The Houston-based airline was named the best airline for North American travel by Business Traveller magazine’s 2007 Readers’ Choice Best in Business Travel Survey.
Continental also took the top spot for best flight attendants in North America and best in-flight services in North America.
source: Houston Business Journal
Indian low-cost carrier Jet Airways launches daily flights from the eastern Indian metropolis of Chennai to Toronto and New York, both via Brussels, starting tomorrow.
The flight involves a two-hour layover in Brussels, from which passengers can fly to Toronto’s Pearson International Airport, Newark Liberty International Airport or John F. Kennedy International Airport.
The airline is introducing the route with an economy return fare of 36,000 rupees (US$913) plus taxes, and a premier class return fare of 157,500 rupees (US$4,000) plus taxes.
source: Wall Street Journal
Airline passengers in Houston went high-tech Tuesday, boarding planes using cellphones and personal digital assistants, rather than paper boarding passes.
The three-month Continental Airlines test program at Houston’s Intercontinental Airport may expand nationwide if it’s successful, USA Today said. Passengers showed photo identification and codes sent to their cellphones or PDAs to board planes. The two-dimensional bar code contains passenger names and flight information. It is scanned by the Transportation Security Administration to verify authenticity.
source: United Press International
Let’s face it. As an industry, airlines have never made money since the Wright Brothers.
Because of this mismanagement, they’ve decided to try lining their coffers by coming up with a slew of obnoxious extra charges.
Whatever additional costs these services could possibly impose on the airlines are clearly lower than what passengers pay. Read on for the most egregious examples.
1. Making a reservation on the phone or in person – Fee: $5-$20. US Airways is among the greediest on this count: $10 to book over the phone, or $20 to book at the airport or at a city ticket office (if you can find one).
2. Re-banking frequent flyer miles – Fee: $50-100. If you cash in your miles and decide not to use your ticket, you’ll be hit with a fee to place the miles back into your account.
3. Cashing in frequent flyer miles without sufficient advance notice
4. Bringing a pet onboard in the cabin – Fee: $50-85 (each way). These fees have skyrocketed lately.
5. Checking luggage – Fee: $3-10 (each way). Spirit Airlines charges $5 for each of the first two bags if paid for online, $10 each otherwise.
6. Getting a refund when a fare goes down – Fee: $25 to $200 or more. If you bought a TV from Costco or BestBuy and they lowered the price the following week, chances are you could get a refund, no questions asked. Even Apple gave credits when it dropped the price of its iPhone soon after launching it.
7. Flying standby on the same day of travel – Fee: $0-50. Time was, if there were empty seats on a later or earlier flight on the same day as your original, the airline would confirm you for free.
8. Paying for lap children – Fee: $10 to 10 percent of the adult fare (international flights).
9. Getting a seat assignment – Fee: $5-$11 each way. Air Canada, AirTran and Allegiant are some of the carriers that now charge for this “perk.â€
10. Using the lavatory – Fee: OK, airlines are not installing pay toilets. Yet. But the way things are going …
source: MSNBC
All 56 people aboard a Turkish airliner were killed when it crashed on Friday, the chief executive of the AtlasJet airline said.
“‘Rescue teams have reached the wreckage… There are no survivors,'” Tuncay Doganer told a televised news conference.
The plane crashed in the early hours of Friday in the mountainous Isparta province in central Turkey. It had been flying from Istanbul with 49 passengers and seven crew.
source: Reuters
TUI Travel now has the UK’s third largest airline, with 80 aircraft, and has 23 more on order for 2009.
TUI Travel chief executive Peter Long is currently managing a 100-day review of the entire business and is due to reveal his strategy for the future business at the end of January next year.
source: travelweekly.co.uk
Korean Air is to launch a new low-cost airline that will serve destinations across south-east Asia.
The airline, known for now as Air Korea, is expected to start services in May 2008, with routes to Shandong and Hainan Provinces in China.
After the China flights, Air Korea plans to run flights to destinations in Japan (excluding Tokyo), Thailand and Malaysia, with further short and mid-haul routes to follow.
Flights will operate out of Incheon International Airport, South Korea’s biggest airport located in the country’s capital, Seoul.
source: travelbite.co.uk
The merger plans of Lufthansa’s Germanwings unit and of TUI’s TUIfly division are set to include Eurowings too, people familiar with the talks told Reuters on Thursday.
The parties plan to build a larger alliance that also involves Eurowings as a third airline, the people said.
Building entrepreneur Albrecht Knauf, who holds a majority stake in Eurowings, may also take a stake in the possible new entity, the people said. Lufthansa owns 49 percent of Eurowings but has all the voting rights and operates the regional airline.
source: Reuters
A Frenchman who weighs 170 kilograms (375 pounds) has won a court case against Air France after it made him buy a second seat on a flight from New Delhi to Paris, he told AFP.
Jean-Jacques Jauffret, a 43-year-old screen-writer, said he was deeply humiliated when airline staff measured his girth with wrapping tape in front of other passengers at New Delhi airport.
source: Forbes
Lufthansa’s Germanwings airline and TUIfly are in talks about an alliance that could include a merger, sources familiar with the matter said on Wednesday.
The sources said talks were at an early stage, adding that Germanwings would seek operational control in any alliance with TUIfly.
Lufthansa, TUI and Germanwings declined to comment.
Travel giant TUI Travel , which is 51 percent owned by TUI, said in September it could sell TUIfly. TUI Travel is conducting a strategic review and is to detail its decisions by January.
source: Yahoo!
