European cheap flight updates

Jet2.com's flights to Prague have been selling well. Perhaps it is because Prague is an city with something to offer all ages and tastes. It has Charles bridge with it open air art gallery sculptures, the Astronomical clock, Prague Castle, the old Jewish Quarter. Excellent cheap beer, good value restaurants, a buzzing nightlife.

Jet2 are making it even easier for visitors to get there by offering hundreds more seats starting at �21 one way for flights in March, April, May and June.,

You are probably aware that air travel damages the environment. Please consider this when booking flights. Have a look at www.climatecare.org for ways of mitigating the adverse effects of your flight.

Starting 7 June 2006, Wizz Air the Eastern Europe based low cost airline will service the Cologne (Koln), Germany to Gdansk, Poland route. It follows on from last month's new route between Gdansk and Katowice, Poland. Gdansk is becoming quite a popular destination especially with German fliers.

József Váradi, Wizz Air's CEO said: "We continue to offer more affordable and easy connections between Poland and Germany to better serve the big travel demand between the two countries. Cologne is especially interesting for holiday makers and many visitors flying to see their friends and relatives from Poland. On the other hand, Gdansk is becoming an increasingly popular holiday destination for the German travelers."

They have just took delivery another Airbus A320 aircraft bringing their fleet of A320's to eight. The 180 seater aircraft is leased from Aviation Capital Group (ACG), a subsidiary of Pacific Life Corp.

From today, (27 February 2006) until Sunday at midnight CET (23h00 UK) HLX.com are selling 300, 000 seats on flights all over Europe up until October 2006. How good is that? Of course the * in the headline means that you will have to pay the taxes and charges for each seat but that will not break the bank.

Fly to / from destinations including Cologne, Stuttgart, Manchester, Birmimgham, Newcastle, Dublin, Paris, Rome, Salzburg, Berlin, Stockholm, Venice, Milan, Oporto and Palermo.


* One way not including taxes and charges.

You are probably aware that air travel damages the environment. Please consider this when booking flights. Have a look at www.climatecare.org for ways of mitigating the adverse effects of your flight.

Until 09h00 on Wednesday 1 March 2006, XL Airways are selling all of their seats at 20% off. Flights can be booked up until 30 April 2007, if you wanted to book an XL Airways flight, there really is no excuse now for not doing so.
XL Airways was voted by Daily Telegraph readers to be their Best Charter airline.

XL Airways fly to a range of destinations from Mediterranean beach resorts to the Canaries, Tunisia, Egypt, even Barbados.

You are probably aware that air travel damages the environment. Please consider this when booking flights. Have a look at www.climatecare.org for ways of mitigating the adverse effects of your flight.

MyAir the Italian low cost airline launches five new routes on 13 April 2006.

• Bologna (Guglielmo Marconi) to Sofia, Bulgaria
• Milan (Orio al Serio) to Sofia, Bulgaria
• Milan (Orio al Serio) to Timisoara, Romania
• Venice (Marco Polo) to Timisoara, Romania
• Rome (Ciampino) to Bucharest (Baneasa), Romania

They are offering seats on these flights starting from 9.99 euros one way, not including taxes and charges up until 16h00 CET on 27 February 2006.

Ryanair has just started operating their new London Luton to Brest in Brittany, France route. Brest is conveniently located for North West Brittany long a favorite with both visitors from the United Kingdom as well as mainland Europe.

Last week also saw the first flight of the Liverpool John Lennon Airport to Porto service. Porto famous for the fortified red wine is at the mouth of the beautiful Douro Valley.

You are probably aware that air travel damages the environment. Please consider this when booking flights. Have a look at www.climatecare.org for ways of mitigating the adverse effects of your flight.

Its Pancake Day this Tuesday (Shrove Tuesday 28 February 2006) and Monarch are selling some cheap seats to celebrate. They are reducing their cheapest fares by up to 25%. The good news is that flights can be booked at these rates for departures up until the end on May 2006. The bad news is that they have to be booked before midnight on Pancake Day and the offer doesn't include weekend flights or peak days such as holidays.

