news about cheap fares and airlines from travel search engine Trabber

German leisure carriers Air Berlin and TUIfly are in advanced merger negotiations, industry sources said yesterday.

The two carriers are understood to be undergoing due diligence by external auditors at this moment. Details of the planned combination ” which is likely to take place under the Air Berlin roof ” have yet to emerge and neither company is prepared to comment officially.

The sudden turn of events comes after separate and exclusive talks to combine TUIfly, Lufthansa affiliate Germanwings and Thomas Cook’s leisure carrier, Condor, failed. A merger of the three carriers would have created a third large German airline roughly equivalent in size to Air Berlin, but with financially powerful shareholders Lufthansa, TUI and Thomas Cook. The combination would also have taken the three airlines off their parents’ balance sheets, a move the three groups have been trying to accomplish for several years.

source: Aviation Week

Britain’s biggest budget airline hub received the go-ahead to handle 10 million more passengers but was warned by Ryanair and easyJet that it faces fewer flights if it hikes fees to pay for the expansion.

The government rubber-stamped a proposal to lift the passenger cap at the Essex airport from 25 million per year to 35 million, which allows around 120 more daily flights. However, Stansted’s biggest customers are withdrawing planes from the airport this winter in a row over landing fees and are threatening to pull more services if the expansion increases costs further.

source: Guardian.co.uk

Iceland Express, the low cost airline providing cheap flights to and from Reykjavik, has released its summer timetable for 2009. The new schedule sees the airline increase its destination list to include 19 major European cities.

Iceland Express passengers are already able to book cheap flights to Iceland from new destinations such as Cyprus, Geneva and Krakow.

source: IceNews.is

Ryanair was last night stunned to hear a Spanish court backed an online travel agent against its policy of only accepting flight bookings from its own website.

Yesterday, a court in Madrid sided with Spanish online travel website Rumbo, who in August applied for an injunction to prevent the low-cost carrier from going ahead with its plans to cancel flight bookings made through third-party websites.

Madrid’s Mercantile Court No 1 granted Rumbo’s application and has banned Ryanair from cancelling tickets booked by passengers through the Spanish website.

source: belfasttelegraph.co.uk

Budget airline Jet2.com is dropping its Belfast to Barcelona route, but is adding Croatia and Cornwall to its destinations.

The airline is ending the Barcelona service from 26 October due to competition on the route. Jet2.com said customers who have booked flights to Barcelona in 2009 would get refunds or a free destination change.

source: BBC

Airports across the south of England saw hundreds of flights cancelled yesterday following a computer problem affecting the air traffic control system.

National Air Traffic Services (Nats), which oversees much of air traffic control in the UK, suffered a glitch that stopped data reaching workstations at its London area control centre at Swanwick in Hampshire.

In a statement, Ian Hall, director of operational performance at Nats, said: “‘We take every step to avoid any problems but are always aware, that in maintaining and updating highly complex systems, we can experience difficulties.'”

He added that safety was not compromised at any stage.

source: Silicon.com

Low-cost airline Ryanair will allow mobile calls on its flights from next month, but users could end up paying £2 a minute.

The Irish carrier is launching a trial which will see 14 of its 166 planes fitted with the technology needed to enable mobile calls back to land.

But the development will come at a cost with OnAir, the company behind the in-flight calls, predicting a price of up to £2 a minute.

source: Metro.co.uk

EasyJet has scheduled additional flights to three holiday destinations next month following the demise of XL Leisure Group.

Extra flights have been added from Gatwick to Las Palmas, Gran Canaria; Dalaman in Turkey and Arracife in Lanzarote.

source: Travelmole

A senior official at Ryanair, the biggest discount airline in Europe, said Tuesday that the airline would ground more planes than usual as it prepared for a “‘very difficult winter.'”Howard Millar, the chief financial officer said he expected more carriers to go bankrupt in coming weeks as economies slow.

Millar said Ryanair would ground 14 aircraft at London Stansted airport, the Dublin-based airline’s main hub. That is twice as many as were grounded during the winter last year.

source: IHT

A last-ditch attempt to find a buyer for crisis-stricken flag carrier Alitalia will be made today as Italy’s transport minister warned that the airline’s planes could be grounded within a week.Alitalia’s special administrator will put the national carrier up for sale, but buyers are thin on the ground.

Unions last week rejected a €1bn (£791m) rescue bid by the CAI consortium of Italian businesses because the plan involved the loss of 3,000 jobs and more stringent working conditions for remaining staff.

source: Telegraph.co.uk