Archive for the ‘Travel News’ Category
Thursday, June 30th, 2011
Airlines in Australia are counting the cost of the raft of natural disasters which have affected schedules this year. This week, Qantas said the ash cloud which hovered above New Zealand and the south of the country has already cost the carrier A$21 million. The earthquakes which hit New Zealand and Japan, cyclones, local flooding and snowstorms in the UK have also cost the flag-carrier around A$185 million.
Alan Joyce, chief executive of Qantas, said that the airline had been hit by events on every continent this year. He added that the rising cost of jet fuel and increased competition from airlines in the Middle East and across Asia will continue to have an impact on business. Joyce went on to say that the carrier’s international arm would lose around A$200 million this financial year.
According to chairman of Strategic Aviation Solutions, Neil Hansford, airlines still have to pay around 80 per cent of their costs whether they fly or not. Grounded fleets only save on a few airport charges and fuel. The latest problems with the Chilean ash cloud will also damage carriers because they lost out on lucrative mid-week business travel. Hansford estimated that the Australian airline industry was losing as much as A$30 million every day.
The tourism industry is also falling foul of natural events and a strong dollar. More people are now leaving Australia for a holiday than are entering the country, according to Tourism and Transport Forum head, John Lee. He estimated that the industry was losing around A$10 million each day.
Tags: airlines, Alan Joyce, ash cloud, holiday, Qantas, Strategic Aviation Solutions, tourism
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Tuesday, June 28th, 2011
In a move to increase its travel offering, Kelkoo has teamed up with three well known travel brands. Partnerships with Alpharooms.com, Airflights.co.uk and Lasminute.com will give customers a wider range of choice on hotels, holidays and flights. The move will also help to boost the Kelkoo travel brand.
Holidaymakers will be able to take advantage of deals being offered by Airflights.co.uk until at least August this year when the service will review customer feedback and possibly extend its offering into next year. The deal has been signed by Lastminute.com until next April and with Alpharooms.com until next July.
Commenting on the move, travel managing director at Kelkoo, Chris Nixon, said: “The new partnerships with Airflights.co.uk, Alpharooms.com and Lastminute.com are extremely exciting and a real testament to the work being done to regenerate the Kelkoo Travel proposition. Offering customers access to greater choice from these three leading travel brands underlines our continued commitment to re-building our travel proposition across Europe, which has been my main focus since joining the team last year. This is the latest of many new and exciting developments we are looking to make at Kelkoo Travel over the coming year.”
Marketing director of Alpharooms.com, Daniel Morley, added: “Alpharooms.com are keen to support Kelkoo Travel and we will be working closely with them to offer their users an extensive range of budget to luxury worldwide accommodation.”
Sales manager of Airflights.co.uk, Colin Gill, commented: “As one of the UK’s busiest travel websites Airflights.co.uk is pleased to enter into this partnership with Kelkoo. Airflights bring a real choice of airlines, small niche tour operators and travel related products to the Kelkoo audience, whilst simultaneously increasing the Airflights brand awareness amongst the increasingly discerning UK traveller.”
Tags: Airflights.co.uk, airlines, Alpharooms.com, flights, holidays, hotels, Kelkoo, Lastminute.com, travel
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Thursday, June 23rd, 2011
British Airways passengers will be relieved by the news that cabin crew have voted almost unanimously in favour of a peace deal offered by the airline. The agreement was struck between BA and trade union Unite in May and then went for approval by staff. Unite’s leader, Len McCluskey, called the deal honourable, adding that the union always believed a settlement could be reached through the process of negotiation.
A positive vote by 92 per cent of the carrier’s cabin crew comes after nearly two years of bitter wrangling. The fight began over pay issues and staffing cuts but has more recently centred on the issue of travel privileges. BA has agreed to up to a four per cent pay increase this year with an additional 3.5 per cent in 2012.
The airline also said it would return travel perks to staff who had them confiscated because of the industrial action last year. In all, there have been 22 days of walkouts which it is estimated cost the carrier £150 million in lost revenue.
The threat of further strikes has also done little for the airlines image. It is widely believed that the removal of former chief executive Willie Walsh and his hard-line approach has done much to help ease tensions between BA and Unite.
Mr Walsh, who is now head of International Airlines Group, BA’s parent company, was replaced by Keith Williams who made it clear from the start that he wanted a better working relationship with his staff.
Tags: BA, British Airways, cabin crew, Keith Williams, Len McCluskey, strikes, Unite, willie walsh
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Tuesday, June 21st, 2011
Middle Eastern airline Emirates has said it will be introducing services to the Iraqi capital Baghdad starting 13 November. It is the latest carrier to announce flights to Baghdad as the economy and security in the country continues to improve. Iraq has been trying to encourage airlines to return after embargoes were introduced in 1990 following the country’s invasion of Kuwait.
