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With flights to India driving its growth, Nordic carrier Finnair is adding one more flight to India in June, even as it awaits permission from the government to add more destinations in addition to Mumbai and Delhi.

“‘Currently we have 12 flights a week between India and Helsinki. By June, we will fly daily from New Delhi and six times a week from Mumbai,'” Taina Tornstrom, the director for Indian subcontinent for the airline, told reporters.

Bangalore and Chennai are some of the Indian cities that Finnair is keen on starting new services to. The airline is also tapping the traffic to Europe from India, with Helsinki as the base.

source: The Economic Times

Flybe has been named as the fastest growing low cost airline flying to and from Germany.

Budget airline Flybe now offers 128 flights a week to Germany, compared to just 26 flights in 2006/7, an increase of 392%. The statistics are published in the latest ‘Low Cost Monitor’ survey from the German Centre for Aero- and Spacetravel, which tracks the development of low fares airlines operating to and from Germany.

source: holidayextras.co.uk

UAL Corp.’s United Airlines said on Sunday it was hiking the fee it charges passengers to change tickets from $100 to $150 in an effort to combat high fuel costs.

A spokeswoman for the airline said in an e-mailed statement that the company this weekend made the change to its ticketing policy.

It also added a Saturday night stay requirement on all tickets where it competes head-to-head with other legacy carriers, which she said will affect 65 percent of all the markets it serves. That will have the most impact on business travelers, who typically don’t want to spend a Saturday night in their destination.

source: Reuters

Iberia Lineas Aereas de Espana SA said, if its bid for SAS’s Spanair is successful, it will use the low-cost flyer to increase domestic and long haul routes, especially at the Barcelona El Prat airport.

Speaking during a presentation on full-year results, Iberia chairman Fernando Conte said a Spanair tie-up would also increase cost cutting synergies and reinforce more direct routes with hubs.

source: Forbes

A new low-cost airline was launched in the Arab world, Bahrain Air. The first private carrier of the small kingdom of Bahrain, in the Persian Gulf, accepts reservations as of December 16. The first flight is scheduled for January 17 next year. For the moment the destinations are four, Dubai, Mashad, Beirut and Alexandria, but the company aims at expanding to 25 by 2010.

source: Avionews

The South West based airline Flybe has announced expansion plans as part of a bid to strengthen its position as a regional hub.

The airline company has said seven new routes are scheduled for its two airports in Cornwall and Devon.

New services to Glasgow, Birmingham and Southampton will be on offer from Newquay.

Passengers from Exeter will be able to travel to Aberdeen, Dubrovnik, Inverness and Brussels.

All the flights are expected to start in the spring next year.

source: BBC

Belgium’s national airline SN Brussels will launch a new central African regional carrier early next year in partnership with Congo’s Hewa Bora Airways, a senior company official said on Thursday.

Hewa Bora will own a 51 percent stake in the new Democratic Republic of Congo-based company, which will be called Air DC, and the Belgian firm 49 percent, SN Brussels’ Congo director, Johan Martens, told a local radio station.

Routes from the planned hub in the capital Kinshasa have yet to be finalised but Martens said the airline would initially operate flights to Lubumbashi, capital of copper and cobalt rich Katanga province, and the diamond heartland Mbuji-Mayi.

source: Reuters

Major airlines have agreed on a standard that will allow travellers to check in using a bar code sent to their mobile phones.

Passengers will register their number when buying a ticket and receive a bar code by text message, the International Air Transport Association, which represents most commercial carriers, said.

Check-in staff will scan the bar code directly from the phones, doing away with the need for a boarding pass.

source: Press Association

JetBlue Airways Corp. said Thursday its traffic rose 11.8 percent in September as occupancy fell on increased capacity.

The carrier’s traffic rose to 1.84 billion revenue passenger miles last month from 1.64 billion a year earlier. A revenue passenger mile is an industry unit measuring one paying passenger flown one mile.

Capacity rose 13.7 percent to 2.57 billion available seat miles from 2.26 billion in September 2006. An available seat mile is an industry unit that factors in the number of seats available and the number of miles flown.

source: Forbes

Air Berlin is to end its twice-daily flights from Glasgow to Stansted – with onward connections to the German capital, Dusseldorf, Leipzig, Nuremberg, Munster, Hanover and Paderborn.

A spokeswoman said: “‘Our last flight will be on October 31. The doubling of the air passenger duty made our UK domestic hub operation commercially difficult.'”

source: Evening Times