Posts Tagged ‘Europe’

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Europcar and Accor team up to create new reservation system

Tuesday, September 29th, 2009

Europcar, one of Europe’s largest car hire firms, has launched a new online reservation tool for its customers with the help of business partner Accor.

The new system would allow customers to choose from three pre-selected cars once they have finally received confirmation of their hotel booking.   The three pre-selected cars would take into account the location of the hotel, the length of stay, and the country in which the customer is staying.  The new system is aimed at helping the customer find the perfect car for their needs.

Accor will become the first hotel chain to utilise the new online reservation system developed by Europcar, with customers who book online qualifying for exclusive discounts of up to 20 percent off the cost of car hire.

Rafeel Girona, chief operating officer of Europcar, said that they were delighted to take their partnership to the next level.  The new system would allow them to provide customers with a greater level of quality and more special discounts.   Pascal Mergez, director of transportation partnerships for Accor said that this new service constituted a milestone in the partnership of the two companies, and this gives Accor a better chance to offer its customers a new level of service that has not been offered before.

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Fiat partner with Europcar to go green

Friday, September 25th, 2009

European car hire giant, Europcar, has launched a new competition for residents of France, Italy Portugal, Spain, Germany, Austria and Belgium where participants have the chance to win their very own Fiat 500 vehicle.

The competition is taking place to confirm Europcar’s image as an environmentally friendly company by bringing attention to one of the most environmentally friendly cars on the market today.

Participants can enter the competition by visiting Europcar’s website and answering five questions relating to the environmental benefits of the Fiat 500 and the green benefits of Europcar.

Europcar and Fiat have recently partnered to offer cars with reduced carbon emissions to its customers, with the new vehicle emitting between 110 and 119 grams of carbon dioxide per driven kilometre.

The Fiat 500, which offers the best carbon emissions rate from any model the auto manufacturer has ever made, won the award for European Car of the Year in 2008.

The launch of the green car in Europcar’s fleet has further established the company as a leader in green car hire, with the firm awarded the Green Charter last year by Bureau Veritas.

The car rental company was also awarded the title of World’s Leading Green Transport Solution.

The competition will run from now until October 15 throughout Europe with the winner announced in November.

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American Airlines expects drop in traffic

Monday, September 21st, 2009

The world’s largest airline, American Airlines, announced late last week that it expects September traffic to drop by 16.4 percent from August, as capacity drops by 9.7 percent.

Carriers generally reduce their schedule after the Labour Day long weekend, and other airlines have been making cuts too.  This year’s autumn schedules have been significantly lighter, as airlines try to match consumer demand.

American says that it expects third quarter unit revenue — revenue divided by capacity — to drop 14.5 percent to 15.5 percent compared with the same period last year.  The whole operation, including regional airlines, is expected to fall 14.3 percent to 15.3 percent.

Meanwhile, American is anticipating costs to rise from August to September, however, not as much as previously expected.  Excluding fuel and special items, the costs are expected to rise from 8.43 cents per available seat mile in August to 9.08 in September.

The airline has said that the increase is due to the reduced capacity, pension costs and the costs from efforts to improve reliability.  The costs would have risen even higher if not for cuts in smaller passenger-related expenses, foreign exchange and other cost-reduction strategies.

Airline financial analyst Hunter Keay wrote in a note that American’s drop in passenger revenue was less sever than competitors, due to the fact that the airline did not expand into new international markets last year where the recession has tightly gripped the air travel industry.

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SkyEurope latest victim of the recession

Wednesday, September 2nd, 2009

Budget carrier SkyEurope is the latest victim of the downturn in the travel industry, ending operations yesterday due to ongoing financial problems.

Amidst the collapse which has left many passengers stranded overseas, the troubled airline, which flew to destinations across Europe including Luton Airport, stopped trading after airports banned SkyEurope due to non-payments of debts.

Despite the collapse of the airline, passengers who have booked flights with SkyEurope may be entitled to a refund, depending on how they purchased the ticket.

SkyEurope serviced several eastern European destinations such as Kosice, Bratislava, Vienna, Prague, and was popular with city break travellers departing from London’s Luton airport.

The airline first showed clear signs of trouble when it was forced to cancel services from certain airports this week due to unpaid debts.

The airline was banned from several airports including Vienna and faced a handling ban at Prague unless payments were received.

SkyEurope announced today that all flights are cancelled and the website regretfully apologises for the inconvenience to customers.

The airline has been in financial trouble for a period of time now, but in July claimed it found an investor.  SkyEurope blamed the global recession and the downturn in the travel industry for its collapse, which saw the aircraft reduce its fleet from 15 to five aircraft over the last year.

According to their website: ‘SkyEurope suspends its operations’ , and informs passengers who purchased tickets over with a credit card and over £100 can receive a refund from their card provider.

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Airlines losing $1 billion a month

Wednesday, September 2nd, 2009

The International Air Transport Association says that airlines are likely to have lost more than $6 billion (£3.7 billion) in the first half of this year.

This number, an average of $1 billion a month, is twice the amount IATA forecasted in December that the airlines would lose in the whole of this year.

Carriers that made losses between April and June at a time when they would usually make 50 percent of their annual profits, IATA said.

However, the association says that passenger and freight numbers have already started to improve.

The two rose more than 3 percent in July from June, but will remain well below levels seen at the same time as last year.

IATA said that there had been a material improvement in July, but the future path is likely to be volatile and recoveries could be slow.

Throughout the world, European and Asian airlines fared the worse, with 12 airlines in Europe losing more than $1.1 billion, and Asian airlines losing about $1.6 billion between the months of April and June.

The global recession has had a significant effect on the travel industry, with business and leisure customers cutting back on travel, and companies transporting less cargo.