You are probably aware that air travel damages the environment. Please consider this when booking flights. Have a look at www.climatecare.org for ways of mitigating the adverse effects of your flight.

Vueling, the Barcelona based Spanish low cost airline has added Barcelona to Venice Marco Polo Airport to its timetables. Flights commence on 28 April 2006 and start at 10 euros one way plus taxes and charges. They can be booked immediately.

They have also joined the online check-in revolution starting on Tuesday 21 February 2006 and beating easyJet to it. Their rules for online check-in are as follows:

• Online check-in can be accomplished only in the two days before the departure up until 4 hours before departure
• Only passengers with carry on baggage can check-in online. The bag must not weigh more than 10 kilograms and be larger than 55x40x20 centimetres
• Disabled travellers must book in conventionally to be allocated the most suitable seats for their needs
  

You are probably aware that air travel damages the environment. Please consider this when booking flights. Have a look at www.climatecare.org for ways of mitigating the adverse effects of your flight.

bmibaby the BMI's low cost airline is offering seats on flights in April, May and June from a cheap £14.99 one way including all taxes and charges. At the same time they are opening up two new routes to Newquay from Durham Tees Valley and Manchester.
They are obviously not put off by the £5 charge for departing passengers that scared Monarch and Ryanair.

Routes to Cork, Jersey, Knock and Newquay start at £14.99 one way, including taxes and charges and depending upon departure airport.
Routes to Amsterdam, Paris (CDG), Perpignan and Prague start at £19.99 one way, including taxes and charges and depending upon departure airport.
Routes to Bordeaux and Nice start at £24.99 one way, including taxes and charges and depending upon departure airport.
Routes to Alicante, Malaga and Palma start at £29.99 one way, including taxes and charges and depending upon departure airport.

You are probably aware that air travel damages the environment. Please consider this when booking flights. Have a look at www.climatecare.org for ways of mitigating the adverse effects of your flight.

Thomsonfly.com, the TUI budget airline are selling thousands of seats from £16.99 one way, including all taxes and charges. The £16.99 seats are available on flights from Coventry, Doncaster / Sheffield and Bournemouth to destinations including Amsterdam, Paris and Lyon.

They also have even more seats from £29.99 one way including taxes to Barcelona, Valencia, Malaga, Palma, Ibiza and Alicante from the relevant UK departure airports on their routemap. Thomsonfly fly from regional airports in the UK including: London Gatwick, Luton, Stansted, Manchester, Bournemouth, Coventry, Doncaster, East Midlands, Birmingham, Newcastle, Cardiff and Glasgow.

Flights need to be booked before Tuesday 28 February 2006 for travel up to 28 October 2006.

It doesn't stop there they also have some flights from £49.99 one way inclusive to Lanzarote and Tenerife and £99.99 flights to Florida and the Dominican Republic.

These flights need to be booked before Tuesday 28 February 2006 for travel up to 31 March 2006.

Thomsonfly also have a pre booking service for seats including extra legroom and on board meals available up to 31 July 2006.


You are probably aware that air travel damages the environment. Please consider this when booking flights. Have a look at www.climatecare.org for ways of mitigating the adverse effects of your flight.

Today, easyJet one of the top two European budget airlines revealed that following a trial of internet Check In, that it is to roll out the service across its network. It promises passengers the capability of printing out boarding passes at the time of booking and reducing the gate arrival time to 15 minutes for those without hold baggage.


The February trial of easyJet's internet Check In proved a success and now London Gatwick, London Stansted and Edinburgh will get the facility. They plan to have 90% of easyJet's United Kingdom routes covered by April 2006.

Started half an hour ago. (17h00 UK / 18h00 CET 23 February 2006). 5000 Virgin Express seats on sale for 39.99 euros each way all inclusive. Destinations from Brussels International:

• Madrid
• Milan
• Murcia
• Rome
• Valencia

The sale ends tonight at 23h00 UK time (00h00 CET). Flights at the sale price can be booked during March 2006 only. The 39.99 euros price includes all taxes and fees. Availabilty at school holidays will be limited.

