Air France-KLM In Lawsuit

Air France-KLM and sister cargo airline Martinair are being sued by a host of European companies with the main claimants being Ericsson and Phillips. The lawsuit is based on price fixing which the companies claim Air France and Martinair were guilty of during the period 2000-2007. They claim they were overcharged 10% due to the illegal price fixing.

Air France has already paid a fine of $350 million after a US lawsuit found them guilty of the same accusation in 2008. They also agreed to an $87 million settlement of its civil liabilities.

CFI is representing the cheated companies and paying their legal costs, plus only charging a commission if their claim is successful. There main argument being, that it would be unfair to pay out to the US firms who were ripped off and not pay out the European firms.

A host of companies are involved such as pharmaceutical, automotive, electronics, food and fashion industries. If the claim is successful Air France-KLM could be looking at a payout of £430 million.

Spanish Air Strikes To Cause Problems

Strikes at Spanish airports will cause major problems today for any inbound travellers to the country, British airways has confirmed it has cancelled several flights to spain as a result of the strike. Whilst Ryanair has cancelled all domestic flights and many International flights in and out of Spain. Among the casualties will be Manchester United fans travelling to Valencia for tonight’s Champions League clash.

Easyjet has also been forced to cancel many of its flights but stressed they had written to customers in advance advising them to change their travel plans. All travellers should check their airlines website to see the status of their flight before travelling to the airport.

The strike is being carried out by Unions UGT and CCOO who are protesting at proposed wage cuts, new labour laws making it much easier for the airport to hire and fire workers and a raise in the retirement age from 65 to 67.

BA Merger With Iberia To Go Ahead

British Airways and Iberia moved a step closer to sealing their merger after the Spanish airline backed plans by BA to tackle its pension deficit which was a stumbling block and holding up the deal.

The new company will be called IAG International Airlines Group of which Willie Walsh will be the boss and the Iberia chief Antonio Vazquez the chairman.

BA shareholders will own 56% of the company while Iberia shareholders will retain 44%. The merger will make IAG the second largest airline in the world behind Lufthansa airlines.

BA agreed a deal with the New Airways Pension Scheme to clear the deficit by 2026, BA will contribute £330 million rising with inflation rising at 3% a year.

easyJet Introduces New Winter Route At Liverpool Airport

easyJet has announced a new winter route from Liverpool John Lennon Airport flying to Grenoble twice a week in addition to the twice weekly service it is to start providing to Lyon. The budget airline announced it would start a service to Lyon earlier in the year with the first flight due to take off on the 18th December 2020.

Now the announcement of another route to Grenoble further extends its service to the popular ski destination. The first flight to Grenoble is scheduled for the 8th January 2011

easyJet now offers a total of 29 routes from Liverpool airport something which Ali Gayward easyJets’s UK Commercial Manager puts down to offering the cheapest prices at the right time of the year.

Peel the airports PR Head Robin Tudor also commented at his approval of airlines taking note of the seasonal change of needs for the UK travellers.

Flybe reveals Impressive Figures

Regional budget airline Flybe has revealed profits of £5.7m for the year ending March 2010, which means that the company that only just broke even the year before remained in profit throughout the recession and the ash cloud problems.

The privately owned Exeter firm is the largest domestic carrier in the UK and intends to extend its service as it is currently sourcing deals with Air France, Olympic Air Of Greece and Finnair in an attempt to roll out its regional business model.

Laser Pen Nuisance At Bristol Airport

Police are getting tough on people shining laser pens at pilots taking off and landing at Bristol airport. The problem was reported by pilots earlier in the year when it was hoped they were isolated incidents, however the number of reported cases has gone up through the year.

One home in Weston Super Mare was visited by police where a laser pen was confiscated and stern words given to the offender. Police are upping there campaign and stated offenders could face a fine of £2500 and face a 5 year jail sentence.

Pilots describe the light to much like driving a car at night and a car comes the other way with full beam on, you are momentarily dazzled. This could be disastrous on a plane with hundreds of lives at stake.

