Filed under: Breaking News, Business, Low-fare flights, air travel, airlines news, cheap flights, flights, main, news, perfect flights, travel | Tags: cheap flights deals, cheapest flights, Riga, riga flights, Vilnius
We searched for flights for a quick city break – London Heathrow to Riga – departing on Monday, October 26, and returning on Wednesday, October 28, and found flights for €345 return including taxes. Book at Air Baltic’s website.
Air Baltic, the Latvian national airline, is marking its 14th birthday with a sale. Book before Monday, 28th September, to land a cheap flight to Eastern Europe.
The cities of Riga, capital of Latvia, and Vilnius, Lithuania’s capital, are included in this sale. Depart from London Heathrow and Gatwick airports. Travel between October 19 and December 16.
Filed under: Breaking News, Business, flights, main, news, travel | Tags: Mars, Science, Technology
Asteroids could trump Mars in human exploration if a White House review panel makes the recomendation to delay any attempt to go to Mars over the next 25 years.
Missions to Mars took a back seat to asteroids, or Near Earth Objects in NASA speak, because “we think Mars direct (flight) is not a mission we are prepared to take on technically or financially,” said aerospace veteran Norman Augustine, panel chairman.
During its final planned public meeting held in Washington DC, the Augustine Commission reviewed several options for NASA’s future, including extending the space shuttle to 2015, using the International Space Station until 2020 and sending humans to asteroids using a variant of the large Ares V rocket. The panel seemed to push back from the smaller Ares I rocket.
NASA has been performing low-level Mars mission studies on and off for decades, but renewed interest came in January 2004 when then-President George W. Bush directed the space agency to return to the moon and go on to Mars in the future.
Filed under: Breaking News, Business, Low-fare flights, air travel, airlines news, cheap flights, flights, main, news, perfect flights, travel
As part of a slot swap with Delta at capacity-controlled airports in Washington and New York, US Airways intends to drop US Airways Express service to 26 destinations out of LaGuardia Airport – including every small and non-hub market except one: Wilmington.
But almost all of those markets are served by a mix of regional jets and mainline US Airways flights.
Of the markets to be retained, only Wilmington is served exclusively by regional jets.
The carrier intends to keep nonstop service to the Port City, along with service to the much bigger cities of Washington, Philadelphia, Charlotte, Boston and Pittsburgh.
Cities losing US Airways Express service include Raleigh-Durham; Greensboro; Norfolk, Va.; Charleston, S.C.; and Savannah, Ga.
Wilmington Airport Director Jon Rosborough credited the community’s support of its local airport, even during these tough economic times, for convincing US Airways to keep the Port City route.
“They’ve always told us that when they put new service into Wilmington, they always do well filling the seats,” he said.
Rosborough added that the load factors, or number of departing plane seats that are filled, average 90 percent to LaGuardia and 94 percent to Philadelphia.
At Washington-National, where US Airways is receiving enough slots from Delta to add 42 roundtrip flights, the carrier has said it will add nonstop service to 15 cities.
Among them is Myrtle Beach, but not Wilmington.
Washington is the third most popular destination for Wilmington passengers, while New York is at the top of the list, and Rosborough said the airport would continue pushing for US Airways to restore its link to the nation’s capital.
Earlier this decade both US Airways Express and United Express flew from the Port City to Washington.
The slot switch between US Airways and Delta is expected to win regulatory approval and be finished sometime next year.
Filed under: Breaking News, Business, Low-fare flights, air travel, airlines news, cheap flights, flights, main, news, perfect flights, travel
Thirteen years after Texas-based Southwest first entered New England, through service to T. F. Green, it is finally coming to Boston, initially with five daily round trips each to Baltimore Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport and Chicago Midway Airport. Fares are as low as $49 one-way, as little as one-fifth the price of many tickets from Boston to the Washington area and one-third what United and American Airlines normally charge for flights to Chicago O’Hare.
Finishing touches are underway at Terminal E in Boston’s Logan International Airport as Southwest Airlines prepares to launch service Sunday. But competitors like T.F. Green Airport outside Providence and Manchester Boston Regional Airport, who for more than a decade have counted Southwest service as a key competitive advantage over Logan, aren’t standing still.
Travel expert Mona Strick of CheapFlights.com in Boston said she loves what Southwest is doing, especially on the expensive Boston-Washington route. “It’s tremendous for business travelers and for leisure travelers as well to be able to get in at that price point,” Strick said. “Southwest coming into the market will definitely generate some competition in pricing for other carriers here, and who will benefit? The consumer. So we are very excited.”
T.F. Green director Kevin Dillon said that “there’s no doubt that we would have preferred to have the monopoly on Southwest service here
Filed under: Breaking News, Business, air travel, airlines news, cheap flights, flights, main, news, perfect flights, travel | Tags: india, india flights, Low-fare flights
Jet Airways Ltd’s decision to introduce all-economy and no-frill services seems to be paying off. After a gap of eight months, the Mumbai-based carrier has regained the top slot, in terms of passenger carried, from rival Kingfisher Airlines Ltd in July.
Delhi-based low-fare carrier IndiGo run by InterGlobe Aviation Pvt. Ltd has retained its status as the largest low-fare carrier with a market share of 14% in July, up from 13.6% in June.
According to Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) data, released on Wednesday, the market share of Jet Airways and its low-fare unit JetLite (India) Ltd, stood at 26.3% in July against 23.9% in June. Kingfisher’s market share dropped to 23% in July from 24.4% in June. Air India’s market share fell to 16.2% in July from 17.5% in June.
“In July, Jet Airways became the largest domestic carrier in terms of passengers carried. This is mainly because of our introduction of all-economy service Jet Airways Konnect,” said Jet Airways chief commercial officer Sudheer Raghavan.
“Jet Konnect was a well thought-out strategy in the context of the general economic slowdown. Passengers from other full-service carriers as well as low-fare carriers have shifted to Jet Konnect,” Raghavan added. Jet Airways plans to offer Jet Konnect services on two-thirds of its fleet of 83 planes.
“Currently, one-third of Jet Airways capacity is operated under the brand of Jet Konnect. By October, we will be increasing it to two-thirds by deploying 19 Boeing 737 planes and 10 ATR planes,” the airline’s chief executive officer Wolfgang Prock-Schauer had said last month. Some international routes will be added to the low-fare service, he had said.
Seat occupancy on Jet Airways has risen while that on other airlines registered a decline, according to DGCA data. While Jet’s seat occupancy ratio rose from 67.8% in June to 69.7% in July, Air India’s plunged from 67.9% to 58.3%.
