guardian.co.uk

Ryanair, Europe’s largest low fares airline, yesterday won a significant legal victory in its long-running battle with Brussels over airport subsidies.

The Luxembourg-based Court of First Instance, one of the top courts in Europe, upheld the airline’s appeal against the decision in 2004 by the European Commission to block reduced airport charges and marketing support for the airline at Belgium’s Charleroi airport.

source: FT.com

Jet Airways have entered into a codeshare and frequent flyer partnership on the Dubai-Mumbai and Delhi sectors. The flight will be operated by Jet Airways and will also carry the Emirates designator and will offer Emirates customers better access to flights across Jet’s comprehensive Indian network.

Codeshares will also apply on some Emitares operated flights from India to DXB offering a reciprocal arrangement and smooth transfers to Jet’s clientele wishing to connect to an Emirates onward flight.

source: alternativeairlines.com

Brussels Airlines is to become a member of the Star Alliance. The airline alliance has voted at its annual board meeting to accept the application of the carrier to become a future member.

The move follows Star Alliance member Lufthansa’s purchase of a 45% stake in the carrier back in September. The German carrier also has plans to take full ownership within two years.

Glenn Tilton, chairman, president and CEO of United Airlines, in his role as chairman of Star Alliance, said, “‘Brussels Airlines further strengthens the Star Alliance by offering greater connectivity throughout Europe and Africa to better serve the international travel needs of all our customers’.”

source: businesstravelworld.com

Air France-KLM filed a complaint to the European Union on Thursday over Austria’s plans to sell its national airline to German carrier Lufthansa, saying the deal depended on unfair state aid.

Air France-KLM said a decision by the Vienna government to cancel a 500 million euros ($659.5 million) loan to Austrian Airlines as part of the sale to Lufthansa had not been on the table when Air France-KLM was itself considering bidding for the airline.

source: Reuters

Thousands of people were forced to wait for hours at the Essex airport as police grappled with protesters who invaded the runway after using bolt cutters to slice through a perimeter fence.

The strike – just after 3am when the airport closed for maintenance – was organised by Plane Stupid to highlight Government’s “‘hypocrisy'” for allowing a new runway at the airport while claiming to be looking for ways to cut CO2 emissions.

The result was 57 arrests, 52 cancelled flights and around 100 more – operated by some 30 airlines – delayed.

source: telegraph.co.uk

Travellers to Greece face further disruptions today as a strike by airport staff forces the cancellation of hundreds of flights. The 24-hour strike is part of a general strike orchestrated by Greece’s largest union, the GSEE, against the government’s economic policies.

The disruption comes as violent protests in Greece entered a fourth day, with 6000 people attending the teenage boy’s funeral whose death sparked the civil unrest.

source: the age

Air Berlin, Europe’s third-biggest low-cost airline, saw third quarter operating earnings increase as cost cuts helped its bottom line and more business travellers appeared to sign up for discount travel.

The three months to September saw an end to several quarters of worsening performance, following the takeover of two smaller rivals – DBA in 2006 and LTU in 2007 – that saw capacity and costs spiral.

A merger with Condor, a charter airline, was called off earlier this year.

The carrier this summer said it would shrink its fleet by 10 per cent to 120 aircraft, as well as reduce European and some long-haul routes. These moves helped boost seat-utilisation rates even as passenger numbers fell.

source: FT.com

The price of air tickets should start coming down soon because of the world financial crisis, experts are predicting, while ruling out a plunge that would endanger the health of airlines.

Cut price airline Ryanair’s boss Michael O’Leary forecast a reduction in an average ticket of between 15 and 20 percent by the end of March, and claims to be attracting passengers from more conventional companies like British Airways.

Most airlines nowadays use the yield management system, whereby prices are adjusted by computer on an almost daily basis in line with demand, starting relatively low then rising if a particular flight fills up, or falling if it does not.

Few airlines have yet adopted an aggressive pricing strategy, as they try to recover from the massive cost of fuel which neared 150 dollars a barrel in mid-July, forcing them to slap surcharges on tickets.

While oil has now fallen to a third of this level, companies have held back from price-cutting at the same rate, while from time to time announcing a reduction in the surcharges since September.

source: AFP