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Aer-Lingus and Ryanair in war of words

Monday, August 31st, 2009

A war of words between Aer Lingus and major shareholder in the struggling airline, Ryanair, has escalated with both sides accusing each other of damaging the struggling airline.

Aer Lingus, which last week reported a loss of £65 million, has accused Ryanair of ‘doing a lot of damage’ to its share price.

Aer Lingus chairman, Colm Barrington, said on Irish radio that Ryanair had adversely affected the company’s share price as it launched two takeover bids.  He also said that job and pay cuts were imminent to help the airline survive.

Europe’s largest low cost carrier hit back at the claims, insisting that the Aer Lingus board was alone to blame for the poorly performing share price.

“The person who has damaged Aer Lingus is Colm Barrington, who as chairman eight months ago recommended rejection of Ryanair’s offer of €1.40 per share, only to preside over a share price collapse to less than 50 cents in August,” a Ryanair spokesman said.

“Mr. Barrington promised shareholders in December that Aer Lingus ‘is and will continue to be profitable’ only to announce substantial losses for 2008, and increased losses in 2009. Without Ryanair’s 30pc shareholding, we believe Aer Lingus’s shares would have collapsed even further.”

Aer Lingus claims it would not be surprised by yet another takeover bid from Ryanair.

Thanks to the Telegraph for the above quotes.  For more information visit their website.

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Etihad to increase winter services

Thursday, August 27th, 2009

Etihad Airwyas has announced that its winter 2009-2010 schedule will feature a wider range of flights and improved connections.

The schedule will begin on 25th of October, and will be about 15 percent more extensive than last year, with a total of 950 flights operating per week.

Etihad will open new flights to Hyderabad in India, as well as services to Athens, Beirut, Cairo and Istanbul.

Chief executive for Etihad, James Hogan, said: “The winter programme for 2009-10 demonstrates our commitment to provide greater depth to the Etihad Airways global flight network.

“The increased frequencies will provide air travellers with a greater choice of flights into and out of Abu Dhabi and better connectivity with the rest of our network.”

The winter season will coincide with the delivery of three new Airbus A320 aircraft that will support its current services throughout the Middle East, Europe and Asia.

The airline has weathered the downturn in travel rather well, as July 2009 has been the Abu Dhabi-based airline’s busiest since it began flying, with more than 616,000 passengers.

Quotes from justtheflight.co.uk.  For more information on this article visit their website.

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Hertz lowers minimum age to 19

Tuesday, August 25th, 2009

At a time when the car hire industry is greatly affected by the recession, car hire companies are looking for new ways to gain revenue, with car rental giant Hertz changing its minimum age policy in a bid to attract more younger customers.

Until now, the minimum age for car hire is usually between 23 and 25 years old but higher in some countries.  Hertz has announced that it will lower the minimum age for car hire to just 19.

Hertz is a major player in the UK car hire market, so the move will be closely monitored by its competitors, and will open up car hire to a new generation.

The reduction in minimum age will be initially applied to locations in Europe including; United Kingdom, Spain, Slovakia, Italy, Holland, France, Germany, Switzerland, Belgium, Luxembourg and the Czech Republic.

To further attract young drivers the Hertz also offers a 15% discount on car hire and 20% on van hire for students, which is expected to be popular with the summer festival season.

“Hertz is the first car rental company to offer consistent pricing across Europe for younger drivers” said head of Hertz Europe, Michel Taride, said

With thanks to www.limobroker.co.uk for the above information. For more details please refer to their website

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British Airways revenue may drop by £1 billion

Tuesday, August 25th, 2009

Europe’s third largest airline British Airways has said revenue may drop by a further £1 billion if the decline in sales continues as it did in the first quarter of this year.

“There is no quick fix in sight for us,” Chief Financial Officer Keith Williams said in the carrier’s weekly staff newsletter. “It is likely that recovery in the U.K. and the U.S. will take some time.”

In the first quarter, sales dropped by 12 percent to £1.98 billion as traffic also dropped by 3.2 percent.  The airline has postponed the delivery of new aircraft, stopped serving meals on short-haul flights and plans to eliminate up to 4,000 jobs to reduce costs.

The airlines yield, a measure of revenue per passenger, are most likely to be better off than other carriers based on industry figures, Chief Executive Officer Willie Walsh said in the newsletter.  First and business class seats, the most profitable, fell by about 41 percent worldwide in the second quarter, the International Air Transport Association said on August 18.

Williams said the airline’s recovery would most likely lag behind the rest of the industry as the company needs more cash to see it through the downturn.

Walsh said last month that the company had raised $1 billion in funds to improve cash reserves.

Thanks to Bloomberg for the above quotes and figures.  For more information on this article visit their website.

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Dirty airlines could be banned from EU

Monday, August 24th, 2009

The EU announced on Saturday that a list of nearly 4,000 airlines that is says should cut down their environment from 2012 or risk being banned from European airports and airspace.

The green policy comes with great opposition from the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) which represents most of the worlds airlines, and companies which belong to the International Air Transport Association (IATA).   The new European law will come into force soon.

Under the new regulation, from the beginning of 2012, all airlines operating in the European Union will have to limit carbon dioxide emissions or face penalties.

Airlines would have to begin monitoring their carbon emissions by January 2010 according to the plans put forward this year.

CO2 emissions are often considered the major cause of greenhouse gas contributing to climate change.

The scientific body which assesses climate change, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, claims that air traffic produces two percent of all carbon dioxide emissions from humans, and a total of 13 percent from transport.

The list was published in the Official Journal of the European Union.

Thanks to AFP or the above quotes and figures.  For more information visit their website.

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