Archive for November, 2009
Monday, November 30th, 2009
Sixt Rent A Car says that a blog it set up to provide anyone who logs on with news and stories from around the world has been extremely successful. The Sixt blog was set up to serve customers of Sixt as well as non-customers who wish to contact an expert in order to gain information on car rental as well as what is going on in the car rental world. The site features blog posts from regular guests which cover subjects from world news to local events.
Internet marketing executive for Sixt, David Jackson said the blog site was not simply dedicated to publishing information about car hire. He wants the site to appeal to a broad range of internet customers and hopes that its diversity will appeal not only to regular Sixt customers but also to new customers.
Whether a Sixt customer or not, the site is already becoming an extremely useful tool for those wishing to find out about travel conditions in certain areas as well as any problems that they might encounter on their journeys. Sixt say that they were keen for the blog site to be separate from the Sixt reservations pages so that it didn’t simply feel like a sales tool. One of the most popular functions of the site is an area called Ask The Expert where anyone can get advice on even the most complicated problems associated with car rental such as what tyre type and pressure should one use when on a skiing holiday.
Tags: Ask The Expert, blog, car hire, car rental, Sixt, Sixt Rent A Car, skiing holiday
Posted in Car Rental News | Comments Off
Friday, November 27th, 2009
Customers shopping for car insurance are now being offered an incentive to do so with Marks & Spencer car insurance bought through the website moneysupermarket.com. The incentive comes in the form of a year of free carwashes.
Those who decide to take out a policy will be able to have their car cleaned once every month over the twelve months of 2010. Those wishing to avail themselves of the deal will have to have applied for car insurance before December 23rd this year. Those customers who do decide to take advantage of the offer will then be sent a book of twelve vouchers to be redeemed at ARC locations throughout the United Kingdom.
Of course a free car cleaning service is not the only reason to take out Marks & Spencer car insurance. The policy will provide car owners with breakdown cover for the U.K. and Europe which includes the provision of a hire car for fourteen days should a vehicle be subject to fire or theft.
Head of motor insurance at moneysupermarket.com, Steve Sweeney said that he thought the offer of free carwashes for a year would be attractive to customers who were looking for ways to save more money at the moment. It has been estimated that getting the car cleaned for free every month could potentially save drivers around eighty four pounds over the year.
Tags: ARC, breakdown cover, car insurance, free carwashes, Marks & Spencer, moneysupermarket.com, vouchers
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Thursday, November 26th, 2009
The European Commission has just announced new regulations which will extend the same protection given to holidaymakers who book their trips through a travel agent to those who book independently. The new rules are to be put into place to protect travellers from the perils of something going wrong on their independently booked holiday such as below standard service or an airline going into insolvency.
Travellers who decide to construct their own holiday itinerary by booking various services such as airline tickets and car rental from different websites will now have the right to cancel tickets and apply for refunds in the same way as holidaymakers who book a package deal can.
Meglena Kuneva, a consumer commissioner with the European Union said that the new rules were needed so that customers as well as travel companies could all now know that they were being treated equally. She said that everyone had the right to be protected from the problems of companies such as airlines going bust. Research by the commission suggests that a large percentage of consumers who put together their own travel itinerary believe that they are protected if anything goes wrong. At present this is not the case and it has been estimated that the average amount of money lost by holidaymakers when something does go wrong is around €600.
The new measures of protection are scheduled to be put into practice some time next year after the commission has had a chance to consult both members of the travel industry and consumers.
Tags: airline tickets, car rental, European Commission, holidaymakers, independently booked holiday, travel agent, travel industry, travel itinerary
Posted in Travel News | Comments Off
Wednesday, November 25th, 2009
Holidaymakers travelling home in their cars for Thanksgiving in the Carolinas are likely to find that of doing so is more expensive than it was this time last year. Over the last twelve months petrol prices have risen by around 60 cents per gallon. However there is some good news as petrol prices seem to have dropped by a few cents in the last week or so.
Senior oil analyst for Washington’s Energy Information Administration, Doug MacIntyre said that he doesn’t expect any large fluctuations in the price of petrol over the next twelve months. He says that he thinks the price will hover within the ten cent range which he describes as being stable.
