news about cheap fares and airlines from travel search engine Trabber

Six months after AirTran introduced its low-cost service at Westchester County Airport at White Plains and less than two weeks after it announced service at Stewart Airport at Newburgh, the Atlanta-based airline Monday said it would add three more cities to its Westchester service.

AirTran currently flies from Westchester to Atlanta, West Palm Beach and Orlando. As of December 21, it will add Ft. Lauderdale, Ft. Myers and Tampa.

When it starts Stewart service on January 11, it will fly to Atlanta, Orlando, Tampa and Ft. Lauderdale.

Source: midhudsonnews.com

The Singapore low-cost carrier, Tiger Airways, has announced it is planning to purchase 8 new Airbus A-320 aircraft, for a total expense of USD 500m.

The airline, which is controlled for 49% by Singapore Airlines, communicated in a note that the deliveries will begin in 2008 and completed in 2010. The A-320s are single-aisle airplanes, designed to cover short and mid range routes and can host up to 200 passengers.

source: Avionews

Central Europe-based low-cost carrier, SkyEurope Airlines, intends to double its fleet to 32 aircraft within four years, Czech business weekly, Profit, said.

“‘SkyEurope will double its fleet from 16 to 32 aircraft within four years’,” commercial director, Karim Makhlouf, told the weekly.

“‘Generally, we will continue with our “Go East” strategy,'” Makhlouf added, referring to the carrier’s plans to develop routes in Central and Eastern Europe, where rising living standards and faster economic growth are expected to increase demand for air travel much faster than in Western Europe.

source: TradeArabia

GOL Linhas Aereas Inteligentes, Brazil’s low-cost, low-fare airline, starts today its operations in Chapeco, in western Santa Catarina state, Brazil. Daily flights will follow the route Sao Paulo – Florianopolis – Chapeco. Passengers from Porto Alegre may fly to the new destination via a connection in Florianopolis.

source: Yahoo! finance

Low-cost airline Flybe is giving football fans the chance to win two return flights and meet their sporting heroes.

The airline is sponsoring three teams in the Coca Cola Championship â?? Southampton, Norwich and Birmingham â?? and is organising a mini “Flybe league” between them.

Fans correctly predicting the scores from three matches between the teams will be entered into a prize draw, with the winner being awarded tickets to a match of their choice, a chance to meet their team’s players and free Flybe flights.

source: cheapflights.co.uk

Some flights from San Diego to Hawaii were canceled Sunday in the wake of a magnitude 6.6 earthquake near Hawaii that caused a power outage at Honolulu Airport, authorities said.

American Airlines canceled all flights to the state Sunday and some for today until electrical problems are resolved, an airline employee said.

Flights already en route to the airport when the earthquake and several significant aftershocks occurred were allowed to land, but none were allowed to take off, the employee said.

Wizz Air, the largest low fare – low cost airline in Poland offers free tickets to Centralwings passengers whose flights to and from Cologne were cancelled.

Passengers stranded as a consequence of Centralwings’ cancelling its Katowice-Cologne and Wroclaw-Cologne routes, can re-book on Wizz Air’s Katowice-Cologne or Wroclaw-Dortmund flights. On these routes Wizz Air increased the number of free seats offered (only taxes and charges equivalent to PLN 77 / EUR 19.98 to be paid) and extended the booking period until Oct 23, 2006. Wizz Air continues to be the leading carrier between South Poland and the Ruhr region with more than two flights daily.

Lufthansa has reduced its fuel surcharge for long-haul flights from 62 to 52 â?¬ per sector. The airline says the move is â??’in response to the sustained drop in crude oil prices over the past several weeks’â?. The change takes effect from October 16. The surcharge for German domestic and intra-European flights will remain unchanged at twelve euros per sector.

Meanwhile, Singapore Airlines says it is dropping its surcharge from US$60 to US$54 per sector for flights booked after October 14.

The airline said: â??’In recent weeks, the price of jet fuel has dropped, although the price is still substantially higher than when the decision to impose surcharges was first made. Collections from the fuel surcharges have only ever given partial relief from the cost increase as a result of the high price of jet fuel.’â?

Air France has also reduced its surcharge. Because oil has stayed below $65 a barrel for 30 consecutive days, it is rolling back its most recent surcharge increase. The surcharges are now 16 â?¬ per flight on its domestic and European network, 46 â?¬ on long haul flights between France and US and 49 â?¬ per flight to other destinations.
fuente: Times Online

European Union air safety specialists this week gave the executive commission the authority to publish a Europe-wide blacklist of unsafe airlines, in a move aimed at replacing a country-by-country approach that is creating confusion.

‘ “There is consensus toward establishing a list of companies which are restricted or suspended from operating their aircraft to, from or over Europe,”‘ said Roberto Salvarani, head of the European Commission air safety unit. The group was pushed into action by uncoordinated country-by-country actions in the wake of a rash of crashes in the last month.

source: International Herald Tribune

Wizz Air has announced it is to become the second low-cost airline to operate from Coventry Airport with flights to Katowice in southern Poland from July 2007.

The carrier, which is the largest low-fare airline in central and eastern Europe and the second-largest airline in Poland, plans to run the flights three times weekly, transporting up to 50,000 passengers a year.

source: Leamington Spa Today