news about cheap fares and airlines from travel search engine Trabber

Air France has announced a revamp of its regional services, operating under the branding Hop.

Officially branded HOP! the new carrier will integrate the Air France group’s three existing regional airlines under the one brand, namely Brit Air, Regional and Airlinair.

From March 31 Hop will operate 530 daily flights to 136 destinations in France and Europe using a fleet of 98 aircraft with between 48 and 100 seats. Fares will start at €55 one way.

Airline group Air France-KLM has reported a loss for the first three months of the year, following higher fuel costs and a drop in cargo traffic.

Its first-quarter net loss was 368m euros ($483m;£299m), almost the same as a year before, although revenue rose 6% to 5.6bn euros.

Higher workforce costs because of a 2011 pay rise also affected profits.

source: bbc.co.uk

A Jumbo jet flew for five days before ground crews noticed that 30 screws were missing from one of its wings.

The Air France Airbus A340 plane had had routine maintenance in China, before flying to Paris and then on to Boston in the US before the blunder was spotted.

The plane, which can carry up to 440 passengers, was grounded for several days in Boston while a “‘large protective panel’” was screwed back into place.

Air France has blamed aircraft mechanics in Xiamen, where its jets are often serviced due to lower costs.

source: Mirror.co.uk

French cabin crews have no right to tell Muslim women to remove their burqa aboard Air France flights – despite a nationwide ban on full face veils, the airline has ruled.

Islamic passengers can be ordered to remove the garment while waiting in French airports to board the plane at the gate. But once on board, they are free to put their burqa back on, according to an internal memo to staff from Air France’s legal department.

France’s controversial burqa ban which came into force in April makes it a criminal offence for for anyone to hide their face in public.

source: dailymail.co.uk

Air France claims to have completed the world’s lowest CO2 emissions flight, using a mix of sustainable biofuels, optimised flight procedures and reduced onboard mass.

The commercial 80-minute flight from Toulouse to Paris pumped out only half the greenhouse gases of other flights of the same length, according to the airline.

source: Travelmole.com

Low-fare airline easyJet will  announce that it is opening two new bases in Nice and Toulouse – a pre-emptive strike against Air France.

The move is an attempt to steal the thunder from the Gallic flag-carrier, which has recently unveiled its own plans to operate a low-cost model from new regional bases.

Air France opened a new base in Marseille on October 2 but is stuck in negotiations with the unions over other bases, including in Nice and Toulouse.

source: Telegraph.co.uk

Air France ruled that only male cabin crew were allowed to serve Dominique Strauss-Kahn, currently fighting accusations he attempted to rape a New York hotel maid.

The claim was reported Thursday by Le Parisien newspaper, which also says lawyers for the former IMF chief’s alleged victim, Nafissatou Diallo, are soliciting testimony from female flight attendants at the national carrier, who may have been subjected to inappropriate behavior by the Frenchman.

source: Fox News

Air France has put more flesh on the bones of its plan to develop provincial bases, aimed at offering lower-cost regional services to help it regain market-share from its low-cost rivals.

The carrier will debut the new regional services from Marseilles this October. It will roll out ­similar new services from Bordeaux, Nice and Toulouse in spring next year, launching 54 new routes in total to European cities and the Mediterranean.

Under the initiative Air France aims to reduce operating costs by 15% and increase capacity in the regions by more than 30%.

source: flightglobal.com

Pilot error is emerging as the most likely cause of the crash of the Air France Rio-Paris airbus which plunged into the South Atlantic in June 2009, killing all 228 people on board.

Preliminary investigation of black-box flight recorders, found three miles down in the ocean last month, suggest there was no major technical failure in the Airbus A330.

The accident occurred when severe tropical storms lay directly in the aircraft’s path. One of the mysteries of flight AF447 is why the pilots flew directly into the eye of the storm. Other flights over the South Atlantic that day steered around the bad weather.

source: Independent.co.uk

A flight data recorder has been recovered from an Air France flight that crashed off the coast of Brazil in 2009. Investigators are hoping the device can provide answers to why the plane went down, killing 228 people.

Deep sea search teams have located one of two flight data recorders from the 2009 Air France flight that crashed mysteriously in the Atlantic Ocean, killing all 228 people on board.

In a statement, France’s Bureau of Investigation and Analysis (BEA) said the black box was “‘localized and identified'” on Sunday morning and brought up from a depth of 4,000 meters (4,375 yards).

source: dw-world.de