You are probably aware that air travel damages the environment. Please consider this when booking flights. Have a look at www.climatecare.org for ways of mitigating the adverse effects of your flight.

Virgin Express the budget airline serving Western Europe from its Brussels International Airport base has today announced three new routes:

• Brussels-Bari
• Brussels-Naples
• Brussels-Marseille

They have not yet released the timetables but when they do, expect this post to be updated.

As promised:
These routes are currently operated by SN Brussels Airlines, the owners of Virgin Express. Bookings made for flights in March are likely to be serviced by SN Brussels aircraft, while Virgin Express Boeing 737's will take over the routes later in the year.
There is probably a lot more news announcements to be made by Virgin Expres. We will endeavour to keep you all posted.

Air Berlin, Germany's largest low cost carrier, has just launched three new routes to Copenhagen. In addition it has added another route to Helsinki.

From 2 May 2006, it will service Copenhagen with flights from Berlin and Hamburg everyday except Saturday and will twice daily from D�sseldorf. Helsinki was already on Air Berlin's D�sseldorf destinations list. The Finnish capital will now gain an Air Berlin connection to Berlin-Tegel from 2 May 2006.

To get the routes off to a flying start, Air Berlin is selling 50,000 seats Berlin-Tegel, D�sseldorf and Hamburg to Copenhagen and Helsinki for 29 euros each way inclusive of taxes and charges. The sale also includes flights to cities including London, Milan, Rome, Vienna and Zurich. Seats in this sale can be booked from today (22 February 2006) to Wednesday 1 March 2006. Flights can be booked at sale prices from June to October 2006.

Air Berlin was the only European Airline to receive a Skytrax Award and frequently wins travel awards for its service.

More reasonably priced tickets to further European city connections are also available for the start of the new destinations. From 22nd February to 1st March 2006 an additional 50,000 seats can be booked for 29 euros in the Internet (under airberlin.com) from Berlin-Tegel, D�sseldorf and Hamburg not only to the new destinations, but also to many additional cities such as London, Milan, Rome, Vienna and Zurich. The travel period is from June to October 2006.

You are probably aware that air travel damages the environment. Please consider this when booking flights. Have a look at www.climatecare.org for ways of mitigating the adverse effects of your flight.

flybe the Exeter based budget airline is adding two new routes to its Norwich base. From 25 May 2006 it will add Paris Charles de Gaulle and Manchester to this rapidly expanding airport's timetables.
Prices on the Norwich to Paris route start at £29.99 one way, inclusive while flights to Manchester will start at £21.99 each way.

The Liverpool Echo reported last night that VLM, the Antwerp based airline is to stop flying its 13h00 service from Liverpool to London City airport. It has not been carrying enough passengers to make the service viable. Its early morning and evening services will continue.
It also announced today that it is to introduce a Business Class service on its Brussels to London City route as research had shown that the bulk of the passengers on that route were on business.

Following on from yesterday's announcement that they will cease operations from Newquay Airport in April, Monarch Airlines have today announced that they will add two new routes to their line up this Autumn.

From 29 October 2006 they will operate a London Gatwick to Tenerife service three times weekly and from the same date a Manchester <> Lanzarote service twice weekly.


You are probably aware that air travel damages the environment. Please consider this when booking flights. Have a look at www.climatecare.org for ways of mitigating the adverse effects of your flight.

Germanwings is feeling generous now that the first signs of Spring are evident. THey have decided to sell 300,000 seats for the really cheap price of ?1 plus taxes and charges.
Flights can be booked from 17h00 UK (18h00 CET) on 22 February 2006 and 22h59 on Sunday 26 February 2006 UK(23h59 CET). Seats can be purchased on flights departing between 1 March 2006 and 31 May 2006.

You are probably aware that air travel damages the environment. Please consider this when booking flights. Have a look at www.climatecare.org for ways of mitigating the adverse effects of your flight.

