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Deutsche Lufthansa AG is still interested in rival Austrian Airlines after the Austrian government said it aims to keep at least 25 percent of the company in Austrian hands, management board member Stefan Lauer said.

The Austrian carrier’s supervisory board recently discussed a shortlist of possible partners that includes Lufthansa, Aeroflot, Air France-KLM and Turkish Airlines, and media reports said the board prefers a tie-up with Lufthansa.

source: Forbes

If Ritz-Carlton Hotels put a commercial jetliner into service, it would be like the Airbus A380-800 that Emirates Airline displayed Tuesday at Los Angeles International Airport.

It is equipped with two shower-spas, two lounges and 14 first-class “‘suites'” fitted with vanities, mini-bars, widescreen video displays and seats that convert to beds.

The showers and adjoining spas — the first to be installed on a commercial aircraft — are available to first-class passengers, who pay about $18,000 for a round-trip ticket from Dubai to New York.

source: LAtimes.com

Now Delta is looking to capitalize on the popularity of in-flight Wi-Fi by outfitting its entire domestic fleet of aircrafts with Aircell’s GoGo service.

GoGo will cost Delta flyers $9.95 on flights of three hours or less, and $12.95 for flights that are longer than three hours. Delta says it expects to begin to offer in-flight Wi-Fi early 2009.

American Airlines and Virgin America have been on-board for some time with in-flight Wi-Fi. Both have announced testing of Wi-Fi aboard its airliners for a limited number of flights. But Delta is making a big splash with an ambitious rollout of Wi-Fi to all its domestic fleet. This is big news coming from an airline that has been struggling lately.

source: PC World

British Airways will make a third attempt to seal an alliance with its US partner American Airlines within weeks.

Willie Walsh, BA’s chief executive, said he expected final preparations for the deal to be complete within a fortnight, with an application to US regulators to follow shortly afterwards. “‘We want to move on this as soon as possible’,” he said.

BA, which revealed sharply reduced profits last week, has tried to consummate its marriage with American Airlines for more than a decade. It first sought the permission of US regulators in 1997, then again in 2002.

source: Times Online

Lufthansa yesterday put an end to a potentially crippling strike by ground and engineering staff by increasing a pay offer that will set the salaries of more than a third of its workers until early 2010.

The German airline’s willingness to reach a deal had grown as lack of even simple maintenance grounded an increasing number of aircraft – the number of cancelled flights rose from 70 on Tuesday to 130 yesterday.

source: FT.com

If the proposed merger between British Airways and Iberia is given the go-ahead, it will create the world’s third largest revenue carrier and give the two carriers a combined 13.5% share of the transatlantic market based on capacity.

The oneworld alliance partners announced on 29 July that they are in talks with a view to carrying out an all-share merger, which would see both airlines retaining their brands as part of a combined group.

source: flightglobal.com

Deutsche Lufthansa AG said it had to cancel more than 500 flights on Wednesday, affecting thousands of passengers across Europe, as a result of a strike by pilots at two subsidiaries.

Lufthansa already had canceled more than 400 flights on Tuesday after pilot union Cockpit called members at the Eurowings and CityLine subsidiaries out on a 36-hour strike in a pay dispute.

source: IHT.com

As the dust of more job losses, grounded planes and additional capacity cuts starts to settle on the worn tarmac of the aviation industry, three clear things have begun to emerge from the gloom.

The first is that consolidation among the big players in the Asia Pacific is back on the agenda after having been ruled out by regulators such as the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission.

The second is that the short-lived era of the truly low-cost (as opposed to no-thrills) carrier is over.

The third is that the Qantas name will survive but very few of its planes will be flown under that logo in 10 years’ time.

source: smh.com.au

The national carrier said increasingly tough economic conditions – with oil prices nudging £150 a barrel – made price hikes of up to four per cent “‘absolutely inevitable'”.

The warning came as both BA and Ryanair announced unprecedented cutbacks in their flight schedules to save on fuel costs.

BA has scrapped hundreds of flights over the summer, merging half empty flights to popular destinations to reduce its consumption of fuel.

source: telegraph.co.uk

A union represending thousands of ground and cabin staff at Deutsche Lufthansa AG said Friday that members will vote next week on a possible strike, which could start at the end of this month ” in Germany’s busy summer vacation period.

source: iht.com