The owner of British Airways agreed to buy rival airline BMI in a deal which rivals claim will mean higher prices for flyers.
The deal will give BA owners International Airlines Group (IAG) more than half of the take-off and landing slots at Heathrow.
Virgin Atlantic said the airline would be able to use their ”monopoly power” to force up fares if the £172.5million takeover is completed.
source: Dailymail.co.uk
Lufthansa-owned Germanwings will launch flights from Manchester and Heathrow to Stuttgart in 2012.
The routes are currently being operated by Lufthansa Regional partners CityLine and Contact Air.
From February 2012, the low cost carrier will fly 21 times a week between London Heathrow and Stuttgart.
source: abtn.co.uk
Thomas Cook Airlines has been named as the worst short-haul carrier by a consumer watchdog.
The company had the poorest results for overall customer satisfaction and the likelihood of being recommended to a friend. A panel of more than 8,000 ‘Which?’ members gave the airline a rating of 37%, while Ryanair was scored at just 38%.
The cabin environment of Thomas Cook Airlines was given one star out of five and Ryanair got the same rating for the quality of its boarding process. Both airlines were given two stars for their value for money.
Swiss International Air Lines was voted as the best short-haul carrier with a satisfaction rating of 76%. Aer Lingus came second with 67%. In the long-haul category, Singapore Airlines came number one with a rating of 89%. Air New Zealand was second (88%) and Emirates third (80%).
source: AP
German airline Deutsche Lufthansa said it would initiate further cost-cutting in 2012 with details it will reveal in the first quarter of the year.
“‘In the new and constantly changing environment in which we operate, it takes an enormous effort simply to aim to grow with the market,'” Lufthansa Chief Executive Officer Christoph Franz said in a company newsletter.
Franz said the company would post a profit in 2011, but the numbers were “‘well below'” what it needed to maintain the current operation strategy.
source: upi.com
A flight attendant who started a fire on an aircraft mid-flight just so he could ”play the hero” by putting it out has been jailed for more than six years.
Eder Rojas, 23, risked the lives of 72 passengers and four crew members, when he set fire to paper towels in the plane’s rear bathroom while he was working on the Compass Airlines flight.
Investigators accused Rojas, of Woodbury, Minnesota, of starting the fire because he was unhappy about working the route from Minneapolis to Regina, Saskatchewan.
A tearful Rojas said that he was sorry for what he did and would accept any punishment he received.
source: dailymail.co.uk
The merger of two major Latin American airlines has been approved, creating the largest carrier in the region.
Brazil’s anti-trust authorities said they approved the merger of the Brazilian airline TAM with Chile’s LAN, first proposed in 2010.
The new airline, LATAM, is valued at about $14.5bn (£9.4bn) and will represent 6% of global air transport.
Last year, TAM and LAN flew more than 45 million passengers and 754,777 tonnes of cargo.
The combined airline would fly to 115 destinations in 23 countries, with a 40,000-strong workforce.
source: bbc.co.uk
Nearly 8,000 people have signed a petition against the ad, which shows a curvy Ryanair employee dressed in a bikini accompanied by the slogan ”Red Hot Fares & Crew”.
The carrier also produced a racy ‘2012 Cabin Crew Calendar’, showing female Ryanair crew in heels and bikinis.
The online petition on change.org also features outraged comments, with one woman stating: “‘Making staff take off they’re clothes to advertise air plane flights is sexist and objectifying, not to mention completely irrelevant.”‘
source: aol.co.uk
easyJet founder Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou has announced plans for ‘’The Car Club” – a car rental scheme where customers can ‘’share”.
He has already joined the car hire business with easyCar rental company and the new scheme would run through its website.
A joint launch-project with Brent Hoberman, the co-founder of late bookings website LastMinute.com, The Car Club, due to launch in the New Year, will see registered owners pool their vehicles and allow them to be rented out for an hourly fee.
source: travelmole.com
Delta Air Lines Inc. is boosting its flying out of New York’s LaGuardia airport, adding routes that target American Airlines and put it in a better position to compete against United.
Delta says the additions make it the biggest airline between the New York area and cities in the U.S. That should help it grab more business travelers.
The list of added cities reads like a map of the hubs of competing airlines. Delta is adding Miami and Dallas, both American Airlines hubs. It will also fly to Houston and Denver, which are both United hubs, and Charlotte, which is a hub for US Airways.
source: abcnews.go.com
Travelling alone on an aircraft can be a lottery. But now the Dutch airline, KLM, is offering passengers the chance to pick who they sit next to by using Facebook and LinkedIn profiles.
It is developing an internet service known as “‘meet and seat’†which will give fliers access to to their fellow travellers’ Facebook and LinkedIn profiles.
The scheme will be launched next year and KLM admitted that many details still have to be worked out.
source: Telegraph.co.uk