Today, HLX (Hapag Lloyd Express) the German low cost airline officially announced that they are taking up the slot vacated by Germanwings at Birmingham International and will fly to Cologne / Bonn. The service has been available to book for some time. Flights departing from 11 May 2006 can be booked from 19.99 euros from Koln to Birmingham.

Monarch Airlines are to wind up their service from Newquay to Malaga on 30 April 2006. The airline cites the �5 GBP charge levied on passengers departing Newquay Airport by Cornwall County Council as the reason. When they announced the route in July 2005, Monarch were not aware that the charge was planned. Ryanair had earlier disbanded its Newquay to London Stansted route for the same reason. Airport charges is one of the biggest factors in low cost carriers' decision making process when deciding where to introduce more routes.

In one of today's news items from Ryanair,they report delays yesterday (Sunday 19 February 2006)on some of their flights from Santander in Northern Spain. It appears that no less than four Ryanair aircraft were struck by lightning as they approached Santander. Three aircraft landed normally and one diverted to Valladolid.

The aircraft were all thoroughly checked and two received repairs before resuming service. They apolgised for the delays to passengers emphasising that safety of passengers and aircraft is their No1 priority.

What amazes me is that four Ryanair aircraft should be struck by lightning on the same day. Is this a common occurrence when flying?

United Arab Emirates carrier Etihad Airways start daily flights between Abu Dhabi and Manchester on 26 March 2006. Manchester will be Etihad's third UK destination after London Heathrow and London Gatwick.

You are probably aware that air travel damages the environment. Please consider this when booking flights. Have a look at www.climatecare.org for ways of mitigating the adverse effects of your flight.

Vueling the low cost Spanish airline with hubs in Barcelona and Madrid have added a new route from Valencia to Ibiza. It starts up on 18 April 2006. To celebrate, they are having a Carnival sale? In any event there are some very good deals including the new route. Seats are currently being sold from 10 euros each way plus taxes and charges. Seats can be booked for March, April or May 2006. If you are thinking of flying to or from Spain in those months than look them up.

You are probably aware that air travel damages the environment. Please consider this when booking flights. Have a look at www.climatecare.org for ways of mitigating the adverse effects of your flight.

Flybe, the Exeter based budget airline has a sale on at the moment. One million seats are being offered from �19.99 one way including taxes and charges. Routes starting with availability of �19.99 seats include:
Birmingham > Glasgow
Birmingham > Belfast
Leeds Bradford > Belfast

They have some good offers on other routes for slightly more money. The serve a good selection of destinations in France from some of their hubs at Birmingham, Southampton and Exeter. They include Brest in Brittany, Angers in the Loire Valley, Perpignan near the Pyrenees ski resorts, Geneva and Chambery for ski resorts in the French Alps. The sale applies to flights made before 21 October 2006 booking must be made 21 days in advance.


You are probably aware that air travel damages the environment. Please consider this when booking flights. Have a look at www.climatecare.org for ways of mitigating the adverse effects of your flight.

Monarch Airlines has a sale on until Midnight (UK) on Tuesday 21 February 2006. In all 35,000 seats are being offered from 35 GBP each way, including taxes and charges. The sale flights can be booked until 31 May 2006. Routes on offer include:

• Birmingham to Alicante, Faro & Malaga
• Blackpool to Malaga
• Gatwick to Alicante, Faro, Granada, Lisbon & Malaga
• Luton to Alicante, Faro, Gibraltar & Malaga
• Manchester to Alicante, Barcelona, Gibraltar, Malaga & Palma

In addition they have literally thousands more at 39 GBPeach way, all inclusive.

Monarch recorded some exceptional traffic to their website when they launched their passenger charter in January. The airline offers pre-bookable seats for 5 GBP plus a free newspaper among its "frills".

You are probably aware that air travel damages the environment. Please consider this when booking flights. Have a look at www.climatecare.org for ways of mitigating the adverse effects of your flight.

XL Airways has seats on a flight from London Gatwick to Geneva leaving tomorrow 19 February 2006 and returning a week later, for a really cheap 9 GBP return. The taxes and charges (including late booking fee) brings this up to 49 GBP, but if you are looking for a last minute ski or snowboarding trip then it could be for you.

