The U.S. Treasury Department has fined Florida’s Spirit Airlines $100,000 for paying Cuba for permission to use the country’s airspace.
Spirit Airlines said violations of the embargo law against Cuba were “‘unintentional’,” and agreed to pay the fine. In 2007, the Treasury Department ordered a total of $803,229 in fines for violating the U.S. embargo of Cuba.
source: UPI
Low-cost airline bmibaby has revealed that it will open up new routes between the UK and mainland Europe later this year.
Services from Birmingham, Cardiff, East Midlands and Manchester have been announced as part of its programme for winter 2008.
Some of the flights will connect with what the carrier describes as several key Mediterranean destinations, including places in Spain, Italy and France.
source: ready2invest.co.uk
Irish low-cost airliner Aer Lingus announced it would start a new twice weekly service between Dublin and Sofia for its winter 2008 schedule, along with new services to Hamburg, Newcastle, Salzburg and Agadir. In addition, the company will increase the frequency of flights to a number of other European destinations.
source: SofiaEcho
Air Arabia, the first and largest low-cost carrier (LCC) in the Middle East and North Africa, announced today that three additional flights per week will be added to Amman, Jordan, and Beirut, Lebanon, respectively from the carrier’s primary hub in Sharjah, UAE.
source: ameinfo.com
Virgin America, a spinoff of Virgin Atlantic, said Wednesday it will add one daily non-stop flight between New York’s John F. Kennedy International and Las Vegas McCarran International airports.
Effective Sept. 4, the flight adds to the young airline’s growing seven-city network.
source: Business Week
Virgin Atlantic claimed yesterday it was still boosting sales in the aftermath of the troubled Terminal 5 opening, with passenger numbers rising 6% last month.
The airline will announce today that it is hiring 100 extra cabin crew as it adds an extra flight to its daily London-to-Hong Kong service.
Virgin Atlantic said it was seeing strong sales on services to the Caribbean and the US despite a downturn in consumer confidence and rising fuel surcharges, driven by the high oil price.
source: Guardian.co.uk
JetBlue Airways announces plans to add flights to Puerto Rico this winter, bolstering its schedule with added service between San Juan and Boston, New York and Orlando.
source: Avionews
The German low-cost airline Germanwings intends to open two new routes to the former Soviet republic Ukraine.
Oleksander Davydov, a Ukraine Transport Ministry spokesman, confirmed Germanwings had applied to operate aicraft along the routes Kiev-Berlin and Kiev-Cologne.
Currently only one low-cost airline, Hungarian WizzAir, is registered to operates flights into and out of Ukraine. The first WizzAir flight is expected this month.
source: monstersandcritics.com
Budget airline Ryanair today said it would ground up to 10 per cent of its fleet this winter to combat soaring airport charges.
The carrier – which unveiled a 17 per cent rise in pre-tax profits to 528 million euro (£419m) in the year to March 31 – said it would be more profitable to keep 20 aircraft on the ground at Stansted and Dublin than put them in the air.
Chief executive Michael O’Leary blamed the “‘unjustified'” doubling in landing and handling charges levied by Stansted operator BAA and higher charges at Dublin Airport.
source: Independent.co.uk
Low-cost airline Ryanair has announced a further expansion of services between the UK and Europe.
The budget carrier will begin offering flights from Glasgow Airport to the Portuguese city Faro in October 2008.
This will coincide with the launch of flights between Glasgow and Malaga in Spain.
Meanwhile, Ryanair will also open up a number of new routes from Bournemouth Airport, including services to Milan and Paris.
source: ready2invest.co.uk