President and CEO of AAA Carolinas, David E. Parsons said that although the price of fuel has been steadily rising and although the world economic crisis was still being felt he did not see either of these factors deterring people from taking to the roads to be with their loved ones over Thanksgiving. The AAA also said that the continuing drop in air fares along with cheaper car rental and cheaper hotel rooms would also be encouraging to those wishing to travel over the holiday period. Even so it has been predicted that the numbers of people traveling on the nation’s airlines will continue to fall. AAA said that this is due to the increase in ancillary fees such as baggage handling and booking fees as well as a reduction in capacity and fewer flights.
Tags: aaa, airlines, bagage fees, car rental, Energy Information Administration, hotel rooms, Thanksgiving
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Tuesday, November 24th, 2009
Arash Farboud, the man behind the Farboud GTS known to car enthusiasts as the Farbio has revealed his latest supercar design. The Arash AF-10 is a British designed car that creators claim will hit a top speed of around 205 miles per hour. Although Farboud has not said yet when the car will go on sale it is thought that it will cost those who are able to get their hands on one around £320,000.
The AF-10 has a six speed gear box and it is claimed that the vehicle can accelerate from 0 to 62 miles per hour in just 3.5 seconds. The cars complete chassis and body is made from carbon-fibre and it has a 7 litre 550bhp engine, the type that one would normally find under the hood of a Corvette Z06. The powerful V8 engine is mid-mounted. The carbon-fibre design means that the vehicle weighs in at a light 1,260kg. A separate front wing and triple rear diffuser mean that the AF-10 will stay gripped to the road at high speeds. The cars all round double wishbone suspension has been taken from racing car design and the front wheels measure 19 inches in diameter compared with the rear wheels which measure 20 inches in diameter.
The AF-10 is still going through rigorous testing but it is planned that a supercharged version will soon be rolled out which will produce 1,200bhp. If this is the case then it will mean that the Arash AF-10 will beat the Bugatti Veyron in terms of power-to-weight ratio.
Tags: Arash AF-10, Arash Farboud, Bugatti Veyron, carbon-fibre, Corvette Z06, Farbio, Farboud GTS, V8 engine
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Monday, November 23rd, 2009
The RAC has released the results of new research that shows young drivers are far more likely to be distracted whilst in charge of a moving vehicle by high tech gadgets than those of a more mature age. The study found that drivers in the seventeen to twenty-four year old age group were most likely to find their attention taken away from the job of safely driving a vehicle by gadgets such as CD players, mobile phones and satellite navigation devices.
A staggering fifty-five percent of the youngest age bracket of drivers admitted that they had been seriously distracted by in car gadgets whilst driving a car. The survey showed that at the top of the list of most distracting gadgets were the CD player and the radio. Following the distraction of trying to find the right track on a CD or a certain radio station comes mobile phones along with operating and paying attention to the sat nav, trying to operate the cars air conditioning and concentrating on dash board warning lights.
Director at the RAC, David Bizley warned that people who failed to use in car devices in a properly safe way were putting themselves as well as others at great risk. He went on to say that the consequences of being distracted by in car gadgets could potentially be disastrous. New research by Autonational Rescue also indicates that whilst they should be paying far more attention to potential hazards on the road many young drivers relied completely on a cars satellite navigation to get them to where they wanted to be.
Tags: Autonational Rescue, CD players, high tech gadgets, mobile phones, RAC, satellite navigation devices
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Friday, November 20th, 2009
Enterprise Rent A Car say that they are seeing an increase in people wishing to hire cars with them over the Thanksgiving holiday compared to the same time last year. Holiday makers are turning to the nation’s largest car hire firm to utilize vehicles for holiday excursions, to visit friends and family and to go on shopping trips.
Vice president of leisure business development for Enterprise, Steve Short said that this year people are turning to the car to make trips home over the holidays. He said that they were also coming to Enterprise for vehicles that will make their post Thanksgiving bargain shopping trips that little bit easier. He continued to say that customers realized that it was preferable to use a car hire rather than the family run-around because they could get more boot space as well as more miles to the gallon from a car rental.
Short was keen to point out that Enterprise would be opening many of its local branches on the Friday following Thanksgiving and that the hire firm would also be rolling out some money saving deals to customers over the holiday period. He went on to say that at Enterprise they often called their rental vehicles virtual cars because they were used by customers for situations where their own cars would not cope as well, such as providing a bigger space in which to transport the family or go on shopping trips or a more fuel efficient form of transport for those long journeys.