Jet2.com have a sale on with seats from 9.99 GBP one way, including taxes and charges. I looked up some and found that tickets from Blackpool to Belfast were being sold for 1 GBP which came to 9.99 after taxres and charges. Their website makes it pretty straightforward to find cheap flights as it list all flights on your selected route for a full month.

Hapag Lloyd Express (HLX.com)the German budget airline owned by TUI is to increase it's co-operation with the Italian low cost carrier, Meridiana. They now have links to each others websites on their homepages and a statement informing surfers that they are each other partner airlines. Germanwings has a similar alliance with Centralwings.

While on the subject of HLX, they still have a sale on until Sunday 19 February 2006 midnight CET (23h00 UK). In this extended Happy HLX Hours offer they have thousands of seats from 0.01 GBP one way plus taxes and charges.

Blue1 the Finnish Airline owned by SAS is adding a new route between Helsinki and Zurich. The first flight will be on 26 March 2006. Blue1 will offer daily flights using 163 seat MD-90 aircraft in the week and 84 seater Avro RJ85 planes at the weekend.
Blue1 fly to a number of Western European Destinations as well as its Scandinavian home territory. Destinations include London Stansted, Dublin, Athens, Barcelona, Paris and Rome.
Prices start at a cheap 39 euros, one way plus taxes and charges.

Its sale time for bmibaby, BMI's low cost sibling, who from now until midnight (UK) on Tuesday 28 February 2006 are offering seats from £14.99 one way including all taxes and charges. Flights can be booked between the 27 February 2006 and 30 April 2006. There is likely to be limited availability between 10 April and 21 April 2006 for Easter.

Some of the �14.99 routes include:
Manchester to Belfast, Cork and Newquay
Birmingham to Belfast, Cork and Edinburgh
Cardiff to Belfast and Glasgow

Aer Arann, today announced three more routes, to be serviced with its 66 seat ATR72 aircraft:

• Cork to Jersey
• Cork to Angers
• Manchester to Angers
  

From 2 May 2006, they will operate the Jersey route on Saturdays only while Angers will get three flights per week from both Cork and Manchester starting on 1 May 2006.
Angers, is Aer Arann's second destination on mainland Europe. There is still no official announcement on Liege. Angers in the Loire Valley has the famous tapestry of the Apocalypse in its Chateau was well as being home to the orange flavoured liqueur, Cointreau. It will make an ideal base for visiting the Loire Chateaux.

bmibaby is to sell access to airport lounges on its website. The airline will launch the new service at Cardiff International Airport at a cost of 12.50 GBP per passenger, per lounge access. The lounge area offers complimentary snacks and drinks in a quieter, more private environment. This service is aimed at business travellers. It sounds like something that BA Connect would offer so it is clear that bmibaby is intent on taking on BA's new baby.

Today, easyJet announced that they will be serving four new destinations to their Glasgow base. They had earlier spelled out plans for replacing their current fleet of Boeing 737 aircraft with Airbus A319s at a number of their bases, including Glasgow.

• From 3 May 2006 they will fly to Berlin (Schonefeld, daily.
• From 20 May 2006 they will be add weekly flights(Saturdays) to Palma de Mallorca.
• From 7 July 2006 Alicante (daily) will be added.
• From 7 July 2006 there will be daily flights to Malaga.

This will increase the number of destinations served by easJet from Glasgow to nine.

Aer Arann the Irish low cost airline continues to expand its route network. On 10 April 2006 it will fly to Inverness for the first time. It will service this route four times per week with 66 seat ATR72 aircraft. Prices start at 29.99 euros one way, including taxes.

There is still no announcement from Aer Arann regarding the proposed Liege base in Belgium. Perhaps they are awaiting regulatory approval.

Volareweb the Italian low cost carrier has just launched a new route from Milan Linate to Lamezia Terme in Southern Italy. The airline will start operating the new route from 7 April 2006.

