France faces more transport disruption this week as the Air France strike continues. Workers are protesting against government reforms to raise the retirement age of flight crew members up from 60 to 65 years of age.
So far the strike has affected over 35% of overseas flights and is estimated to cost Air France more than 100m euros.
source: lost-in-france.com
Spanish low-cost airline LTE says it is suspending services because it cannot cover the cost of operating.A statement on its Web site Friday says the 20-year-old company with bases in Palma de Mallorca, the Canary Islands and Milan, Italy is “‘doing everything to minimize the impact of this suspension of services on its clients and providers.'”
The company which runs flights from Spain to England, Italy and Saudi Arabia, has 300 employees and a fleet of seven Airbus 320s.
source: International Herald Tribune
British Airways has been criticised for regularly blaming cancelled flights on ”extraordinary circumstances” to avoid paying compensation.
A Dutch campaigner says BA uses the ploy to bypass EU laws created to protect passengers.
BA has scrapped one in 50 of flights to and from Heathrow this year, with the 6.35pm plane to Frankfurt cancelled 27 times.
source: DailyMail.co.uk
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
The holidays of more than quarter of a million people have been wrecked following the collapse of Britain’s third largest tour operator as the crisis engulfing the travel industry intensified.
XL’s failure, which grounded flights around the world, is the biggest to hit the industry in 17 years as soaring oil prices and a collapse in consumer confidence hit home.
More than two dozen carriers have now folded in less than a year, the victims of surging fuel costs and the credit crisis.
Low-cost airline Ryanair has been forced to cancel flights from its new Edinburgh base for the next six weeks because of strike action at Boeing.
Ryanair said the strike meant US aircraft manufacturers Boeing was unable to deliver two 737 planes it purchased to operate on the new routes.
source: BBC
Deutsche Lufthansa AG said it had to cancel more than 500 flights on Wednesday, affecting thousands of passengers across Europe, as a result of a strike by pilots at two subsidiaries.
Lufthansa already had canceled more than 400 flights on Tuesday after pilot union Cockpit called members at the Eurowings and CityLine subsidiaries out on a 36-hour strike in a pay dispute.
source: IHT.com
The largest US carrier American Airlines scrapped around 570 flights Friday to inspect wiring on its fleet of MD-80 aircraft. The cancellations represented around a quarter of the airline’s flights.
Another 900 flights were cancelled on Thursday and more than 1,500 over the previous two days, affecting over 250,000 passengers. The airline grounded the same planes just last month, cancelling 200 flights in connection with an industrywide probe by government aviation authorities to ensure compliance with safety inspections.
source: earthtimes.org
Heathrow’s beleaguered Terminal 5 was thrown into chaos again yesterday as snowfalls led to 144 flights being cancelled.
Thousands of passengers were stranded or forced to find alternative flights due to the weather and continuing problems with the airport operator BAA’s automated baggage system.
British Airways said more than 60 of its flights to the terminal and a similar number from it were grounded after air traffic controllers reduced the number of aircraft allowed take off and land per hour because of snow.
Another 55 flights were cancelled at Gatwick, most of them BA and easyJet domestic and short haul flights. A further 12 were scrapped at Heathrow Terminal 5 because of baggage handling problems.
source: telegraph.co.uk
Travelers with visions of Waikiki, sandy beaches and island cruises were stranded Thursday at Los Angeles International Airport and across the nation as low-fare carrier ATA Airlines Inc. abruptly grounded all flights and ceased operations.
A single sheet of paper posted at an empty ticket counter at LAX delivered the bad news for travelers on the carrier’s three scheduled daily flights from Los Angeles to Hawaii. Passengers scrambled — with limited success — to make alternative arrangements.
The Indianapolis-based airline became the second U.S. carrier this week to end passenger service. On Monday, Aloha Airlines ended flights, grounding the only carrier offering nonstop flights from Orange County to Hawaii.
source: LA Times
