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American Airlines is to axe its daily flights from Stansted to New York amid growing concern about the cost of fuel.

The carrier said the last flight would depart from Stansted on July 2, less than a year after it started the service.

American said it would continue its flights between New York’s JFK airport and Heathrow, but added it was looking to reduce its costs in face of “‘skyrocketing fuel prices and a softening economy'”.

source: edp24.co.uk

Centralwings, the low-cost arm of the Polish national airline carrier LOT, which noted significant losses last year is now cancelling dozens of unprofitable flights, Gazeta Wyborcza writes.

Since April 1 Centralwings will serve only one route from the mid-western Polish city of Poznań to Rome. The connections to Paris and Edinburgh will be put on hold. New flights to Amsterdam and Manchester which were supposed to take off in April were cancelled.

source: Polish Market

Spanish low-cost airline Clickair has scrapped plans to introduce a regular Sofia-Barcelona flight as part of its cost-cutting push, daily El Pais reported on February 4.

Clickair, partially owned by Spanish national flag carrier Iberia, has dropped a total of eight routes to trim down its flight schedule, choosing to concentrate on its more profitable flights.

source: Sofia Echo

Alitalia SpA, the state-controlled airline Italy is trying to sell, is cutting flights at Milan’s Malpensa airport because it’s “‘economically impossible”’ to maintain two hubs.Alitalia will eliminate unprofitable routes, keeping just three of its current 17 intercontinental flights at Malpensa while increasing traffic at Rome’s Fiumicino airport, the carrier said in a slide presentation on its Web site today. Mounting losses make it impossible to keep two hubs, the company said in the presentation of its summer 2008 schedule.

source: Bloomberg

Austrian Airlines AG said Thursday it will eliminate its fleet of four Airbus A330 long-haul jetliners in 2007, a move the national carrier said will save it about $40 million (US$51 million) a year.

The airline’s board held a special meeting Wednesday to approve the plan to phase out the A330s, along with both of its Airbus A340-300 aircraft.

The reduction of the long-haul fleet means scheduled service to Shanghai will end on Jan. 7, flights to Phuket, Thailand, Mauritius and Colombo/Male, Sri Lanka, will stop at the end of April, and service to Katmandu, Nepal, will cease in May, Austrian Airlines said in a statement.

source: International Herald Tribune

Wizz Air, the largest low fare – low cost airline in Poland offers free tickets to Centralwings passengers whose flights to and from Cologne were cancelled.

Passengers stranded as a consequence of Centralwings’ cancelling its Katowice-Cologne and Wroclaw-Cologne routes, can re-book on Wizz Air’s Katowice-Cologne or Wroclaw-Dortmund flights. On these routes Wizz Air increased the number of free seats offered (only taxes and charges equivalent to PLN 77 / EUR 19.98 to be paid) and extended the booking period until Oct 23, 2006. Wizz Air continues to be the leading carrier between South Poland and the Ruhr region with more than two flights daily.

While airlines opening new routes to Prague are making headlines, many have been compelled to limit their operations to the summer months â?? or to even close them down permanently.

Slovak low-cost airline SkyEurope is one of three airlines with a base in Prague after national air carrier Czech Airlines (ČSA) and Smart Wings (operated by Travel Service). It has 11 destinations, started since last spring, from the Czech capital â?? including its latest line, to begin this December, Prague-Grenoble, Italy. As of the winter schedule, starting Oct. 28, Sky Europe will reduce its Pragueâ??Amsterdam schedule from the current seven flights a week to three. Also, its Pragueâ??Barcelona, Spain route will be reduced to three times a week from its current four flights.

source: cbw.cz

Tuesday’s abrupt announcement that Halifax-based CanJet is abandoning its scheduled flights suggests that Canada does not have the population to sustain three national air services.

There was surprise that only five days’ notice was given about the move to end flights on Sunday. CanJet is a division of privately owned IMP Group Ltd., so its results and its “load factor” â?? the percentage of seats occupied by paying customers â?? weren’t being made public every three months as is customary with WestJet and Air Canada.

Running a scheduled airline when your main selling feature is the low price is tough to do year-round. It was probably no coincidence that the service suspension was announced after the Labour Day weekend, when casual fliers taking family vacations across Canada begin to stay home.

source: TheStar.com