news about cheap fares and airlines from travel search engine Trabber

Could it be the first flush of environmental awareness in China? One of the country’s leading airlines has begun encouraging passengers to use the toilet before they board flights as a way of saving energy.

Chinese Southern Airlines hopes to reduce costs with the new policy because it estimates that a single flush at 30,000 feet uses a litre of fuel, the Xinhua news agency reported yesterday. “The energy used in one flush is enough for an economical car to run at least 10km,” pilot Liu Zhiyuan was quoted as saying.

The airline also hinted at plans to improve efficiency by carrying fewer creature comforts. The company estimates the average aircraft in their fleet uses 60 tonnes of fuel a day simply to carry blankets and pillows. Reducing the human waste in the aeroplane’s tanks would also save 47m yuan (£3m) per year.

source: Guardian Unlimited

A surprising new survey has found that two thirds of men are too broad-shouldered for their neighbours’ comfort in an aeroplane seat of 16 inches wide. In more standard airline seats which measure 17 inches across, about one third of adult male passengers would feel cramped.

source: Easier

Russia’s Transport Ministry said Saturday it had found high levels of radiation on an Airbus 319 aeroplane operated by Finnish airline Finnair, days after the discovery of radioactive traces on two British Airways (BA) planes. The Finnair plane, which had flown from Berlin to Moscow via Helsinki, was being examined at a Moscow airport by specialists, the transport ministry told Interfax news agency.

source: The Raw Story

Tiger Airways, Singapore’s low fare airline, has been named Centre of Asia-Pacific Aviation (CAPA) Low Cost Airline of the Year (2006). The airline was selected from amongst Low Cost Airlines (LCC) in Asia Pacific and the Middle East region to receive the CAPA Aviation Award for Excellence.

bmibaby has launched phase two of it’s exciting rapid expansion programme at Birmingham International Airport for Summer 2007. The expansion plan breaks down into three key initiatives: the introduction of four new routes to Barcelona, Lisbon, Marseille Provence and Rome (Fiumicino); a ramping up of frequencies on key Mediterranean routes; and an increase in frequencies on key domestic routes.

source: Easier

A new low-cost, high-frills French airline entered the cutthroat transatlantic market on Friday with an all-business class service aimed at cost-conscious “‘Paryorkers'”.

The made-up catchword, derived from Paris and New York, is the slogan for a daily round-trip service between the two cities to be operated by start-up airline L’Avion from December 27.

The airline began taking reservations on Friday and changed its brand name from Elysair after market research found, to the airline’s surprise, that Americans as well as French people warmed to the simple French word for “aeroplane.”

source: Yahoo!

Readers of Business Traveler magazine have named Frontier Airlines the best low cost carrier in the U.S. in the magazine’s 18th annual Readers’ Choice Business Travel Survey. This is the first time Frontier has been selected for this honor.

source: Yahoo!

Flyglobespan, the Scottish low-cost airline, will begin flying between the United Kingdom and Hamilton, Ont. this spring.
In addition to distributing its own glossy route maps, the four-year-old airline will tout access to the vast European networks of two of its biggest discount rivals – Ryanair and easyJet – from London’s Stansted airport, now a Mecca for thrifty European air travellers. It will be the first daily flight by a low-cost airline from Canada to Stansted.

source: canada.com

Spring Airlines, the country’s first discount airline company, offered its customers airline tickets for only one yuan (13 US cents/ 0,10 € ). The airline company’s maiden flight from Guangzhou to Shanghai was on Thursday, representing the completion of its ‘golden triangle’ flight layout between Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, China’s major regional flight centres.

With ticket prices significantly lower than state-owned airlines, Spring Airlines has gotten the attention of travelers who don’t normally fly. Passengers on yesterday’s flight paid as low as 299 yuan for a ticket, 30 percent of the normal price.

source: China Daily

Discount airline AirTran passed on Charleston as a new destination city in favor of Phoenix, Arizona, and that means prices to fly out of Charleston will remain high.

The Charleston Aviation Authority says its because people are simply willing to pay more to fly out of here. But, if a discount airline does agree to come into our market, it will likely drive down prices for the major airlines because of competition.

source: live5news.com