Tags: car hire, car rental, Enterprise, enterprise rent a car, Thanksgiving
Posted in Car Rental News | Comments Off
Thursday, November 19th, 2009
Europe’s largest carrier Air France-KLM has just announced that a drop in demand by passengers has caused it to publish greater losses for the second quarter than were previously expected. The lack of customers combined with the continued impact on its finances by fuel hedges means that the airline has announced a loss of €147 million for the three months up to September 30th this year. Last year the airline announced profits of €27 million for the same quarter.
Analysts say the Air France-KLM usually show their best figures in the second quarter due to the high season holiday period. The airline has been desperately trying to cut capacity in order to keep its aircraft full and has reduced its workforce by implementing measures such as voluntary redundancy programmes which will see another 1,700 jobs disappear throughout next year. Air France-KLM has managed to improve its load factor by cutting capacity on its aircraft by 4.4 percent. This has meant that even though traffic dropped 3.3 percent passenger loads were up from 83.1 percent to 84 percent for the period.
Air France-KLM is suffering along with the other premium service airlines from a drop in those flying in its business and first class cabins. It has left it vulnerable to the spread of budget airlines such as easyJet and Ryanair. The airline has also been hit very hard by the drop in cargo traffic.
Air France-KLM are trying to remain positive and say that they hope to announce that they are at a position of breaking even by the beginning of the next financial year.
Tags: Air France-KLM, capacity, fuel hedges, load factor, loss, passengers
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Wednesday, November 18th, 2009
Car hire firm Avis Europe has warned that it will be raising rental prices to both its leisure and business users in the near future. Avis says that it has had to push prices up to cope with the lack of demand for rental vehicles caused by the global economic downturn. Avis has already managed to reduce its rental fleet size by around a fifth in an attempt to cut costs. As well as a reduction in the numbers of vehicles available Avis says it will continue with its programme of redundancies and freezes of both staff pay levels and recruitment.
By reducing the numbers of vehicles in it fleet Avis say that it has managed to offset the decline in passenger numbers whilst increasing rates of usage and decreasing costs. Avis says that cost cutting measures will not help a decline in revenue but will help to make the companies staff more productive.
The company also said that it was aiming to optimize the relationship between Avis and Budget not just in the U.K. but throughout Europe in countries such as France, Austria and Switzerland.
When talking about the future and the economic climate as a whole Avis said that it was being very cautious about making any predictions concerning both business and leisure spending.
It is hoped that cost cutting initiatives at Avis will result in a second-half restructuring charge in the region of €11 million according to a management statement.
Tags: Avis, Avis Europe, Budget, car hire, car rental, rental vehicles
Posted in Car Rental News | Comments Off
Tuesday, November 17th, 2009
Rolls Royce has just announced two large orders for its aircraft jet engines. The orders worth $2 billion in total have come from Ethiopian Airlines and Air China. Rolls Royce has been asked to build its Trent 700 engines for twenty Airbus A330s to be delivered to Air China after 2011 in a deal worth $1.5 billion. Ethiopian Air has ordered twelve Airbus A350-900s for which Rolls Royce will be required to supply its Trent XWB engines in a deal worth $480 million.
The orders were confirmed at the Dubai Airshow at the weekend and will have been welcomed by Rolls Royce who along with every other facet of the airline industry has felt the effects of the global economic downturn. The company announced earlier this year that it was on target to meet its financial predictions but said that there could be problems associated with delays in Airbus fleet production.
Once the order by Ethiopian Air for its Trent XWB engines has been completed it will mean that Rolls Royce will have supplied over 1000 of the engines to customers worldwide. Rolls Royce claims that the Trent engine is the most environmentally friendly engine on the market. They say that the engine is also the most fuel efficient having a twenty-eight percent higher fuel efficiency rating than anything preceding the Trent generation.
Rolls Royce has engine making factories in Bristol and Derby. It also has component manufacturing plants in Sunderland and Inchinnan, close to Glasgow Airport.
Tags: Air China, airbus, Dubai Airshow, Ethiopian Airlines, Glasgow Airport, jet engines, Rolls Royce, Trent XWB
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