Europe: Use 1800flyeurope.com in October, and you'll enjoy one-week air-and-land packages to Europe for less than what anyone else is charging. The cost-cutting airfare subsidiary of Auto Europe is currently leading the market in trans-Atlantic travel. All the other packagers (like Go-today.com) require that you wait until November to enjoy one-week trans-Atlantic bargains for under $1,000, including fuel surcharge, but 1800FlyEurope (its telephone number as well as its Web site address) is offering bargain rates throughout October as low as $709 from New York to London (and from other U.S. cities for slightly more), including a few hotel nights and including also the dreaded fuel surcharge. Other packages charge $749, but only starting in November, and not including fuel surcharge, which adds another $250 or so to the price.
• Club Med: On departures through Oct. 18, Club Med Columbus Isle in the Bahamas will charge you only $999 per person (based on double occupancy) for a seven-night vacation with everything -- roundtrip air from Ft. Lauderdale, all meals, drinks, entertainment, transfers. That's at the single most elegant Club Med in all the Western Hemisphere, a high-priced resort. Yet divide the price by seven, and you're paying only $142 a night for everything, including air. (And they'll arrange connecting flights into Ft. Lauderdale for only slightly more.) 800-CLUB-MED
London: The biggest bargain in Britain is a recently opened and centrally located London hostel in a brand-new building. It's one of the newest of all the hostels of Britain's capital city, an official member of the nonprofit Youth Hostel Association (but accepts guests of all ages), and is only a 15-minute walk from Piccadilly Circus. The London Central YHA ( charges as little as 17.95 pounds (about $36) per person per night, an average of 19.95 pounds ($40) and 21.95 pounds ($44). An associate of mine reports that it's a quiet and proper place, entirely suitable for mature people and families.
Cheap sleeps: A recently launched Web site called www.roomorama.com will get you an inexpensive room in an otherwise occupied apartment or home (the apartment or home owner remains in residence) in New York, Boston, Chicago or Toronto. Add the feisty Roomorama to your list of sources for low-cost accommodations in those increasingly expensive cities.
Loaner phone: For the first time, a large, mobile-phone company has launched a service to ''lend'' you a cell phone that will work overseas as you travel on vacation. Reader after reader has been alerting me that numerous offices of Verizon (whose normal phones work only in the U.S. and Canada) will now make available ''loaner'' phones for foreign use, at rates competitive with, and sometimes lower than, those charged by the several cell phone rental companies that deal with travelers leaving the country. The good reputation of Verizon should make this a popular and cost-effective service.
Source://miamiherald
Monday, September 29, 2008
Jetstar Pacific sells $12 tickets for Hanoi-Da Nang route
Vietnam’s budget airlines Jetstar Pacific on September 28 announced to resume its HCM City-Hue air route and sell cheap tickets for routes from Hanoi to Da Nang and Nha Trang.
According to the announcement, the HCM City – Hue air route will be re-opened as of December 5, 2008 to serve passengers during the lunar New Year. The flight, coded BL 8580, will take off at HCM City at 3.10pm everyday and from Hue at 7pm.
As of 6am, September 29 to 11.59pm, October 6, 2008, Jetstar Pacific will sell cheap tickets for the Hanoi-Da Nang route at VND200,000 ($12) per ticket, and VND450,000 ($30) for the Hanoi-Nha Trang route. The cheap tickets are sold for flights from October 15 to November 30, 2008.
The airlines will open two new air routes from HCM City to Bangkok on October 31, 2008 and HCM City to Siem Reap (Cambodia) on November 3, 2008. The airfares for these routes are VND192,000 ($12) and VND640,000 ($40), respectively.
Source://vietnamnet
Friday, September 19, 2008
New airline to fly on Birmingham-Amritsar sector
A new airline, Bilga Air, will operate between Birmingham and Amritsar from Oct 9, when Air India temporarily suspends its flights on this sector.
Source://sindhtoday.
The announcement follows Air India’s shock decision last week to pull the plug on its Amritsar-Birmingham-Toronto route in order to protect its valuable slots at London’s Heathrow Airport.
Air India said it would now fly on the Amritsar-London-Toronto sector.
Named after a village in Punjab, Bilga Air’s flights will be operated by Britain-based charter airline Monarch.
Although its schedule will vary at different times of the year, its flights will mainly operate Sunday and Monday evenings. While some will have a technical stop for fuelling, more than 90 percent of flights will operate non-stop.
The aircraft cabin will be a mixed configuration of economy and premium economy. Prices will start at 575 pounds return.
Surinder Kanwar, director of Bilga Air, told the Birmingham Post newspaper: ‘Despite threats of an economic slowdown, we believe that Bilga Air has the ingredients to sustain a successful operation due to the ethnically diverse region in which Birmingham Airport sits and first class facility it offers.’
Officials at Birmingham International Airport confirmed they had been told the Air India service - which links Amritsar via Birmingham to Toronto in Canada - will be suspended. The service, which began three years ago, touches Birmingham six times a week.
More than 100,000 people, mostly from the Indian community, have used it since the start of the year, with the airline’s load factor - a measure of how full its planes are - at 85 percent, well above the average for a long haul service.
Air India will start more direct flights from India to the US. As a result it is reducing the number of transit flights it operates at Heathrow, including services to New York.
‘The airline will risk losing its Heathrow slots if it doesn’t operate at least 80 percent of its allocated movements. Given their value, it needs to secure them,’ Peter Vella, Birmingham International Airport’s business development director, said.
‘As a result, Air India will temporarily move its Birmingham flights to Heathrow until the summer 2009,’ he said.
Vella said Bilga Air’s operation will help to fill a very popular market which exists in the Midlands. ‘I’m sure it will be greatly welcomed by the Midlands Asian community.’
