news about cheap fares and airlines from travel search engine Trabber

In November, the U.S. airline industry had its best on-time performance in nearly 15 years, according to the U.S. Bureau of Transportation Statistics. With 88.6 percent of flights arriving on time in the month, the performance beat the last high of 88 percent in September 2002.

No flights fell under the chronically delayed category of being late 80 percent of the time or more in the month, and no flights had tarmac delays longer than four hours. Two Delta flights had tarmac delays more than three hours long.

The improvements come as airlines have cut back on capacity and fewer people book trips by air.

source: ajc

A battle for low-cost airline revenue in Asia intensified on Wednesday as Malaysia’s AirAsia and Jetstar, owned by Qantas Airways, finalised a passenger handling and aircraft maintenance deal they said would cut millions of dollars from annual costs.

The agreement signed by Jetstar and AirAsia stops short of equity participation, and will not involve code sharing – the revenue-generating arrangement under which airlines book passengers directly onto each other’s flights.

The deal also includes co-operation on airport passenger and ramp handling services, and reciprocal arrangements for switching passengers to available flights if one airline’s service is disrupted.

source: FT.com

Scientists have proposed an unusual method for cutting aircraft fuel consumption – they want to fly jumbo jets in formation like geese.

The prospect of ‘flotillas ‘of airliners soaring across the sky in V-shaped flocks, like migrating birds, is startling. Nevertheless, research by aviation experts has shown that it could lead to major reductions in aircraft fuel consumption.

The work follows research carried out almost 100 years ago by a German researcher, Carl Wieselsberger. In 1914, he published a paper in which he calculated that birds flying in V-formations use less energy to flap their wings than those on solo flights. Birds in flocks can therefore fly for longer periods than those travelling on their own.

source: Guardian.co.uk

With airline passengers getting increasingly concerned about their carbon footprint, the Dutch airline KLM has turned to oil made from the seeds of the camelina plant. On Monday, a KLM Boeing 747 that was partly fueled by camelina oil flew over the Netherlands in a test flight with about 40 passengers aboard.

Airlines have been searching for alternatives to conventional jet fuel. Last January, Continental used a combination of algae and jatropha, a tropical shrub, on a short flight. And Japan Airlines tested a camelina mixture earlier this year.

source: NY Times

The planes have been sold to Air Austral, the flag carrier of Reunion in the southern Indian Ocean. The island is officially part of France, and the airline has nine flights a week to Paris. Gerard Etheve, the airline’s president, said it had decided that the future of its routes to mainland France lay in providing low-cost mass transit.

As well as reducing fare prices to passengers, the large numbers on board will, according to Airbus, make it the most fuel-efficient and environmentally friendly aircraft flying today.

source: Telegraph.co.uk

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

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

FAA administrator J. Randolph Babbitt revoked the licenses of the two Northwest Airlines pilots who said they were distracted by laptops when they flew 150 miles past the Minneapolis International Airport before circling back to land.

Air traffic controllers lost radio contact with Northwest Flight 188, carrying 147 passengers, for 90 minutes Oct. 21. Controllers and airline dispatchers repeatedly tried to reach them through radio and data contact, without success. The agency cited the pilots for ignoring air traffic control instructions and “‘operating in a reckless manner that endangered the lives and property of others.'”

source: Washington Post

The move towards a stock-market listing in Madrid, potentially one of Spain’s largest ever, comes as Amadeus rival Travelport also looks to revive its own, pre-credit crunch IPO plans.

The company, controlled by private-equity firms BC Partners and Cinven Group Ltd. has hired Goldman Sachs Group, JP Morgan Chase and Morgan Stanley as global coordinators. Air France has 23.14 percent of Amadeus and Iberia and Lufthansa both have 11.57 percent each.

source: breakingtravelnews.com

The world’s first commercial passenger flight powered by a fuel made from natural gas completed late on Monday a six-hour journey from London to Qatar, one of the biggest producers of natural gas.

“‘Today’s flight opens the door to an alternative to oil-based aviation fuel,'” Malcolm Brinded, Royal Dutch Shell’s executive director upstream international, said in a statement late on Monday.

source: Reuters