news about cheap fares and airlines from travel search engine Trabber

Monarch, the low-cost airline, is repositioning as the “‘low fare airline that cares'” in a bid to distance itself from rivals easyJet and Ryanair.

The changes follow the interim appointment of Milton Bayer to the airline’s £5m advertising business.

Milton Bayer has developed a press and outdoor campaign, with the strapline “‘The low fare airline that cares'”. It will run in key areas near Birmingham, Gatwick, Luton and Manchester airports.

source: Marketingweek

Clickair carried 4.5 million passengers in 2007, in line with its business plan, but full-year revenue came in lower than forecast, CEO Alex Cruz told ‘ATWOnline’ while also confirming the LCC will scale down its planned fleet expansion this year.

Two new A320s are scheduled to be delivered in February and March, but deliveries beyond that are being put on hold. Clickair ended 2007 with 23 aircraft and had planned to grow to 30 by the end of this year. “‘We will not execute this fully this year,” Cruz said, citing a price war in Spain and high oil prices. “We favor a cautious approach in this difficult environment. Our contracts allow us flexibility, which also means we can add more capacity later in the year if the market conditions improve.'”

source: ATW

Southwest Airlines is adding new nonstop flights in a number of the carrier’s key markets, including San Antonio.

In May, Dallas-based Southwest is adding a San Antonio to Denver flight on May 10, its first nonstop flight from San Antonio International Airport to the Mile High City.

Southwest is conducting a “‘refining'” of its current flight schedule. It is eliminating 57 of its existing roundtrip flights from its May flight schedule and will add 40 roundtrip flights to key growth markets.

fuente: Business Journal

The new-generation airline, carried a total of 6,219,605 passengers during 2007, an increase of 77.20% in relation to 2006. Annual average load factor was 73%, 3.61 points above last year’s.

Vueling carried a total of 1,603,265 passengers during Q4 2007 (from October to December) and 534,808 passengers during last December, which translates into increases of 67.23% for the former, and 45.23% for the latter.

source: Boarding.no

Skybus Airlines will add even more flights to its new hub at Piedmont Triad International Airport and now plans flights to airports near Philadelphia and Chicago.

Beginning today, Skybus will sell tickets to the Philadelphia area via Wilmington, Del., and to Chicago via Gary, Ind., beginning March 13.

The airline will continue its policy of issuing 10 seats for $10 on every flight as long as they last.

source: news-record.com

Low-budget airline Jazeera Airlines said yesterday it would debut on the Kuwaiti stock market on January 14, more than six months later than initially planned.

The company won Kuwaiti approval for the listing, Jazeera said. It had initially planned to list its shares in the second quarter, but had to wait for final approval.

Jazeera shareholders approved in September 2006 a plan to double the airline’s capital to 20 million dinars ($73.23m) by selling stock to existing shareholders.

source:  Gulf Daily News

A strike by Virgin Atlantic cabin crew, which would have seen 48-hour walkouts this week and next, has been called off.

The deal between the airline and the trade union, Amicus, will see the crew get a 4.8 per cent pay increase this year and a guarantee of a rise in line with inflation next year.

But the agreement came too late for the airline to reinstate the flights it had cancelled – with Virgin having already made alternative arrangements for those passengers affected.

source: telegraph.co.uk

Three new low-cost airlines will be operating to Malta from March, amid ambitious targets of a four to five per cent increase in arrivals over a record 2007.

The news comes days after British Airways and Easyjet announced they will be operating between Malta and London from March, signalling a ten per cent increase in seat capacity on the all-important UK route.

“‘It’s not too soon to say we’re going to try and make 2008 an even better year,”‘ Tourism Minister Francis Zammit Dimech told The Sunday Times.

Spanish budget airline Vueling will be servicing the Madrid to Malta route three times a week; Italian airline Volare four times weekly; and airline Norwegian.no will be flying from Malta to Oslo three times a week.

British Airways will operate a daily service to London Gatwick from March 30. GB Airways, which operated British Airways flights to Malta, has been sold to giant low-cost carrier Easyjet, which is also starting a 10-flights-a-week service to Malta from its base in Gatwick.

Though it is a budget airline, the minister confirmed that no subsidies will be provided to Easyjet since it has assumed the slots previously operated by GB Airways.

source: TimesOfMalta.com

Airline bmi is to terminate its daily return service between Inverness and London Heathrow because of a lack of bookings.

The company said flights on the route, which was launched in March 2004, would end on 29 March.

Lib Dem MP Danny Alexander said it was a “‘disgraceful decision'” to close the city’s only link to Heathrow.

Scottish Transport Minister Stewart Stevenson is seeking a meeting with the airline to urge a rethink on the move.

fuente: BBC

The international airline Virgin Blue, which operates Polynesian Blue and Pacific Blue, has announced a jump in its fuel surcharge. The surcharge on domestic flights will rise from US$16 to US$21 a passenger, adding US$8 to the cost of a return trip ticket. On international flights operated by Polynesian Blue and Pacific Blue, the fuel surcharge will rise from US$30 to US$39 a flight. The increases will apply to all flights booked after midnight on 01 February.