It seems that Valencia can’t do without Ryanair, as it will repoen it’s base at Valenicia airport in the winter – with the local tourism ministry to provide marketing support to market the services.

The base was closed in  Valencia base in November 2008 due to the regional government’s decision not to provide marketing support, which has now been promptly reversed due to declining passenger numbers, and will operate 10 services from there.

Ryanair forecasts that its return to Valencia will boost annual passenger numbers at the airport by two million.

It just proves how much clout the airline has these days as it can dictate life or death of an area, or an airport it seems.

Sorry for the delay in posts – and they will be delayed today due to me getting a replacement GhettoIFE device….

Can you tell what it is yet?

More maybe later

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone – apologies for the spelling!

Well the new UK Budget has been announced and two things stand out of interest (well there are quite a few things, but lets concentrate on the aviation side)

VAT will be rising to 20% from 4th January 2012 – For those of you in the EU, we’re coming up to the same levels as you. For non EU, its time to get those claim dockets ready when you leave the country to get more tax back.

More interestingly, to quote

“The government will “explore changes to the aviation tax system” such as switching from a per-passenger to a per-plane levy. It will consult on major changes.

In other words, Air Passenger Duty could be on the way out, and replaced with something different. However, it’s important to note no announcement was regarding the last governments plans to increase Air Passenger Duty in November – in other words, take it as read those new rates from November 2010 will be implemented alas.

As a reminder, the new Air Passenger Duty Rates are (Ticketing Code element UB) based on bands:

Rates of duty for 2009-10 and 2010-11 are as follows:

To decode what band your country is in, head to the lovely guide published by Her Majesty’s Customs and Excise at www.hmrc.gov.uk/pbr2008/pbrn20.pdf. 

And a reminder. Taxes normally head only one way normally….

Four words sum up my thoughts.

HERE WE GO AGAIN. 

Unite will announce if they intend to ballot to strike from 29th June.  If they do, a summer of disruption goes from being “on the cards” to being “definite”

Deep joy.

It’s Sunday again, and that means it’s time for some Airplane p0rn.

Today, it’s Mesa Bombardier CRJ-700 in old United Express colours recently arrived at Washington Dulles

More of course – next week!

Yes, the Bearded one is out and about again. Now I swear there was something important in it – (the resumption of a Manchester – Las Vegas route in April 2011 and 10 Years of Virgin serving London – Las Vegas)

But who cares?

Dita Von Teese was out and about, so it’s time to name another 747-400.

Image – Virgin Group

And of course – the lovely Ms Von Teese herself was out on promotional duty.

Image – Vtravelled.

There’s also water shenanigans at the Bellagio too.

Well if there’s one thing that Beardy does good – it’s shameless publicity.

More images:

• Vtravelled – http://blog.vtravelled.com/the-party-starts-arriving-in-las-vegas/
• Las Vegas Sun – http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2010/jun/16/new-virgin-atlantic-route-could-bring-internationa/

… and I’ve moaned about United.bomb in the past. I never thought I’d run into such an incompetent check in procedure.

Lets go through the points

• Navigation was all over the shop
• Auto seat assignment engine… I’d like to know if there was an algorithm to assigning seats or was it a case of picking a random number and letter together and seeing if it actually existed on the plane
• No remembering OLCI information from on session to another
• A poorly constructed boarding pass that required scaling to 85% to print. 
• Oh yes, and an inital assignment to 20B. In the end I ponyed up £4.50 for 4A, but that’s besides the point. 

LCC’s.. talk about a royal pain up the whatsits.

And a lot of this blame can actually be laid at door of Navitare’s Open Skies “Skylights” product, which is the preferred toy of LCC’s to do their bookings and GDS functionality (or lack of functionality thereafter)

… and people wonder why I prefer the old fashioned full fat airlines…..

Spanair made a big song and dance about coming to Birmingham, and BMI Baby dutifully moved aside to allow the full service Star Alliance carrier in and suspend it’s own services.

However, this has now backfired into BMI Baby’s face as Spanair has decided not to offer the server BHX service any more.

Spanair had been due to commence four-times weekly flights to Barcelona on May 20, and three-times weekly services to Madrid on May 25, with BMI Baby stepping aside from the 7th June.

This means there are now no flights to Madrid or Barcelona from Birmingham International Airport. Which is a pain if you want to head there.

Birmingham International Airport hopes these routes are popular enough for another carrier to come in (or to convince BMI Baby to restart the route).

We’ll see as they say.

It seems an American Airlines 777-200 had a little incident today at Dallas Fort Worth when someone forgot to set the brakes at the gate, choc the plane… and the aircraft rolling back 200 feet, ripping off a door.

There were no injuries reported thankfully. 

Pictures at http://startelegram.typepad.com/sky_talk/2010/06/american-777-loses-door-at-dfw.html….and they say it all….

and

Well things are not at all moving between BA and Unite with ACAS abritrating, with the latest negotiations failing.

Whilst ACAS gave both sides new proposals on how to end the action, deadlock remains.

Sadly no new meetings are planned to end the actions, however ACAS’s doors are open.

Whilst the strike was about staffing levels and changes to services, it has now gone onto discussion about the removal of travel concessions from striking workers.

Of course, Unite is in fully bullying mood and is preparing to ballot in July for more strike action of no agreement is reached.

Both sides are open to talking. The question is – what to talk about?

BA has since launched a sale to try and pull back passengers in premium and economy cabins. Will this be all for nothing if the cabin crew go out on strike again?

It’s approaching a point where this dispute must end, with both sides having to negotiate – and sadly, the fine art of negotiation normally means both sides have to give up something….