Jet2.com have added another route serving Tenerife. They launched Blackpool and Newcastle to Tenerife not long ago and are now adding the popular island to its Belfast International line up. Tenerife is one of the Canary Islands located off the West African Coast. It offers year round sun while the Atlantic keeps the islands cooler than Mainland Africa in the Summer.

Jet2.com start flying this route from 5 October 2006 for the Winter Season 2006/07.

The latest row over the Channel 4 Dispatches documentary has been exploited by Ryanair as a means of publicising their flights. Their response has been to offer 3 million free seats on their flights until Thursday 16 February 2006. Passengers booking for flights between Tuesday 21 February 2006 to Wednesday 31 May 2006 will only need to pay the taxes and charges on sale flights.
There are a lot of terms and conditions but if you are after a mid week flight outside of holiday periods then it is a very cheap deal.

SkyEurope the low cost airline floated on the Vienna and Warsaw stock exchanges last year is to open a base at Prague. Initially two new Boeing 737-700 aircraft will be based at Prague’s Ruzyně Airport, from where it will serve seven Destinations in Western Europe.
The seven new SkyEurope routes for Prague are:

Prague to Amsterdam (daily), from 10 April 2006
Prague to Barcelona (4 / week), from 10 April 2006
Prague to Milan Bergamo (daily), from 10 April 2006
Prague to Naples (2 / week), from 13 April 2006
Prague to Nice (3 / week), from 11 April 2006
Prague to Paris Orly (2 / day), from 10 April 2006
Prague to Rome Fiumicino (daily), from 10 April 2006

At the same time it has cut back its operations from Poland. The routes affected are:

Warsaw-London
Warsaw-Bratislava
Poznan-Amsterdam
Krakow-Stockholm
Krakow-Bologna

SkyEurope is still committed to an ongoing expansion with an additional 16 Boeing 737-700 Next Generation aircraft with winglets to be added to the fleet in 2006 and 2007.

Yesterday Germanwings released the remainder of its flights for 2006. Flights in November and December 2006 can now be booked online starting at 19 euros one way, including all taxes and charges.
The following routes are now bookable to the end of the year.

Transavia the Netherlands��' budget airline has a sale starting today, Tuesday 14 February 2006. In all 100,000 seats are on offer for travel between Friday 17 February 2006 and 20 April 2006. All seats have been discounted by 9.99 euros (�7 GBP ) making the cheapest one way flight, a cheap 9.99 euros plus taxes and charges. The sale runs until Monday 20 February 2006.

Transavia fly from Amsterdam and Rotterdam.
The flights on offer include:

From 9.99 euros:
London Stansted to Rotterdam
Glasgow to Amsterdam
Amsterdam to Berlin and Copenhagen
From19.99 euros:
Amsterdam to Nice, Milan, Toulon
Rotterdam to Nice, Toulon, Girona
From 29.99 euros:
Amsterdam to Barcelona, Genoa, Pisa, Valencia, Venice, Verona
From 39.99 euros:
Amsterdam to Alicante, Madrid
Rotterdam to Alicante, Rome

Transavia have 20 of their 70 destinations in their ��Mega sale.

Staying with the Brussels theme, there are two tickets from London to Brussels on VLM the Antwerp based budget airline, plus a stay in the Hilton on Boulevard de Waterloo, not far from the Royal Palace. A Brussels travelcard is also included.

VLM flies from London City Airport which now has a new rail connection, built by my employers.

To enter just go to the ThisIsLocalLondon site and answer the easy question.

SN Brussels Airlines , the phoenix that appeared out of Sabena's ashes is celebrating the reopening of a world famous Brussels landmark by placing a picture of the structure on the side of one of its Avro RJ100 aircraft. The atomium was getting a facelift last Summer. When I was there cleaners on ropes were restoring its mirror surfaces. The atomium reopens to the public on Saturday 18 February 2006.
SN Brussels is promoting both Brussels as a place worthy of a visit but of themselves as an airline to get you there.

