news about cheap fares and airlines from travel search engine Trabber

Southwest Airlines Co., Ryanair Holdings Plc and the world’s other low-cost carriers have doubled capacity in the past four years, OAG Worldwide, a travel and transportation data provider, said.Low-cost carriers are offering 46 million seats on more than 323,000 flights this month compared with 22 million seats on 169,000 flights in September 2002, Dunstable, England-based OAG said in an e-mailed statement today.

Budget airlines now account for 17 percent of all seats on sale worldwide. Discounters have been taking market share from network carriers since Southwest cut costs, slashed prices and increased demand in the U.S., and Ryanair adapted the model to the European market.

source: Bloomberg

A symbolic ground-breaking ceremony Tuesday marked the start of work on a huge new airport for the German capital after 14 years of planning, legal wrangling and political disputes.Transport Minister Wolfgang Tiefensee and Berlin Mayor Klaus Wowereit took part in the ceremony at the new site adjacent to the current ex-East German airport at Schoenefeld.

But complaints by budget airlines that the new airport ignores their needs have cast a shadow over the 2-billion-euro (2.5-billion- dollar) project, which is expected to give a boost to the economy and eventually generate around 40,000 jobs.

source: Expatica

Ryanair shrugged off the cancellation of 265 flights last month to post a 23% increase in the number of passengers in August. The low-cost airline carried just over 4 million passengers, up from 3.3 million in the same month last year, as it benefited from new routes and more frequent flights from Dublin, Liverpool, Nottingham and Pisa. Ryanair was one of the hardest-hit airlines when the government imposed emergency security restrictions at airports last month, forcing it to cancel hundreds of flights from its Stansted base.

source: Guardian

A Northwest Airlines flight to London made an emergency landing after smoke was reported in the cabin, and passengers waited aboard for nearly 10 hours before the trip was cancelled.

Flight 44 from Minneapolis landed without incident just before 9:50 pm (0820 hours IST) at Duluth International Airport, as airport fire trucks stood by. Passengers remained aboard until about 7:30 am (0600 hours IST) yesterday.

According to airport officials, no injuries were reported among the 255 passengers and 10 crew members.

source: The Hindu

This weekend, as travelers flock to the skies for their final vacations of the season, the nation’s airlines will cap what’s likely to be the strongest and most-profitable summer travel season since 2001.The summer months saw heavy travel demand, coupled with higher fares and a slowing of competition among the airlines. That pushed the struggling industry to a profitable second quarter and is likely to produce another industry profit in the third quarter, which ends Sept. 30. Although overall passenger traffic was down slightly in June and July compared with last year, airplanes, on average, were flying fuller than ever.

source: kansas.com

Obesity is fast becoming a problem for airlines. A little extra weight means a little extra cost for the airline. The bottom line of many airlines is being hurt by the expanding bottoms of some passengers.

Dr. Andrew Dannenberg, Disease Control and Prevention: “As the average weight of the American public has gone up and airlines are having to fly more weight.”

More weight means higher costs. A survey in 2000 revealed airlines were spending an extra 275 million dollars a year in fuel costs just to carry the extra weight. Doctor Andrew Dannenberg with the Centers for Disease Control says there is no danger to the public, because the FAA has already factored in extra weight.

source: WLNS news

The world’s largest airline said traffic dropped to 12.48 billion revenue passenger miles from 12.65 billion, in the year-ago period. A revenue passenger mile is an industry unit measuring one paying passenger flown one mile.

Capacity declined to 15.21 billion available seat miles, down from last year’s 15.5 billion. Occupancy grew by less than 1 percentage point, to 81.9 percent from 81.5 percent.

fuente: chron.com

A failure by the U.S. and the European Union to reach a new agreement next month on the provision of passenger data for transatlantic flights could ground up to 105,000 people each week.

The two sides need to reach a new accord by the end of September, after the European Court of Justice ruled in May that the current agreement is unacceptable. That agreement calls for airlines to provide U.S. authorities with the names, addresses, ticket payment details, and telephone numbers of passengers on U.S.-bound flights. The EU’s highest court ruled that there was no “appropriate legal basis” for the deal, and said it would cease to be valid from October.

source: PCworld

Airlines are allowing ticketed passengers affected by Hurricane John to change and rebook their tickets, and in some cases, obtain refunds.Alaska Airlines will waive change fees and other charges for those scheduled to travel through Friday to or from Puerto Vallarta or Los Cabos if travel is rescheduled for on or before Sept. 21. The airline is offering full refunds for those who don’t want to travel or don’t have new dates.
Other airlines were following similar policies.

More info at Seattle Times

Buying an airline ticket has never been a simple task – the rules of the game are always changing. But if you know how the game is played, you’ll have a better chance of saving money.

1. Low cost carriers don’t always have the lowest fares.

2. You may pay more in taxes and fees than you do for your airfare.

3. You can mix and match fares to get better deals.

4. Your computer may be preventing you from getting the best deals.

5. The most popular travel Web sites don’t have the same information — or the best deals.

We hope Trabber will help travelers on their search.