News

06 JUL 2010: Can we call it FraKLDeAL? Alitalia has joined Air France-KLM and Delta Airlines in a transatlantic joint venture that shares costs and revenues but stops short of a merger, the airlines announced yesterday. With the addition of Alitalia, the joint venture now controls one-quarter of all transatlantic capacity with estimated annual revenues of US$10 billion and will offer 250 flights and about 55,000 seats a day, the companies said in a statement.

The expanded joint venture deepens co-operation on important transatlantic routes between the four airlines, which are all already part of the SkyTeam alliance.

``Transatlantic traffic is the most strategic and competitive marketplace,'' Alitalia CEO Rocco Sabelli said in a statement.

Air France-KLM became the largest single shareholder in Alitalia taking a 25% stake in January 2009, after its bid to buy the Italian carrier failed. The formerly state-run carrier is run by a group of Italian investors, who combined it with a much smaller rival, Air One.

The joint venture does not necessarily mean an eventual Alitalia merger with Air France-KLM, Sabelli told a news conference in Rome attended by all four CEOs.

Sabelli said the deal, ``has the same benefits as a merger but maintains the companies separate as long as it makes sense. There is no plan for a merger.''

The inclusion of Italy will strengthen the partners' presence in the Italian market, which is fourth in Europe behind Britain, France and Germany

05 JUL 2010: The American Civil Liberties Union has filed a first-of-its-kind lawsuit on behalf of 10 US citizens who are prohibited from flying to or from the US or over US airspace because they are on the government's "No Fly List." None of the individuals in the lawsuit, including a disabled US Marine Corps veteran stranded in Egypt and a US Army veteran stuck in Colombia, have been told why they are on the list or given a chance to clear their names.

"More and more Americans who have done nothing wrong find themselves unable to fly, and in some cases unable to return to the US without any explanation whatsoever from the government," said Ben Wizner, staff attorney with the ACLU National Security Project.

"A secret list that deprives people of the right to fly and places them into effective exile without any opportunity to object is both un-American and unconstitutional."

The ACLU filed the lawsuit against the US Department of Justice, the FBI and the Terrorist Screening Center in US District Court for the District of Oregon.

The plaintiffs on the case are:

•    Ayman Latif, a US citizen and disabled Marine veteran living in Egypt who has been barred from flying to the United States and, as a result, cannot take a required Veterans' Administration disability evaluation

•    Raymond Earl Knaeble, a US citizen and US Army veteran who is stuck in Santa Marta, Colombia after being denied boarding on a flight to the US

•    Steven Washburn, a US citizen and US Air Force veteran who was prevented from flying from Europe to the US or Mexico; he eventually flew to Brazil, from there to Peru, and from there to Mexico, where he was detained and finally escorted across the border by US and Mexican officials

•    Samir Mohamed Ahmed Mohamed, Abdullatif Muthanna, Nagib Ali Ghaleb and Saleh A. Omar, three American citizens and a lawful permanent resident of the US who were prevented from flying home to the US after visiting family members in Yemen

•    Mohamed Sheikh Abdirahman Kariye, a US citizen and resident of Portland, Oregon who was prevented from flying to visit his daughter who is in high school in Dubai

•    Adama Bah, a citizen of Guinea who was granted political asylum in the US, where she has lived since she was two, who was barred from flying from New York to US who lives in California with her US-citizen husband who was barred from flying from Long Beach, California to Oakland to attend a conference and has since had to cancel plane travel to participate in educational programs and her family reunion in Germany.

According to the ACLU's legal complaint, thousands of people have been added to the "No Fly List" and barred from commercial air travel without any opportunity to learn about or refute the basis for their inclusion on the list.

The result is a vast and growing list of individuals who, on the basis of error or innuendo, have been deemed too dangerous to fly but who are too harmless to arrest.

"Without a reasonable way for people to challenge their inclusion on the list, there's no way to keep innocent people off it," said Nusrat Choudhury, a staff attorney with the ACLU National Security Project.

"The government's decision to prevent people from flying without giving them a chance to defend themselves has a huge impact on people's lives – including their ability to perform their jobs, see their families and, in the case of US citizens, to return home to the United States from abroad."

The ACLU's complaint is available online at: www.aclu.org/national-security/latif-et-al-v-holder-et-al-complaint

26 FEB 2010:  Avalon Waterways’ new river cruise ship, the Avalon Felicity, will be christened next month in the Netherlands by award winning Canadian soprano Measha Brueggergosman, who was most recently seen and heard around the world as she sang at the Olympic opening ceremonies. Brueggergosman’s  magnificent soprano sound has been described as “a superb voice capable of just about everything.” She is now a major international talent, who also won a Juno Award for Classical Album of the Year in 2008.

The 138-passenger Felicity will be christened in Volendam, in the Netherlands on March 27.

Felicity will sail Avalon’s nine-day Romantic Rhine itinerary from Amsterdam to Basel and from Zurich to Amsterdam.

The Avalon Felicity offers 65 staterooms four junior suites, all equipped with flat-screen televisions, flexible bed designs (beds may be configured as two twins or one queen), Egyptian cotton linens, mini-bars and safes.

The ship will also have a fitness room, library, hair salon, gift shop, club lounge and whirlpool on the sky deck. Open-air lunches will be served at the sky deck grill.

Laundry and ironing services are also available for passengers.

The Felicity is being built in the Den Breejen shipyard in the Netherlands. Its delivery will bring Avalon's fleet count in Europe to 10.

07 JUL 2010: British Airways cabin crew union Unite this week started balloting its 11,000 members on the company’s latest offer which includes two guaranteed rises in basic salary beginning February 2011. However, the airline boss Willie Walsh, says that even if the cabin crews vote for more strike action, the carrier should be able to run 100% of flights.

Unite is not making any recommendation about whether members should accept the deal – a move which has been welcomed by BA. The ballot is expected to take two weeks and, even if the deal is rejected, further strike action is not expected  to take place until late August.

Walsh said in an interview on Wednesday that he believed they could run 100% of services if there is further strike action.

BA has been hit by 22 days of strike action since mid-March.  Athough Unite has disputed the figures, the airline says that during the last five-day strike it ran 80% of long-haul flights and 60% of short-haul from Heathrow,

08 JUL 2010: It's happened again: travellers from another continent arriving in Sydney, N.S., when they're supposed to be in Sydney, Australia. The couple's travel agency in Italy made the error and the couple spent the day trying to correct it, and to see the sights with the help of an Italian-speaking resident to translate.