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Spanish airline Iberia has cancelled more than a third of its flights due to a strike by pilots fearing job losses when company planes are diverted for use by Iberia’s planned new budget carrier.

Iberia said it scrapped 118 domestic and international flights on Thursday but found seats on other Iberia flights or with other carriers for all the 10,000 travellers affected by the one-day strike.

It was the second such holiday-season walkout by the pilots.

source: Press Association

Proposals to allow twin-engined civilian passenger jets to fly over the Arctic will dramatically reduce flight times and make destinations on the other side of the globe a one-flight hop.

Until now, regulators have insisted the planes must always be within three hours of a suitable place to land.

This is because mechanical problems on a twin-engine plane a potentially far more serious than for a jet with three or four.

But US airline authorities have now nearly doubled the time limit to five-and-a-half hours to take into account the vast improvements in aircraft engine technology.

It is expected that the European Aviation Safety Agency will follow suit.

source: Dailyrecord.co.uk

Britain is unlikely to enjoy any boost in the number of tourists visiting the country next year – even though 2012 will see the country host two of its biggest events in decades.

Both the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee celebrations, in June, and the Olympic Games, in July and August, will light up the UK calendar in 2012 – but neither of these big moments will produce a significant boom in holidaymakers from overseas, according to VisitBritain.

The UK tourist authority has forecast that 30.7million visitors will head to Britain next year – roughly the same number who are recorded as visiting over the last 12 months.

source: Dailymail.co.uk

Bankers may be languishing in popularity polls but a new airline wants their business and is prepared to challenge British Airways for it once the financial crisis is over.

A British venture called Odyssey Airlines hopes to start non-stop all-business class flights from London City to New York and other locations using 10 newly-ordered Bombardier CSeries passenger jets, aviation industry sources told Reuters.

The disclosure lifts a mystery surrounding the identity of one of the buyers for a Canadian jet which aims to break into a market long dominated by Airbus and Boeing.

source: Reuters

U.S. airlines lost their fight last week to stay out of the European Union’s carbon trading market at the E.U.’s highest court.

The Court of Justice of the European Union in Luxembourg ruled in a lawsuit brought by the ‘Air Transport Association of America’, American Airlines and United Continental that aviation can be included in the E.U.’s emissions trading system (ETS). The decision cannot be appealed.

“‘The directive including aviation activities in the E.U.’s emissions trading scheme is valid,” ‘the court said in a statement.’ “Application of the emissions trading scheme to aviation infringes neither the principles of customary international law at issue nor the open-skies agreement.'”

source: eenews.net

Etihad Airways of Abu Dhabi and Air Berlin, Germany’s second-largest airline, announced a strategic partnership Monday that will see Etihad become Air Berlin‘s largest shareholder and gain access to new European routes as it seeks to keep pace with its larger Gulf-based rival, Emirates.

Under the terms of the agreement, Etihad will increase an existing 3 percent stake in Air Berlin to just over 29 percent through the purchase €73 million, or $95 million, in new shares while providing up to $255 million in loans to finance new jet purchases.

source: NY Times.com

Deutsche Lufthansa will launch a new advertising campaign aimed at filling more seats with holidaymakers as companies spend less on business trips.

Germany’s biggest airline said last week  it has named Hamburg-based Kolle Rebbe to help it build an image of more than just a solid business carrier.

“‘We already have many routes to popular holiday destinations in our schedule and want to emphasise this more strongly in our communication in the future,'” a spokesman for Lufthansa said.

Legacy carriers such as Lufthansa traditionally make a large chunk of their profits through sales of business class tickets.

source: Reuters.com

Ryanair has defied the government’s move to ban surcharges on payments to airlines and other firms by saying it does not charge its passengers any credit or debit card fees.

Airlines, cinemas and holiday firms will be stopped from imposing millions of pounds in “‘hidden last-minute'” charges on internet bookings. Treasury minister Mark Hoban said the government is prepared to legislate to prevent airlines and other businesses from imposing hefty charges on credit and debit card bookings that are difficult to detect.

However, the budget airline said in a statement: “‘Ryanair, the UK’s favourite airline, today confirms that it does not impose any debit or credit card fees.'”

Ryanair claims instead to charge an “‘admin fee'” per passenger per one-way flight. This £6 charge is levied when a passenger comes to pay and can only be avoided by using the airline’s own prepaid Mastercard. It states on its website that this charge “‘relates to costs associated with Ryanair’s booking system.'”

source: Guardian.co.uk

easyJet has announced increased capacity on five of its most popular ski routes making it the UK’s largest ski airline. This season the airline is offering more than one million seats to ski destinations – a four percent increase on last season – to ensure that winter thrill seekers can secure affordable flights to the widest range of ski resorts.

Fresh snowfall, particularly at high altitude western European resorts, has prompted resorts in Austria, France, Italy and Switzerland to open up for the first time this season.

source: traveldailynews.com

President Raul Castro put on ice highly-anticipated plans to ease travel restrictions on Cubans, telling lawmakers the nation would not be pressured into moving too fast and citing continued aggression from the United States as the reason for his cautious approach.

Cuba has been awash in speculation the much-hated regulations, which prevent most Cubans from leaving the island, might be lifted during Friday’s session of the National Assembly. But Castro said the time still wasn’t right, despite a year of free-market reforms that has seen the Communist government legalize a real estate market and greatly increase private business ownership.

“‘Some have been pressuring us to take the step … as if we were talking about something insignificant, and not the destiny of the revolution,'” Castro said, adding that those calling for an end to the travel restrictions “‘are forgetting the exceptional circumstances under which Cuba lives, encircled by the hostile policy … of the U.S. government.'”

source: AP