Welcome

26th August 2008

In this issue:

• Airline news
• BBC's gaff
• Gatwick bid

Business travellers have boosted profits at Virgin Atlantic despite sky-high fuel prices. The airline saw pre-tax profits hit £34.8m in the 2007/2008 financial year, up from £6m the year before. It said premium passenger numbers rose 22% during the year, as Virgin took market share from BA and other rivals. Virgin also said that it gained passengers from BA because of problems at Heathrow's Terminal 5.
British Airways has said  it has “agreed with the airport operator BAA to revise the date for the move of short haul European services from Heathrow Terminal 1 into Terminal 3. The planned date for the move is now 27 January 2009. This move was originally scheduled for 17 September 2008. The delay affects services to and from Barcelona, Helsinki, Lisbon, Madrid and Nice.

Kingfisher Airlines will launch international services on Sept. 3 with a daily Heathrow to Bangalore route.
 
British Airways' planned all-business-class flights between London City and either New York JFK or Newark will launch in autumn 2009 and have just 32 seats that can be converted into lie-flat beds, the carrier has announced.  The twice-daily service will be aboard an Airbus 318, the largest aircraft that can operate at City Airport and will refuel at Shannon on the westbound journey.
 
Travellers from the Midlands will have a new connection to Bangalore when Jet Airways begins offering a code share flight via Brussels. Jet Airways has confirmed that it will commence daily flights to Bangalore from Brussels on October 31.
 
United Airlines will stop serving complimentary snacks to North American economy passengers effective Sept. 2 and will begin charging for meals in domestic business class and in transatlantic economy cabins on 1st October.  The airline said , "These are difficult but necessary changes. We are looking at everything we need to do to offset fuel prices, which are still skyrocketing," Buy-on-board prices will rise and the free pre-arrival snack on transcontinental flights will be discontinued on Oct. Fewer flight attendants will be required in the domestic business cabin as a result.
 
VLM has been names Best Regional Airline in Europe in the World Airlines Awards 2008. The World Airline Awards are based on Skytrax's annual survey, which was carried out between August 2007 and June 2008, and obtains customer satisfaction levels of over 15 million airline passengers from over 95 nationalities. The survey measures over 35 different aspects of passenger satisfaction for an airline's product and service standards. The awards are renowned for being the only truly global, independent passenger survey of airline standards.
 
EasyJet is to close its second-largest German base, Dortmund affecting 116 of the airlines employees. Berlin Schoenefeld is easyJet's largest German base.
 
Failed all-business class carrier Silverjet may be the subject of an investigation by the Serious Fraud Office. The airline was grounded in January 2007 after high fuel prices and a falling business travel market prompted its decline. A series of abortive rescue attempts were made, the most hopeful being a loan of £53.6 million from Middle Eastern investment house Viceroy Holdings but the first instalment was never made and the deal collapsed. 

A BBC football commentator was facing the sack last night after making a sick on-air joke about the Spanish air disaster.  Radio reporter Chris Price sparked a barrage of complaints about the quip, made during a weekend League Two clash. Stunned listeners heard him say: “Rochdale are making more holes in the Bradford defence than in a Spanish aircraft.” A total of 154 people died last Wednesday when a Spanair jet crashed on take-off at Madrid’s Barajas International Airport. Price, 25, apologised yesterday for his “horrible mistake”, but some colleagues predict it will cost him his job at BBC Radio Manchester.
 
The break up of airports operator BAA could lead to a revival of plans to develop a second runway at Gatwick, according to weekend speculation.  MAG - Manchester Airport Group, the owners of Manchester Airport have formed a bid team and have begun talking to investors about a potential approach for Glasgow and Gatwick airports.  A Group spokesman said the limitation at Gatwick, where a new runway cannot be built until at least 2019 due to legal agreements, was by no means a problem. "We have just opened a new runway at Manchester and that took us almost 10 years."