If you are flying to France this coming week be aware of a four day strike.
From Monday till Thursday, 6-9th February striking pilots, cabin crew and ground staff will be protesting…

Just before Christmas we carried the news that the government was going to ban excessive charges used by companies when you use a credit card. Now we have easyJet’s answer to what is planned.

Meeting in London this week were representatives from low cost airlines across the world. They converged for the 8th Annual World Low Cost Airlines Congress. Low cost airlines like Ryanair, easyJet, Air Berlin, Norwegian, Wizz, Germanwings have enabled fares to drop and, more importantly, allowed holidaymakers to travel to places they wouldn’t have considered.

At the Low Cost Airline Congress being held in London, Carolyn McCall, the chief executive of easyJet said that the company was passionate about keeping it easy for passengers to book and travel with the airline. More than once she said that complexity was the slippery slope

No-frills airlines have opened up opportunities for us to visit countries we might not have otherwise thought about. Take Estonia for example. Before the no-frills airlines went there, not that many people travelled from Ireland or the UK to the country. Now they have just announced that there has been a 90% increase in visitors going there.

Are the costs the same between airlines? CD-Traveller picks one route to Tenerife to find out.

Last Friday saw the end of the consultation period for APD, Air Passenger Duty. Airlines, airports, industry boffins have all put in their two pennyworth so is there any consensus?

Sometimes you might be forgiven for thinking that the basic price of an airline ticket is peanuts. The add-ons are those little bits here and there that suddenly glare out at you on the final page and cause you to take a deep breath and say, “but the fare was only a tenner!” when I started. Now one of the biggest airline ticketing systems providers, Amadeus, has completed some research which shows that last year these add-ons were worth €15.11 billion.

After the Icelandic volcano, Grimsvotn, decided to make life difficult for travellers this week including scaring bank holidaymakers that they might be affected, life is back to normal. The media went to town on the first day with almost blanket coverage on the news channels. It seems there were only two stories across the two days. And Barack Obama came a poor second on them.
But have we learnt anything from it? Will disruption like 2010 occur or do we know more?

Last week, Baroness Benjamin introduced a debate in the House of Lords about APD- Air Passenger Duty. Lady Benjamin, better known as Floella to most people, was concerned not so much by the tax itself but the inequity with which it is applied. There seemed complicit acceptance that it would remain despite the fact there [...]

When is an airline fare increase not an increase? When it is an administrative charge because, theoretically, you needn’t pay it.
Have you ever heard such a load of old horsefeathers? It’s a blatant increase. The perpetrator of this slight-of-hand this time is easyJet which has nearly trebled the cost of using a debit card from £3.50 last September to £8 today. For credit cards it charges £12.95. Why such a charge?

To get on a plane, you need a boarding card be it the traditional sort or a print-out when you checked in at home. These days your boarding card will contain personal details about you; personal details that you may not appreciate are there or are important so when you have finished with the card don’t just throw it away. Shred it, mash it up with water and pulp it but don’t just through it in any bin be it at the airport (worst case) or even at home.
Why?

From Der Spiegel, the German news company, comes a story that I haven’t seen much in our press which is why I mention it. It concerns a claim by a doctor that, in his opinion, easyJet was not carrying sufficient basic medical support. This is not to say that it was not adhering to the law, merely that if he is right, the laws need urgent consideration so that we may all feel better protected. Then he concluded by saying that easyJet can be only recommended for passengers who are entirely certain that they are healthy is cause for some thought

So how to get to Indonesia reasonably cheaply at a time when fuel costs have rocketed, passenger demand depressed with global recessions and airlines racking up multi million dollar losses? Fares have risen by close to 50% in many cases from 2006/07 especially on longer haul routes with low competition.