Police will be carrying out searches at hotspot areas where incidents have been reported, 37 cases have been reported since January 1.

Staycation still popular

Holidaymakers are spurning the lures of overseas holidays and staying at home, as the staycation is still popular among travellers. The slump in foreign holidays is being blamed on increased caution being shown when selecting a holiday.

Travellers are more conscious after the ash cloud debacle which left thousands of holidaymakers stranded abroad and also ruined many holidays. Another reason is there seems to be a travel firm going bust literally every month, again ruining countless holidays.

Holidaymakers are seeing staying in the UK as a safe bet, at least until going abroad seems less traumatic. Figure released by the Office of National Statistics showed an 8% drop in holidaymakers travelling abroad in the 7 months leading up to August.

Vacationers coming to the UK have also dropped while business trips have increased slightly, trips to see relatives and pleasure trips have decreased to give the overall figure a 2% drop.

More Demand For Short Haul Aircraft

Boeing has announced it will improve production of its 737 single isle aircraft, this comes after it announced a rise in the number of planes produced earlier in the year. Boeing currently makes 31.5 737’s a month, then it announced that number would increase to 35 next year. Now they intend to make 38 of the aircraft after 2013.

The increase comes after demand from airlines, who are operating short haul flights, Boeing currently has a backlog of over 2000 orders and that number is set to increase as demand increases.

Boeing have been besieged with problems on its long awaited Dreamliner 787 which is 3 years behind schedule and already has a long list of orders.

More Problems For Boeing's Dreamliner

Boeing’s long awaited Dreamliner 787 has had yet another setback, the incident described as aan engine surge occurred during a test flight of the first plane off the production line. Testing is taking place at Roswell, New Mexico. Boeing said they didn’t know if the latest problem would delay the delivery dates of the dreamliner, which is already 3 years behind schedule.

The Rolls-Royce engine experienced air flow problems causing it to backfire, a new engine will be transported to Roswell to get the plane back in the sky, whilst tests are carried out by Boeing and Rolls-Royce on the faulty engine.

Even with all the problems the Dreamliner has had to overcome it is still the company’s best selling plane at this stage of development with 847 planes already ordered from various airlines. The Dreamliner is expected to be running scheduled flights by March 2010.

Jet2.com Sets Up Shop At Glasgow Airport

Budget airline Jet2.com has announced it will start a new service out of Glasgow airport from next year. The service will include flights to 9 destinations including Alicante, Dalaman, Nice, Faro, Tunisia, Majorca, Paphos, Sharm el Sheikh and Tenerife. Glasgow airport will become the 8th base Jet2 has set up.

The schedule will create 150 new jobs which was warmly received by the transport minister Stewart Stevenson, who was especially pleased that some of the 150 jobs created will be funded by the Scottish Enterprise’s Regional Selective Assistance fund.

The jobs in question are 9 maintenance jobs funded by the RSA, this was achieved by work by the Scottish Development International, and the job funding help was a factor in persuading Jet2.com to set up at the Scottish airport.

Mixed Mode At Heathrow For 6 Weeks

Residents living under Heathrow flight paths will be subjected to additional aircraft noise as of today as the airport runs on a mixed mode basis. This is due to essential repair works being carried out on the Northern runway, that will take an estimated 6 weeks.

Mixed mode is when aircraft lands and takes off on the same runway, normally Heathrow operates an alternate policy where one runway is use for take-off and one used for landing, they switch at 1500 to give residents a break from aircraft noise pollution.

The idea of using mixed-mode on a permanent basis was thrown out recently by the Government as the airport pushed for it to become a permanent feature, however Teresa Villiers the Minister of State for Transport said the benefits of mixed mode were outweighed by the negative effect on the surrounding communities.

Ryanair To Change Image

Ryanair boss Michael O’ Leary has announced his airline will move away from its cheap as chips image over the next few years and start to operate at the larger airports in the city centres. The average cost of a Ryanair ticket is currently £33 a fee which Mr O’Leary says is unsustainable as growth begins to slow.