Emirates Airline chairman and chief executive, Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al Maktoum, said Baghdad would be strategically important because of its location and because there were still only a few carriers flying to the airport. Iraq’s government is trying to encourage investment to make improvements to the city’s airport.
Last year, Emirates began serving Basra. The airline expects its customers to come from growing sectors of industry including telecoms, oil and construction as well as government personnel. The airline’s boss said that he looked forward to introducing Baghdad’s residents to Emirates’ global network.
EgyptAir, based in Cairo, has also announced plans to fly to and from Iraq commencing 15 July. According to the airline’s chairman, Hussein Massoud, there will be four flights to Baghdad and a further three services to Irbil in the north. Massoud said that Iraq and Egypt had cultural and commercial ties and that Iraq was a fertile ground for investment.
Airlines already taking advantage of improved conditions in Iraq include Royal Jordanian, Etihad Airways and Turkish Airlines. Austrian Airlines was the first major carrier from the west to resume services on a regular basis to Baghdad since 1990. The airline resumed flights earlier this month.
Tags: airlines, Austrian Airlines, EgyptAir, Emirates, Etihad Airways, Irbil, Royal Jordanian, Turkish Airlines
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Monday, June 20th, 2011
Lifeboat volunteers are warning visitors to Holy Island in Northumberland to pay attention to signs which warn them that it is not safe to drive onto the causeway which links the island to the mainland after the tide is coming in. Last week, and Australian couple had to be rescued as their rental car was cut off by the sea.
According to Ian Clayton, who is a member of Seahouses RNLI, the rescue is the eighth from the causeway this year. He said it was odd that so many people think they can get away with driving their cars into the sea.
Mr Clayton said such incidents were preventable and that it was never a local finding themselves in difficulty, always a visitor who has ignored the warning signs on both sides of the causeway. Mr Clayton added that most couldn’t even bring themselves to admit that they were at fault.
He described how one man who was warned not to cross the causeway replied that the locals were just trying to scare him. He then had to be rescued from the roof of his vehicle as his wife held onto their children in water which was already up to chest height.
Mr Clayton said that once the seawater enters the engine of a car the salt is likely to leave it written off. He added that he recently rescued a man from a brand new BMW and was left wondering what exactly he was going to tell his insurance company.
Tags: bmw, Holy Island, insurance, lifeboat, rental car, RNLI
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Friday, June 17th, 2011
Forensic experts in Paris are preparing for the task of identifying the remains of the victims of an Air France crash. The bodies of 104 people who died in the 2009 tragedy have arrived in the port of Bayonne along with aircraft debris. The harbour was shut as a mark of respect for the victims’ families.
Flight 447 went down into the Atlantic after leaving Rio de Janeiro for Paris. Although accident investigators have not yet released a full report, it is believed that the Airbus A330 went into a stall after encountering an electrical storm. The pilots then failed to regain control and the plane plunged into the ocean.
Part of the blame for the accident is being placed on the air speed indicators. An electronic signal sent from the aircraft moments before it went down shows that the pilots were being fed inaccurate information about the aircraft’s speed. Although there have been some doubts raised about how the pilots reacted to the stall warnings that went off in the cabin, Air France has said all the evidence shows that they acted professionally.
Immediately following the accident, debris and 50 bodies were recovered from the surface of the sea. Several attempts were then made to find the rest of the wreckage. The remains of flight 447 were located in July when salvagers managed to bring the planes data and flight recorders to the surface.
The investigation is ongoing, but the BEA is due to issue a detailed report next month.
Tags: air france, airbus, aircraft, flight 447
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Thursday, June 16th, 2011
Forensic experts are due to start identifying the bodies recovered from the wreckage of an Air France jet which crashed into the Atlantic Ocean two years ago. A ship carrying the remains and parts of the aircraft recovered from the sea bed is due to arrive on the French coast today.
According to Nelson Marinho, head of the association of Brazilian families who lost relatives in the crash, a DNA database which has been compiled by the federal police has been sent to France and will be used in the identification process. Once the investigation is complete, the bodies will be reunited with their families, Mr Morinho added.
The recovery of the dead was met with some objections by families insisting that they wanted their relatives to remain on the ocean floor. However, Mr Morinho said that most wanted the bodies returned to them so that they could have a funeral.
Air France flight 447 plunged into the ocean after leaving Rio de Janeiro for Paris. All on board perished in the accident. It has been confirmed that the pilots were being fed the wrong information about the Airbus A330’s speed shortly before the crash. Although the flight’s black boxes have been retrieved, French investigators are still to publish a full report.
