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Virgin Atlantic is forcing hundreds of new staff each year to pay for their own criminal record checks after referring them to an employment screening firm.

New staff at the airline’s call centre in Swansea have been asked to pay £25 for the background check.

Department of Transport rules require criminal checks for air-side staff but not for other airline employees.

The airline employs around 8,500 people worldwide and recruits hundreds of staff in the UK each year.

source: bbc.co.uk

The Hungarian national airline Malev has folded after its financial situation became unsustainable.

“‘At 0500 GMT… after 66 years of almost continuous operation Malev will no longer take off,'” it said.

It came after the European Commission ordered Malev to repay various forms of state aid received from 2007 to 2010.

The sums involved amounted to 38 billion forints (130m euros; $171m; £108m), a sum equal to its entire 2010 revenue.

source: BBC.co.uk

Global airline passenger traffic rose 5.9 per cent last year despite weak conditions according to the International Air Transport Association.

“‘Given the weak conditions in Western economies the passenger market held up well in 2011,'” IATA said in a statement, describing the year as one of contrasts.

“‘Healthy passenger growth, primarily in the first half of the year, was offset by a declining cargo market,'” it said.

The Geneva-based association, which represents some 240 airlines accounting for 84 per cent of global air traffic, noted that cargo fell 0.7 per cent last year although it picked up 0.2 per cent in December alone.

source: The Economic Times

The airline, which filed for bankruptcy in November, said it wanted to get rid of 13,000 workers, or 16 percent of its work force. It plans to terminate its pension plans. It wants to cut back health benefits for current employees and retirees. Over all, it said, it seeks to cut employee costs by 20 percent.

The proposals are just the opening move in what are expected to be long and contentious negotiations. A bankruptcy judge must approve any new contract if the unions reject American’s proposals. But judging from previous airline bankruptcies, American might get much of what it is seeking.

Union representatives said they were stunned after meeting throughout the day with airline executives at the carrier’s headquarters in Fort Worth.

source: nytimes.com

Spanair ceased operations late Friday after a regional government in Spain announced it could no longer fund the airline, officials said.

Spanair’s financial woes were exacerbated by a 2008 crash that killed 154 people. Eighteen people survived what was Spain’s worst aviation disaster in 25 years. In a statement, the airline said its “‘last commercial flight will land at’” 10 p.m. (2100 GMT) on Jan. 27.

The regional government of northeastern Catalonia, which had been investing in the country’s No. 4 airline since its 2008 purchase from SAS Scandinavian Airlines System International, said in a statement that it could no longer bankroll Spanair.

source: washingtonpost.com

Sir Richard Branson’s airline has unveiled new salt and pepper shakers for its Upper Class cabins after its former seasoning shakers became “‘highly collectable’”.

Often finding its salt & pepper shakers appear on eBay and selling for up to ï¿¡20 each, the carrier decided to replace the old ones and replace them with new ones that will be collected after each meal service to prevent theft.

A Virgin Atlantic spokesperson said thousands of older coveted condiments were taken over the past 12 years but the new ones would be closely guarded.

source: etravelblackboardasia.com

International airline partnership Star Alliance will likely tender for a broker this year to help its members buy CO2 permits, while Air France, a member of rival group SkyTeam, said its alliance partners would give first refusal to each other when selling allowances.

From January 1, around 4,000 airlines that fly to and from EU airports were included in the bloc’s Emissions Trading Scheme ETS and must next year surrender carbon credits against their 2012 emissions.

The carrier expects fleet emissions of 16-17 million tonnes in 2012, meaning it would need to buy around 4 million permits on top of its free allocation of 12.6 million EUAAs, the aviation CO2 units distributed under the ETS.

Rival coalition Star Alliance, which boasts members Lufthansa, United Airlines and U.S. Airways, does not have a similar arrangement, its director responsible for emissions trading told Point Carbon.

source: Reuters

The Finnish airline Finnair has been ranked as the safest air carrier in Europe and the second safest in the world by Germany’s Jet Airliner Crash Data Evaluation Centre (JACDEC).

The report also indicates that flying has never been as safe as it was in 2011. The top ranked airline in the international survey was Japan’s All Nippon Airways.

source: yle.fi

The websites of Israel’s national airline, El Al, and the Tel Aviv stock exchange have been disrupted just hours after they were reportedly threatened by a Saudi computer hacker.

Flights and trading on the stock exchange have not been affected.

There has been a series of hacking attacks affecting Israeli businesses in the past two weeks.

The most serious saw details of tens of thousands of Israeli credit cards posted online.

source: BBC.co.uk

Ryanair will introduce a 25 euro cents levy on every seat booked from next week to cover the expected 18-20 million euro cost for carbon permits it needs this year under a new European Union emissions trading scheme (ETS).

Europe’s largest budget airline on Monday followed U.S. group Delta Air Lines and Deutsche Lufthansa, Germany’s biggest carrier, in passing costs onto customers.

Global airlines group IATA has estimated the annual industry-wide cost of the ETS will rise to 2.8 billion euros by 2020 from 900 million this year.

source: Reuters