Jerry Blackett, chief executive of Birmingham Chamber of Commerce and Industry, said the decision boosted the belief that Birmingham was the bridgeway for Europe into Asia.
‘I am not surprised really as it seems to me that the business communities that fly from Birmingham to India was there and it was only a matter of time before another airline came forward,’ he said.
Source://sindhtoday.
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
WINE AND DINE ON THE WINGS
Being branded as the ‘king of good times’, Bangalore’s very own business magnate Vijay Mallya surely knows a thing or two about auspicious timing. On Ganesha Chaturthi, his dream of spreading wings across the seas took wings as his Kingfisher Airlines launched a daily direct flight to London, meeting a long-felt need of the Bangaloreans.
A wide-bodied brand new A 330-200 Airbus aircraft with 217 seating capacity has been pressed into service in this emerging market as Mallya becomes only the second private player from India to enter international aviation.
Riding on the growing popularity of Kingfisher Airlines, he hopes to launch the Mumbai-Singapore, Bangalore-Hong Kong and Bangalore-San Francisco segments in the next two months.
The maiden flight to London was flagged off by Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel as the Airlines’ smartly dressed air hostesses welcomed each passenger on the inaugural flight with a traditional garland and a bag of mementos. “With over 70 per cent seats being taken up on the opening day itself, we are already on the road to success,” Mallya, who also took the maiden journey to the Old Blighty, declared.
The first thing you notice on the brand new aircraft is the amount of leg space even in the ‘economy class’, which Kingfisher calls the ‘KF Class’. You immediately realise that it is in a class of its own as each passenger is provided with a touch-screen television with a choice of programming, including films, songs, games and even ‘live news’ whenever the satellite-flight configuration permits. There’s also Internet and Wi-Fi connections for those inclined to catch up with work.
On the 10-hour non-stop flight, the smokers have to keep their urge firmly in check as smoking is a strict no-no in keeping with international norms, but there is no bar on the bar as the ever smiling air hostesses pamper their customers with a variety of beer, wine and whisky and a choice of snacks to munch.
The lunch, sourced from Sky Gourmet, Bangalore, is a connoisseur’s delight. On many international flights, the vegetarians are given a ‘raw’ deal, but Kingfisher makes sure that Bangaloreans have nothing to complain as hot and tasty food is served.
On the return journey from London, one had a taste of business class ‘KF First’ which was truly something else. The exclusive club of 30 passengers gets Maharaja’s treatment as each cubicle is fitted with a collapsible seat which doubles up as a bed and even offers ‘body massage’ at the press of a button.
In keeping with the requirement of a long flight, Kingfisher has achieved a ‘first’ by introducing a flight bar with a social area where the privileged passengers can relax amidst ambience lighting and enjoy inflight entertainment. For breakfast and lunch, there’s a sumptuous choice of menu sourced from Chutney Mary, one of the best Indian restaurants in London.
The cherubic senior general manager, corporate media relations of the UB Group, Prakash Mirpuri confesses that the Kingfisher fares are slightly higher than the competitors, but adds, “We offer premium amenities at business class price and whoever flies with us once comes back repeatedly as he or she feels the difference.”
Source://deccanherald.
A wide-bodied brand new A 330-200 Airbus aircraft with 217 seating capacity has been pressed into service in this emerging market as Mallya becomes only the second private player from India to enter international aviation.
Riding on the growing popularity of Kingfisher Airlines, he hopes to launch the Mumbai-Singapore, Bangalore-Hong Kong and Bangalore-San Francisco segments in the next two months.
The maiden flight to London was flagged off by Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel as the Airlines’ smartly dressed air hostesses welcomed each passenger on the inaugural flight with a traditional garland and a bag of mementos. “With over 70 per cent seats being taken up on the opening day itself, we are already on the road to success,” Mallya, who also took the maiden journey to the Old Blighty, declared.
The first thing you notice on the brand new aircraft is the amount of leg space even in the ‘economy class’, which Kingfisher calls the ‘KF Class’. You immediately realise that it is in a class of its own as each passenger is provided with a touch-screen television with a choice of programming, including films, songs, games and even ‘live news’ whenever the satellite-flight configuration permits. There’s also Internet and Wi-Fi connections for those inclined to catch up with work.
On the 10-hour non-stop flight, the smokers have to keep their urge firmly in check as smoking is a strict no-no in keeping with international norms, but there is no bar on the bar as the ever smiling air hostesses pamper their customers with a variety of beer, wine and whisky and a choice of snacks to munch.
The lunch, sourced from Sky Gourmet, Bangalore, is a connoisseur’s delight. On many international flights, the vegetarians are given a ‘raw’ deal, but Kingfisher makes sure that Bangaloreans have nothing to complain as hot and tasty food is served.
On the return journey from London, one had a taste of business class ‘KF First’ which was truly something else. The exclusive club of 30 passengers gets Maharaja’s treatment as each cubicle is fitted with a collapsible seat which doubles up as a bed and even offers ‘body massage’ at the press of a button.
In keeping with the requirement of a long flight, Kingfisher has achieved a ‘first’ by introducing a flight bar with a social area where the privileged passengers can relax amidst ambience lighting and enjoy inflight entertainment. For breakfast and lunch, there’s a sumptuous choice of menu sourced from Chutney Mary, one of the best Indian restaurants in London.
The cherubic senior general manager, corporate media relations of the UB Group, Prakash Mirpuri confesses that the Kingfisher fares are slightly higher than the competitors, but adds, “We offer premium amenities at business class price and whoever flies with us once comes back repeatedly as he or she feels the difference.”
Source://deccanherald.
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