Monarch Airlines latest sail ends Midnight (UK time) on Tuesday 14 February 2006. They are discounting their seats by �15 for each return flight made. The offer applies only to web bookings on scheduled flights only.

Ryanair's latest offering is, 2 million seats from 15.99 GBP one way. Well that is what they claim, but some flights are cheaper than that. Many of the Liverpool to Dublin flights tjis May are on sale for 0.49 GBP plus 12.48 GBP taxes and charges, which is under 13 GBP. Taxes and charges at Dublin are less than Liverpool making the cheapest return flights 25.18 GBP.

The offer is applicable to flight made betweem 24 February 2006 and 30 June 2006. There are however a number of blackout periods at school and public holidays and major sporting events etc.

If you would like some of these cheap flights then you'd better get your skates on, as the offer ends close of play on Monday 13 February 2006.

Centralwings' latest newsletter dropped into my Inbox on Thursday, but publishing this then would mean it would end up in the archives before it could be acted upon.
For the whole of next week (Monday 13 February 2006 to Sunday 19 February 2006), Centralwings will not apply any additional passenger fees to the seat prices quoted on its website for flights to be taken between 22 February 2006 and 6 April 2006. In this period a lot of the new Summer flights will start operating including the Leeds Bradford to Warsaw route. This should mean a halving of the cost of flying this route on its inaugural day from 37.78 GBP to 19.89 GBP.
Guess we find out tomorrow.

EasyJet are running a sale at present offering up to 50% off seat prices. Seats on all of their routes have been discounted for flights up until 31 May 2006. In all 7 million seats have been reduced in price. The sale ends midnight UK time on Tuesday 14 February.
I looked up Liverpool to Berlin in May (15 - 17) - (I keep promising myself I'll go sometime).
The price came to 34.48 GBP return a saving of 20 GBP.
A return to Barcelona (14 - 17 May) came to 48.98 GBP a saving of 20 GBP.

Steve Fossett has broken the record for the longest non stop flight in aviation history covering 26,389.3 miles since leaving Florida on Wednesday. He flew the Virgin Atlantic sponsored GlobalFlyer solo for 76 hours 45 minutes. He experienced a serious electrical failure causing him to make an emergency landing at Bournemouth Airport. I didn't realise that Bournemouth was on Virgin route network.
Steve Fosset was the first man to fly around the world single handed and holds over 100 different records from sports to flying.

The BBC has been broadcasting a story regarding an American Airways flight bound for Chicago being delayed as a pilot was arrested on suspicion of being drunk. I would have thought a breathalyser would give a strong indication but I suppose a blood or urine test must be used to confirm the analysis.
The 45 year old pilot from Ohio was arrested this morning as he reported for duty.

By my reckoning, Centralwings the Polish and East Europe based low cost airline has added 23 new routes. They have done this without an announcement, I guess if a customer comes to the website they will find the routes although the Kerkyra (Corfu) route isn't shown on the map but is bookable from 6 June 2006.

The routes I discovered on their booking page are:

Warsaw > Catania
Warsaw > Chania
Warsaw > Faro
Edinburgh > Gdansk
Dublin > Gdansk
Warsaw > Heraklion
Poznan > Heraklion
Katowice > Heraklion
Warsaw > Kerkyra (Corfu)
Warsaw > Lamezia
Warsaw > Leeds Bradford
Dublin > Lodz
Warsaw > Malaga
Krakow > Malaga
Warsaw > Malta
Warsaw > Palermo
Warsaw > Palma de Mallorca
Katowice > Palma de Mallorca
Poznan > Palma de Mallorca
Warsaw > Rhodes
Katowice > Rhodes
Krakow > Rhodes
Warsaw > Thessaloniki

Ryanair has published the correspondence passed between the Channel 4 production team for the Dispatches programme and Ryanair, on the homepage of their website. The correspondence can be found on the homepage by clicking on the link entitled "Ryanair and Dispatches - The Truth" bar found near the centre top of the page.

