news about cheap fares and airlines from travel search engine Trabber

Travel management companies savaged today’s announcement by EasyJet that it will become the first major European low-cost carrier to distribute through global distribution systems by selling seats through both Amadeus and Galileo by year-end.

The sting in the tail is that EasyJet will apply a point-of-sale fee for all GDS bookings. This will be €7.50 ($10.80) per segment for a one-segment booking, €6 per segment for a two-segment booking and €5 per segment for bookings of three or more segments.

source: BTNOnline

Ryanair, Europe’s biggest low-cost airline, has announced record half-year results, with profits surging ahead by nearly a quarter.

The Irish low-cost airline also raised its full-year expectations as it looked forward to brighter prospects over the winter.

It saw after-tax profits in the half year to the end of September rise to £283 million, up 24 per cent on the same period last year. Passenger numbers were up by a fifth to 26.6 million in the period.

source: Scotsman

Thomsonfly has launched the first low-fare flight service from Manchester to Tel Aviv, Israel.

Low-fares airline Thomsonfly launched services from Manchester to Tel Aviv on November 1st, bringing no-frills flights from the north-west to the Israeli city for the first time.

The carrier will operate three departures a week, on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays, initially using a 223-seat Boeing 757.

source: holidayextras.com

The Centre for Asia Pacific Aviation (CAPA) has awarded Jetstar the “CAPA Low Cost Airline of the Year” in the Asia Pacific region, the second time the value based carrier has won the prestigious annual award in its short operational history.

Jetstar Chief Executive Officer Alan Joyce was in Singapore to accept the award at CAPA’s Gala Awards Dinner and to participate in the Centre’s annual conference featuring the Asia Pacific region’s pre-eminent aviation leaders.

source: e-Travel Blackboard

American travelers may see more of our northern neighbor if JetBlue’s application to launch flights between the U.S. and Canada is approved. As Toronto’s Globe and Mail reports, JetBlue is hoping to start private charter flights to Canada as early as next spring, with the intention that regularly scheduled service will follow.

source: Smarter Travel

Belgium’s national airline SN Brussels will launch a new central African regional carrier early next year in partnership with Congo’s Hewa Bora Airways, a senior company official said on Thursday.

Hewa Bora will own a 51 percent stake in the new Democratic Republic of Congo-based company, which will be called Air DC, and the Belgian firm 49 percent, SN Brussels’ Congo director, Johan Martens, told a local radio station.

Routes from the planned hub in the capital Kinshasa have yet to be finalised but Martens said the airline would initially operate flights to Lubumbashi, capital of copper and cobalt rich Katanga province, and the diamond heartland Mbuji-Mayi.

source: Reuters

Low-fares airline flyMonarch will be increasing services on 18 of its routes over the Christmas and New Year period, with service changes taking effect between December 22 and January 2.

The airline says the move, which involve flights to Malaga, Tenerife, Lanzarote and others, are in response to “‘staggering'” customer demand.

Passengers flying from Luton will be offered more flights to Alicante, Gibraltar, Tenerife and Malaga, while Manchester fliers will be able to pick from Faro, Malaga and Tenerife.

source: Luton Today

The troubled Spanish low-cost airline, Vueling, starts a new route between Málaga and Rome tomorrow (Sunday). There will be four flights a week, on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays to Fiumicino, the main airport in the Italian capital.

Next Tuesday the airline also starts new flights from Málaga to Brussels. It already flies to Amsterdam, Paris, Madrid and Santiago from the Costa del Sol.

source: typicallyspanish.com

EasyJet, the budget airline, has agreed to pay £103.5m in cash to buy GB Airways from the privately held Bland Group. The deal means that easyJet will operate 24 per cent of the landing slots at Gatwick airport and make it the airport’s largest carrier.

GB Airways operates as a franchise of British Airways, a deal that ends in March next year, although the easyJet acquisition is expected to finalise in January. British Airways plans to begin its own services to compete with GB Airways, which flies mainly to southern Europe and North Africa.

source: The Independent

Budget airline Fly Monarch, best known for flying hundreds of thousands of British holidaymakers off to Spain and other popular European holiday destinations, has announced that it is adding PayPal to its accepted payment methods.

The first airline in the UK to do so, Fly Monarch joins US airlines including US Airways, Southwest and Northwest Airlines in accepting PayPal as a payment method alongside credit and debit cards.

source: ITpro