news about cheap fares and airlines from travel search engine Trabber

Virgin Atlantic has become the first airline in Britain to offer in-flight mobile phone calls, texts and web access in the air.

The service will initially be available on Virgin’s new Airbus A330 planes flying from London to New York but will be available on 17 planes on at least 10 routes by the end of the year.

In-flight mobile access will be provided by AeroMobile, which is part-owned by Panasonic. Virgin will charge passengers approximately the same as normal roaming charges.

source: Telegraph.co.uk

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

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

Virgin Atlantic has been honoured with the ‘Best International Airline award’ in the ninth annual Readers’ Choice Awards.

Organised by leading industry publication Travel Weekly, the awards identify the best service across a number of categories.

Delta Airlines came top in the American carrier category, while Singapore Airlines was hailed the best for providing business and first class services.

source: travel.aol.co.uk

Students at the ‘Miami School of Advertising’ have developed a concept for airline Virgin Atlantic that allows people to book holidays according to their weather preferences, rather than by country or city.

The Virgin “‘Book By Weather'” application would allow users to select a holiday destination based on the preferred temperature, cloud cover, average rainfall, wind speed, humidity and UV strength. The students — Otilia Dobrea and Glen Hansen — propose that this could take the form of a dashboard with a sliding scale for each of the weather conditions which customers could use as an alternative to the traditional search functionality.

source: wired.co.uk

Tech-savvy travellers can now check flight statuses via Twitter with the new “tweet bot” service launched by Virgin Atlantic.

The “tweet bot” @VAAInfo, a first for any airline takes a customer query about a flight status and tweets back within seconds giving real-time flight departure and arrival information.

This new tool is perfect for passengers looking to check their flight status on the go as a quick, single line tweet will generate an immediate reply.

source: breakingtravelnews.com

Virgin Atlantic plans to start using a low-carbon jet fuel derived from waste gases released during industrial steel production on certain commercial flights by 2014.

The technology, developed with energy firm LanzaTech, will capture waste gases from industrial production, then ferment and chemically convert them using technology by the company Swedish BioFuels for use as jet fuel.

In two to three years, Virgin plans to use the new fuel on its routes from Shanghai and Delhi to London Heathrow.

source: Reuters

Virgin Atlantic has been fined $50,000 by the ‘US Department of Transportation‘ for deceptive online price advertising.

The US regulator said the airline displayed air fares without government taxes and fees. That violated US DoT rules requiring any advertising that includes a price for air transportation to state the full price to be paid by the consumer, including all carrier-imposed surcharges.

source: travolution.co.uk

Richard Branson’s Virgin Atlantic Airways Ltd. joined chief competitor British Airways in saying it’s interested in a deal with BMI, the U.K. carrier that Deutsche Lufthansa AG has indicated may be sold.

“‘We continue to have a close interest in a combination with BMI,’” Virgin Atlantic said in a statement, adding that it currently works with the carrier at London’s Heathrow airport, where the two are among top slot holders after British Airways.

The airline posted a profit in the third quarter of 2010 but had a 120 million-euro ($163 million) operating loss in the first half of this year.

source: Bloomberg

Passengers on Virgin Atlantic flights will receive “‘weep warnings'” before they watch emotional films on board, after an airline survey found that passengers experienced emotions more acutely while flying.

The move comes after Richard Branson’s airline conducted a survey which found 55 percent of travelers agreed that their emotions became heightened during a flight.

s0urce: poconorecord.com