The media are fixated by best and worst lists, top 10 lists and anything that seems to imply a rating. Some are just the works of individuals, some have research behind them and some are people adding their thoughts to a website. And if one person says this destination is the best thing since sliced bread do you believe them?
In their July issue Which? have published the results of their survey into short-haul airline routes based on what their members think

This morning, easyJet held a press conference to announce that a solution might have been found to one of the problems that significantly affected us during April and May. The Icelandic volcanic eruption caused cancellations in Europe, disrupted travel plans and contributed to reduced economic activity. EasyJet said that the disruption cost them between £50 and £75 million. Two of my flights were cancelled and train services did well out of me, being able to charge higher rates than I would normally pay in order to get back home. Now easyJet think that this solution, called AVOID, could prevent a similar issue affecting us in the same way. And it is all down to Fred.
Fred is actually Dr Fred Prata, a scientist working at NILU (Norwegian Institute of Air Research) and he has been working on this technology since 1993. It is he who has developed AVOID which for the technically minded of you stands for Airborne Volcanic Object Identifier and Detector.

Over the Easter weekend there were three stories that made me wonder whether April Fools’ Day lasts longer then a single day. All were concerned with airlines and only one cheered me up.
All of you have probably heard of the strange case of easyJet at Liverpool’s John Lennon Airport where two passengers arrived with a man in a wheelchair. The problem was that he was dead and it looks as though the women, his wife and daughter, were trying to take him back to Germany. The taxi driver appears not to have noticed the fact that the man was dead but airport workers did. Now I could have believed that was an April Fool but human nature seems odder than you can make up.

According to ABTA, about 2 million of us will leave the country to enjoy Easter abroad. And maybe some decent weather after the returning wintry conditions of this week.
It won’t come as a great surprise to many of you that Spanish resorts are doing well with Tenerife and the Canaries leading the way. You could also guess that Egypt and Turkey are doing well and so they are but Tunisia has also picked up a lot of bookings. Going slightly further afield, Florida is attracting the usual school age groups and booking seem to be up despite the fact that the biggest new attraction, the Wizarding World of Harry Potter doesn’t open until June 18th.
The usual places seem to fill the top spots each year for overseas citybreak destinations. Paris, Amsterdam and Dublin lead the pack with Milan and New York not far behind and this is despite the weakness of the pound against the euro and the dollar.
So who is going away?

The pigeons, the stone lions, Nelson and even the empty plinth might all be put in the shade if a race between Michael O’Leary, Chief Executive of Ryanair and Stelios Haji-Ioannou, the founder of easyJet ever takes place.
A couple of weeks ago, Ryanair ran an advertisement with Stelios having a nose like Pinocchio, the allegation being that easyJet was hiding the truth about the punctuality of the airline. As well as that, Ryanair in the shape of Michael Cawley, the Chief Operating Officer was interviewed on BBC Breakfast and alleged that easyJet was a high fare airline.

With the climate change conference going on in Copenhagen and the release of the report on air transport by the Committee on Climate Change, the awards by Consumers International (CI) have been overshadowed. One of the awards has been won by EasyJet. But this isn’t any old award voted by travel trade friends. And it isn’t much of an accolade. This award is to highlight corporate irresponsible behaviour.

Last night the winners were announced of the British Travel Awards. CD-Traveller is one of the sponsors because these are the only awards where you, the traveller and holidaymaker, can vote. So it’s not just the travel industry patting itself on the back. And over 100,000 of you voted so our thanks, and those of the organisers, for taking the time to vote.

Both Ryanair and easyjet have complained about the landing fees being charged by certain airports. According to easyjet, Luton Airport’s fees have risen by over 25% over the last few years and that it is why it has cut the number of flights operating from there. The same applies to the cutbacks by Ryanair at Manchester, Dublin and Stansted airports.

All are aware that airlines, particularly no-frills airlines are trying everything to charge passengers more and more money on top of their ticket prices. That way, on the surface, they still appear cheap.But rules are rules. Or are they? There is a hand baggage weight limit on Ryanair but I have yet to see it [...]