The airline will move to more of a brand image rather than obsessing they have the cheapest fares on the market. Future attributes to be championed will be the low age of their aircraft and the excellent in flight service, rather than rock bottom prices.

Mr O’ Leary also went on to say the airline would need a new Chief Executive as the airline moves to a more mature business venture and his controversial style of management would not be what the company needs.

Ryanair is now the largest short haul aircraft carrier in the UK and carries some 73.5 million passengers a year with 250 planes at their disposal, O’ Leary claims he will step down once the airline has doubled the number of passengers and has 400 aircraft under their control.

EasyJet Pulls Out Of Doncaster Airport

Easyjet has announced it will cease to operate at Doncaster Sheffield Robin Hood airport only five months after launching it services at the airport. The budget airline operated 23 flights a week to destinations such as Majorca, Amsterdam, Prague and Barcelona.

The airport owned by Peel airports said the decision was based on the fact that easyJet didn’t have a base at the airport and some flight times had been unattractive to customers. They also stated that it was without a doubt a setback for the airport.

When the easyJet initially set up at Doncaster they said they were aiming to tap into the Yorkshire catchment area and promote Yorkshire as a destination, which seems a little adventurous to say the least.

However Peel airports stressed that aircrafts were 99% full on more favourable timings and it felt it would have no trouble in finding new airlines to fill the void left by easyJets’s departure.

An easyJet statement claimed no jobs would be lost and the sole aircraft operating at Doncaster would be absorbed back into Liverpool airport schedule.

Car Bomb At Somalia Airport

Two people have been killed at Somalia airport after a suicide bomber drove into the main entrance and explosion ensued. Early reports suggest two people have been killed but locals claim the number is as high as 8.

The airport in Mogadishu is normally under the guard of the African Union peacekeepers and some reports suggest some of the dead are AU soldiers.

One local resident said the car powerfully rammed past the AU control point soon after there were 2 explosions killing 8 people. However AU Military have only confirmed two women begging outside the airport are the only fatalities.

Al-Qaeda group al-Shabab are being blamed for the attack and are currently battling the AU backed Government for control of Mogadishu.

Flybe fills the void at Belfast

Flybe has announced it will start flying new routes from Belfast airport, the news comes less than a week after Ryanair decided they had waited long enough for a new runway and pulled their service from the airport.

The new routes will cater for Liverpool, Bristol and East Midland airport, all three of which were on the Ryanair routes. The new service will begin on October 31st with 2 flights daily to Bristol and East Midlands and four flights daily to Liverpool airport.

Fresh Strike Fears For BA

Fresh strikes could be on the way from British Airways cabin crew workers unless the long running feud is sorted out. Brendan Gold a national officer said it would ballot its members when the time was right because many issues remain unresolved.

Around 1000 cabin crew workers gathered at Kempton Park racecourse to discuss the next step in their battle with Willie Walsh. Members wore yellow ribbons out of respect to its punished co-workers, some of which have lost their jobs through the stand-off.

Unite is still calling for the travel concessions removed by BA from striking workers to be re-instated. Which it says is victimisation of its workers, out of the 65 cabin crew workers who were subject to disciplinary hearings 49 returned to work and 16 were sacked.

But BA have hit back by saying the cabin crew union Bassa has been talking for months about holding a ballot for the last three months, but doesn’t have the authority to hold such a ballot.

Crowds Gather To Greet Airbus A380 At Manchester Airport

Thousands of people gathered at Manchester airport on Wednesday to greet the world’s largest commercial airliner the Airbus A380. The plane which carries 517 passengers in a double-decker style was making its first arrival at Manchester airport.

The Emirates plane set off from Dubai and arrived at Manchester at 12.25pm, crowds commented on a special day and one to remember as the plane made its monumental touchdown.

The airport had spent £10 million on upgrading its airfield to accommodate the huge aircraft and becomes the first regional airport to have a daily A380 service in operation.

Heathrow started taking the arrival of the Airbus back in 2008