news about cheap fares and airlines from travel search engine Trabber

Four Thai “‘ladyboys'” have been recruited as flight attendants for a start-up charter airline that says it will be Thailand’s first to include transsexuals among its cabin crew.

P.C. Air, which will fly to several Asian destinations starting in April, had its first training session this week for 30 recruits, including four from “the third sex.”

Thailand is known for its tolerance for transvestites and transsexuals, known locally as “‘katoeys'” or “‘lazyboys'”.

source: washingtonpost.com

An Alaska Airlines flight had to return to the gate at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport when a rat was spotted on the plane.

Flight 676 was headed to Denver and had just pulled away from the gate at Sea-Tac when a passenger reported seeing the rat scurrying around the cabin.

The 737 aircraft returned to the terminal, and the crew and passengers boarded another plane for Denver about 90 minutes later.

source: Aol

Spain and Portugal are seeing a resurgence as customers seek an alternative to Egypt, where political violence continued into a third week.

Leisure carrier Jet2.com pulled its summer programme to Sharm el-Sheikh and Hurghada this week as protesters stepped up their efforts to overthrow President Hosni Mubarak.

‘Foreign and Commonwealth Office‘ advice remained unchanged, with guidance against all but essential travel to Cairo, Alexandria, Luxor and Suez.

Fears are growing that the political violence will have a long-term impact on tourism to Egypt.

source: travelweekly.co.uk

The private equity firms Axa and Permira are buying the online travel agent Opodo for €500m (£424m) from the Spanish travel reservations group Amadeus.

Following the acquisition, Axa and Permira plan to merge Opodo with their two rival online travel firms, the French Go Voyages and Spain’s eDream.

Opodo, which was set up in 2001 by a consortium of European airlines including British Airways, Air France, KLM and Iberia, is based in the UK and operates websites across Europe.

source: independent.co.uk

Qantas has again been lauded for its on-board wine selection at the annual Cellars in the Sky Award ceremony.

The Australian flag-carrier, which took four awards last year, won a total of six at this year’s airline wine tasting event, including ‘Best First Class White’, ‘First Class Red’ and ‘First Class Sparkling’, as well as ‘Best Business Class Cellar’, ‘Best First Class Cellar’ and ‘Consistency of Wines Across Business and First Class’.

Business Traveller’s Cellars in the Sky competition has been running since 1985 to determine the highest quality fine wines available in Business and First Class on board the world’s flights.

source: independent.co.uk

A 7.4%’ ‘rise in premium passengers helped boost the British Airways-Iberia holding company International Airlines Group (IAG) last month.

The first results issued since the merger between the two airlines showed a strong level of long-haul traffic. IAG said that the good level of premium traffic growth was partly due to weak year-on-year comparatives due to snow in January 2010.

source: travelweekly.co.uk

Business and leisure travellers in over 75 countries can now pay for their British Airways flights, with PayPal at ba.com. PayPal offers a fast and secure way to pay online as well as protecting consumers’ sensitive information.

PayPal has over 26 million accounts in the UK, which represents two in every three British internet shoppers.

source: freshbusinessthinking.com

Chile’s antitrust court, TDLC, has ordered a suspension of the merger process between LAN and TAM while it conducts an investigation of the competitive impact of the merger. The court ordered the suspension while it hears a petition filed by the National Consumers Corp, a consumer rights organisation.

The organisation, known as Conadecus, argues certain routes between Santiago and São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro will be operated under monopoly control if the merger goes through. Shares in TAM were down 6.1% in trading on Monday, while shares in LAN declined 1%.

source: centreforaviation.com

British tourism authorities have revealed that they are considering scrapping the country’s star-rating system, a traditional indicator of hotel quality.

In a move that could mark the start of a broader shift away from state-sanctioned assessments, Britain’s government said that a forthcoming policy paper will propose ending the one-to-five-star system.

It says that user reviews offer consumers a better idea of what the hotel’s quality will be like and what they can expect from a stay than the ratings of the current system, in which the country’s hotels are evaluated by experts.

source: Independent.co.uk

The Catalan regional government – ‘la Generalitat’ – has come to Spanair‘s rescue last week with a 10.5 million euro loan to cover a share increase in the airline.

“‘Or the government stepped in now, or Spanair was going to fall,'” said Francesc Homs, the Generalitat’s spokesperson, describing the loan as an “’emergency credit'”.

According to Homs the only way the government could save the airline from imminent collapse was to extend this emergency credit and give Spanair some “‘financial stability'” at least.

The president of Spanair, Ferran Soriano, has been angered by Homs’ comments, maintaining that the credit was part of a programme of share capital increases that had been deliberate “‘since the summer'”.

source: The Reader.es