It appears the plane entered an aeronautical stall after which the pilots failed to regain control. The aircraft then rolled and fell for three-and-a-half minutes before crashing into the ocean. The BEA is expected to issue a detailed report next month.
Tags: air france, airbus, BEA, black boxes, DNA, flight 447
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Tuesday, June 14th, 2011
Regulators in the US have apparently cleared the way for an alliance between Delta Airlines and Virgin Australia. The Brisbane-based carrier has told the Australian Securities Exchange that the Department of Transport had given its blessing for the coordination of flight schedules and codeshare agreements across the Pacific.
Both airlines have been working closely with each other since January last year. The antitrust immunity means that they can now build that relationship between Australia and the US and other destinations in the South Pacific.
In May this year Virgin expanded its codeshare agreement with Delta on flights out of Los Angeles. Virgin customers can now connect to destinations across the US including New York, Las Vegas, Detroit, Atlanta, Orlando and San Francisco. In the other direction, Delta customers can connect with a number of cities across Australia after landing in Sydney.
Airlines in Australia continue to face disruption as the volcanic ash cloud from Chile hovers in the skies over the south of the country and New Zealand. Qantas has said that safety concerns meant it will be cancelling all services across the Tasman. It has also suspended flights to Tasmania and Adelaide.
Virgin Australia and Air New Zealand have announced that they will continue to operate trans-Tasman services by rerouting flights either below or around the ash cloud. Virgin said it was in constant contact with the volcanic advisory service and with meteorological experts. The Australian Civil Aviation Authority said it was up to the airlines to decide whether it was safe to fly, as long as they avoided any direct contact with the ash.
Tags: Air New Zealand, airlines, ash cloud, codeshare, delta airlines, Department of Transport, Qantas, Virgin Australia
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Monday, June 13th, 2011
Virgin Atlantic passengers travelling from Gatwick to Grantley Adams Airport in Barbados have described how they watched in horror as a mid-air argument descended into a violent brawl. Married couple Zoe and Martin King and Derek Edmonds, Zoe’s 76-year-old father, admitted their part in a brawl at 30,000 feet. The group had apparently been drinking and loudly celebrating Zoe’s birthday when a nearby Danish family made a complaint about the noise.
According to other passengers, punches were thrown and some thought the plane was being taken over by terrorists. One elderly female passenger said it was like watching something from a film describing the action as both frightening and vicious.
As cabin crew did their best to calm the situation the pilot radioed ahead to make sure that police officers would be ready to come on board as soon as flight VS29 landed in Barbados. He also told all 229 passengers to remain seated for the remainder of the flight and advised crew to do the same.
The flight was met by a group of officers who began questioning passengers. Zoe King was apparently led from the aircraft with a damaged arm and her husband Martin appeared to have a black eye.
According to Inspector David Welch, the three had been celebrating a birthday which turned into a fight with a Danish family after words had been exchanged. Although Mr Edmonds and the Kings could have been handed a two year jail sentence after pleading guilty they were let off with a £2300 fine and will never be allowed back on a Virgin Atlantic flight.
Tags: Barbados, cabin crew, fine, jail, police, virgin atlantic
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Thursday, June 9th, 2011
Budget carrier Jet2.com has said it plans to grow its presence at Glasgow airport by adding five new Spanish destinations to its roster ahead of next summer’s holiday season. March 2012 will see Murcia, Malaga, Barcelona and Lanzarote added to the time table and in May, the low-cost airline will start supplying cheap flights to Ibiza.
Currently, customers using Glasgow can travel with Jet2.com to a variety of sunny destinations including Tenerife, Majorca, Faro and Alicante. According to the airline the popularity of the existing routes means it will be adding capacity and introducing an additional service each week to Tenerife.
According to Ian Doubtfire, managing director of Jet2.com, in the two months since operations started out of Glasgow, the airline has increased capacity to a number of its most in demand destinations as well as putting five additional routes on the timetable. He said that Jet2.com was committed to growing its presence at the airport and would continue to offer an outstanding service to customers from Glasgow and the rest of Scotland.
According to the airline it has already managed to sell 150,000 tickets for next summer on flights departing from Glasgow. Mr Doubtfire said he was positive that the new routes would also be extremely popular.
Jet2.com said it would also be giving its website an overhaul. One of the improvements it intends to make is to make the booking system more user-friendly by making it clear from the beginning of the booking process all additional charges and taxes.
Tags: Barcelona, Glasgow Airport, holiday, Ibiza, Jet2.com, Lanzarote, low-cost airline, travel
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