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Airlines that fly within the EU will have to trade carbon emissions beginning in 2011, the European Commission said Wednesday, which could see travelers pay more for popular short-break trips.

Expanded rules covering all airlines that fly into the EU will take effect the next year, a move that would hit U.S. airlines on their lucrative trans-Atlantic routes.

Airlines are generally in favor of the plan, since EU officials had warned them that refusing to back an emissions trading program would result in an aviation tax.

source: Business Week

British Airways said on Wednesday it had been forced to cancel all domestic UK flights serving Heathrow Airport due to bad weather and said flights between Heathrow and Europe were also severely disrupted.

BA said it planned to operate its longhaul schedule as normal “‘albeit with some lengthy delays'”.

source: Reuters

Gabon Airlines, a new Gabonese private franchise, will make its maiden flight in January 2007, in a bid to succeed the defunct national carrier, Air Gabon, according to company officials.

The Gabonese transport minister on 8 November granted Gabon Airlines official permit to operate flights in the country.

source: Africa Interactive

Turkish Airlines is looking to set up a low-cost operation as it works to join the Star Alliance in early 2008. The carrier says it may use Antalya-based leisure airline SunExpress, which it owns jointly with Germany’s Thomas Cook, as the base for its new low-cost subsidiary. It is unclear when the new airline, provisionally named Turkish Express, will be formally established, but Turkish says a launch is not imminent.

source: Flightglobal.com

Budget airline easyJet said it will expand its Edinburgh Airport operation by adding three low-cost direct flights to Italy and Spain.

The flights – daily to Madrid and Milan, and twice weekly to Palma in Spain – are scheduled to begin early next year.

They bring to 12 the number of destinations served by easyJet from Edinburgh, a capacity increase of 10 pct, the airline said.

source: Forbes

Chinese regulators fined a low-cost carrier nearly $20,000 after the airline rolled out a fare sale offering 13-cent tickets. In doing so, regulators say the airline broke national pricing rules: “‘Spring Airlines … sold more than 400 tickets on a new route between Shanghai and the northern city of Jinan for just 1 yuan (US $0.13),'”.

Spring Air’s fares apparently violated a 2004 rule that bars airlines from offering more than a 45% discount off government-set base fares. “‘A regular one-way ticket on that route costs 910 yuan (US $116), including taxes,'”. The case underscores the difficulty facing Chinese low-cost airlines, which are trying to model themselves on carriers such as Ireland’s Ryanair in bringing cheap no-frills travel to the world’s most populous nation.

source: USA today

Spain and Britain have been squabbling over Gibraltar for the past 300 years, but two simple one-hour flights could be the first practical signs that all three parties are willing to say goodbye to all that.

Shortly before 1 p.m. (1200 GMT) Saturday, an Iberia Airlines Airbus A319 became the first-ever direct passenger flight from Spain to land at the disputed British colony on Europe’s southern tip. Almost simultaneously, a GB Airways flight landed in Madrid.

source: CNN

Spain suspended the flying license of Air Madrid airline Saturday, hours after the troubled carrier announced it was halting operations, leaving thousands of passengers stranded in Spain and abroad.

The Civil Aviation authority rejected Air Madrid’s proposals to resolve problems with repeated flight delays and security issues.

“‘This decision has been taken with total independence of the absolutely irresponsible and unilateral behavior of the company,'” a Civil Aviation statement said.

The two-year-old carrier, which mainly flies between Spain and Latin America, announced Friday that it was suspending operations.

source: Columbian.com

Air India said that it plans to introduce its low-cost Air-India express service from Bahrain, beginning Jan.1, 2007.

The budget airline is to initially operate on the Bahrain-Mumbai route and expand to other sectors in India.

An airline official said that the fares for the service will be 20% less than the published fare, providing relief to a large number of low paid workers in the Gulf.

The airline also decided to phase out first and business class services on routes out of Bahrain once the Air-India Express service comes into operation, the official added.

Low-cost airline EasyJet is being investigated over allegations of infringing of French employment legislation, a source in the public prosecutor’s office said.

Tax and labour inspectors raided the Paris offices of easyJet to check for possible breaches of the law.

The operation ‘was aimed at establishing the judicial status of easyJet’s operating base in Orly,’ the site of Paris’s second international airport, ‘in relation to French labour laws,’ a transport inspection official said.

source: finanznachrichten.de