news about cheap fares and airlines from travel search engine Trabber

Ryanair has been named the worst ‘family’ brand in a list dominated by airlines.

The low-cost carrier was described as doing little to look after family values and not enough to listen to customers.

The only travel company to make it into the top 50 family-friendly brands was Virgin Atlantic which took 44th place. Many of the other airlines were listed below banks.

Struggling British Airways was placed in 61st place with easyJet at 88.

source: Mail Online

Members of a small community near the northern German city of Lübeck have filed a lawsuit against Irish budget airline Ryanair after a low-flying plane allegedly put an 82-year-old woman in the hospital.

The woman apparently suffered a serious shock after a Ryanair jet coming in to land at the Lübeck-Blankensee airport flew so low that it sent several roof tiles crashing into her garden. She is now in the hospital with heart problems.

A spokesman for state prosecutors in Lübeck confirmed they were investigating, but Ryanair rejects any responsibility for the incident, saying the plane was not flying at an unusual altitude or speed.

source: The Local.de

Three Ryanair passengers have received 6000 Euro after a court in Dublin as reimbursement for a cancelled flight from the Irish capital to Carcassonne (France) in 2007. This sentence could become a decisive previous in the consumer-air companies relationship regarding airlines in both general and European cases.

source: Avionews

The Irish low-cost airline has today launched its 2010 charity calendar in which it uses airline staff as the models. It hopes that the calendar will raise £100,000 for the charity “KIDS” which provides support to disabled children and their families across Britain.

This the third year that Ryanair has published these calendars, and the airline donates all the proceeds to charity.

source: Telegraph.co.uk

Wizz Air, the largest low fare airline in Central and Eastern Europe, has launched web check-in. The new service is being initially introduced for flights departing from Budapest and extended gradually to flights from all airports by Spring 2010.

The web check-in does not impact on the rest of the boarding procedure: passengers are requested to present themselves at the boarding gate no later than 30 minutes before the scheduled departure time of the flight.

source: Peanuts!

German airline Air Berlin Plc has entered a codeshare cooperation with Bangkok Airways of Thailand, allowing Air Berlin passengers to book connecting flights on the Thai airline.

The German carrier will offer together with Bangkok Airways codeshared connecting flights within Thailand from Bangkok.

Air Berlin is Germany’s second largest airline after Deutsche Lufthansa AG.

source: Etaiwan News

Miles & More members will soon have even more opportunities to take city breaks or book holiday trips to interesting destinations. From 1 December, when Germanwings becomes a new airline partner in Lufthansa’s frequent flyer programme Miles & More, participants in the scheme will also be able to exchange award miles they have earned to date for award flights with Germanwings.

Germanwings offers flights to Split, Barcelona, Salzburg, Rome and Mykonos – to name just a few of the 70 attractive destinations the low-cost carrier flies to in Europe.

source: Media Newswire

Ryanair Holdings Plc said it will cancel existing aircraft orders with Boeing Co. if the U.S. manufacturer doesn’t cut the asking price for a new batch of planes.

Negotiations with Boeing over a contract for as many as 200 short-haul aircraft are progressing “‘slowly’,” Chief Executive Officer Michael O’Leary said today at a briefing in Hamburg. Ryanair may respond by shelving the requirement and scrapping and deferring some current contracts.

source: Daily Herald

Low cost airlines Germanwings and bmibaby have announced an agreement to link their website and list flights of both airlines on germanwings.com and bmibaby.com. This means that customers will benefit from a wider range of available flights.

The link will make it possible to book additional connections through the Germanwings and bmibaby website. In order to minimise booking time, the airlines have combined to introduce an extremely simply ticketing procedure. Having selected a flight, the customer will be forwarded to the corresponding booking page of the partner airline where they will be able to buy to purchase a ticket for the next stage of their journey.

source: traveldailynews.com

Frontier Airlines is set to exit bankruptcy protection on Thursday as part of Republic Airways, which seems determined to run an efficient airline even if it ruffles some feathers in the process.

By buying Frontier, Republic is transforming itself from a regional jet hauler of travelers for other airlines into a carrier that competes for its own passengers. Earlier this year it bought Milwaukee-based Midwest Airlines, too.

source: Associated Press