The Dispatches programme due to go out on Monday 13 February 2006, has been filmed using two undercover reporters who were trained and worked as cabin crew for Ryanair. A number of allegations are made regarding the safety of Ryanair operations. These were refuted by Ryanair but Channel 4 were standing by their claims on Friday 10 February 2006.

Ryanair and Steve Boulton Productions for C4 have been sending copies of their correspondence to the CAA and IAA as the allegations relate to safety, Ryanair claim to have informed the regulators as soon as they received the allegations.

Looking at the correspondence it looks like this story has some way to go yet.

I don't think I will comment on this. I have my own views, but I'll keep them to myself. It is up to the CAA and IAA to decide if Ryanair is operating safely.

The programme goes out at 20h00 UK time on Monday. I'm sure there will be more information appearing on the web soon.

My first flight on a passenger aircraft was on a Skytrain to Toronto in 1979. My course at University entailed a number of field courses to mining projects. Normally this would be to the South Wales Coalfield in Year 1, somewhere in the UK in Year 2 and an overseas trip in the final year. In the past this had meant trips to Spain or Poland. When we reached Year 3 a Sir Freddie Laker’s Skytrain enabled our field trip destination to be the mines in Ontario, Canada. I have very fond memories of the flight, the extremely friendly cabin crew, the in-flight movies and a passenger wondering why everyone on board seemed to know each other.

From then on, whenever Sir Freddie or Laker Airlines got a mention on the TV, radio or newspapers, I would stop what I was doing and take notice. The story that enfolded over the early eighties used to make me sad and angry. I observed airlines with monopolies and restrictive practices ganging up on a man whose main goal was to make cheap flights available to everyone. It was a sad day when the Skytrain was eventually put out of business by the bully tactics of the established trans-Atlantic carriers.

His no frills model and selling cheap flights made him the founding father of the budget airlines we see today. Sir Richard Branson was one of the first to give Sir Freddie the recognition he deserves, telling the world that Virgin Airlines would not be here if it wasn’t for his role model.
It was the battles started by Sir Freddie Laker that led to the de-regulation of the airline business which enabled the current low cost airlines to thrive in the way they do today.

The current market of healthy competition between low cost operators makes this time unique in airline history. The best times will be over if predictions of the impeding demise of the bulk of the budget airlines is realised. If all we do is swap the big airline players for ones with the same power to threaten competition, then we will not have progressed.

If we learnt one thing from Sir Freddie, it must be that all airlines must compete equally and not be able to use their size and connections to the detriment of their competitors.
I was moved by the tributes on the BBC News Site. There are very few people in the airline industry that would generate such a warm tributes.

Thank you Sir Freddie, for realising the dreams of millions of travellers.

BA Connect the low cost British Airways operation has started rolling out its new fares for Manchester and other regional airports in the United Kingdom. There are some cheap flights on offer with domestic flights on sale from 25 GBP one way including all taxes and charges. Mainland European routes seem to be a little more expensive from the selection offered so far but time will tell. The BA Connect flights will be available for travel after 26 March 2006.



Example prices (one way including taxes ad charges):
Manchester to Edinburgh from 25 GBP
Manchester to Southampton from 25 GBP
Manchester to Geneva from 35 GBP
Manchester to Lyon from 45 GBP

Air Baltic the Latvian Airline partly owned by SAS has a sale on to celebrate Valentine’s Day. They have some pretty cheap flights available in February. Prices quoted are one way and include taxes and charges:

London to Riga from 22 GBP / Riga to London from LVL 19
Manchester to Riga from 26 GBP / Riga to Manchester from LVL 19
Dublin to Riga from 44 euros / Riga to Manchester from LVL 19
Berlin to Riga from 49 euros / Riga to Berlin from LVL 29
Vienna to Riga from 53 euros / Riga to Vienna from LVL 29
Berlin to Vilnius from 44 euros / Vilnius to Berlin LTL 140
Tallinn to Vilnius from EEK 565 / Vilnius to Tallinn from LTL 140
Berlin to Vilnius from 44 euros / Vilnius to Berlin from LTL 140
Oslo to Vilnius from NOK 322 / Vilnius to Oslo from LTL 140