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State-owned carrier Emirates Airline is not yet seeing a downturn in business and bookings for the next few months are at high levels, even as other airlines warn stuttering economies are affecting sales.

“‘As yet, fingers crossed, we have not seen any diminution of demand,'” President Tim Clark told this week.

Lufthansa last week warned on profits and said it would offer fewer seats on its planes this winter than previously expected.

source: Reuters

Germanwings Chief Executive Officer Thomas Winkelmann plans to take over some of Air Berlin routes from the Cologne/Bonn airport.

Air Berlin, Germany’s second-biggest airline, said Aug. 18 it will cancel unprofitable routes, reduce flight frequencies and partially withdraw from regional airports to focus on its four main hubs.

source: bloomberg.com

Budget airline Ryanair is to cut 18 routes from its base at Girona, following a disagreement with the Catalonian government.

Ryanair said the new government, which oversees operations at Girona, had “‘refused to honour’” a five-year extension of its agreement to base 11 aircraft at the airport rather than 6.

Five of the 11 aircraft will be relocated to bases elsewhere in Europe, resulting in the loss of 18 routes from Girona. These include London Gatwick, Madrid and Dusseldorf Weeze. 17 more routes will see their frequencies cut.

source: businesstraveller.com

Ryanair announced it will cancel nine routes from Frankfurt-Hahn airport beginning next summer due to an air passenger tax agreed upon by the federal government this year.

The number of flights flying from Hahn will fall from 532 per week to 382, the Irish low-cost carrier said on Wednesday, as services to cities including Seville, Danzig, Prague and Gothenburg are slashed.

The controversial tax, or “‘ecological air travel levy,'” was included in a package of public spending cuts introduced by Chancellor Angela Merkel earlier this year.

source: dw-world.de

Ryanair is to switch or close nine of the 10 routes it currently operates from Manchester Airport, blaming the airport’s refusal to lower its charges.

The nine routes from Manchester that will close are those to Barcelona (Girona), Bremen, Brussels (Charleroi), Cagliari, Dusseldorf (Weeze), Frankfurt (Hahn), Marseille, Milan (Bergamo) and Shannon.

The airline said passengers affected by the changes would be e-mailed and, “‘provided with a full refund, or the alternative of flying to some destinations'” from East Midlands, Leeds Bradford and Liverpool.

source: BBC News

The second largest airline operator at Heathrow has announced it is cutting dozens of services from its weekly schedule of flights.

BMI British Midland is scrapping part of its domestic network and slashing capacity to Europe in an attempt to stem losses.

The airline is expected to announce today that it is axing two of its services between Heathrow and Leeds and Bradford and Durham Tees Valley.

A total of seven daily departures will be cut, on top of the previously announced closure of the twice-daily service between Heathrow and Jersey.

source: thisislondon.co.uk

British Airways has “indefinitely” cancelled all flights to the Pakistani capital Islamabad amid security concerns after the bombing of the Marriott hotel, the airline said Tuesday.BA issued a statement confirming the cancellation of its six weekly services to Islamabad, the only destination it flies to in Pakistan, a day after saying that it was only temporarily suspending flights.

“In light of the security situation in Pakistan, British Airways has cancelled its flights from Islamabad to Heathrow indefinitely,” a British Airways statement said.

source: AFP

Continental Airlines Inc. said Tuesday it will discontinue its flights to London/Gatwick Airport from the New York area and Houston, and will add a third daily flight from its New York Hub at Newark Liberty International Airport to London’s Heathrow Airport on Oct. 25.

The launch of the Heathrow flight is subject to government and airport approval.

The move is an effort to satisfy customers’ preference for Heathrow over Gatwick and to face growing competition at the airport, the carrier said.

source: BusinessWeek

America’s airline shrinkage has landed at Stewart International Airport again. JetBlue Airways is downsizing its flights to just two a day after Sept. 2, the carrier says.

The last flight to West Palm Beach, Fla., will be Sept. 2.

That same day, JetBlue will drop one of its two daily flights to Orlando and one of the two to Fort Lauderdale. But according to travelers and the airline’s Web site, there’s only one Fort Lauderdale flight now.

source: poughkeepsiejournal.com

Continental Airlines said it is cutting 3,000 jobs and reducing capacity by 11 percent, citing record fuel costs that have pushed the industry into its worst crisis since 2001.

Continental will begin pulling back on flights in September, when departures on its mainline operations will drop about 16 percent below September 2007 levels. Fourth-quarter capacity will fall 11 percent. The company said it plans to offer details on flight and destination reductions and eliminations by the end of next week.

source: washingtonpost.com