Because I’ve started receive comments on this old post i have made it up to date.

The Italian low-cost carrier Myair and the Slovakian based low cost airline SkyEurope sign an agreement to form in the short future an alliance that will transform them in the fourth player on the low-cost aviation market in Europe.

According to a press release from Myair, Flyholding – the holding company of Myair and SkyEurope Holding, the holding company of SkyEurope Airlines announced that they have jointly entered into a protocol agreement to immediately commence an operating partnership between Myair and SkyEurope Airlines and explore an eventual strategic alliance.

The new alliance with Myair should help SkyEurope to fix the company financial problems. SkyEurope has been posting losses in both raports presented this year, and last year.

The alliance should help both of the companies to achieve lower prices when purchasing prices of services and fuel.

The companies will start selling each other’s tickets on their websites till the end of this year and will also use each other’s planes. Some airline market analysts says that SkyEurope’s Boeings will be used on the routes were both companies face a high seat demand, and the small CRJ900 of Myair will be used on the routes were are less passengers. Myair Airbuses could be leased in order to get extra cash for the new company operations (this information has not been confirmed by any of the two airlines).

The aim of this alliance is to create the fourth biggest low-cost airline in Europe, after Ryanair, easyJet and AirBerlin. SkyEurope head Jason Bitter said that the two cooperating airlines will play a bigger role on the European market than the one played till now.

Need to know
Friday, LTE International Airways – a charter airline based in Palma di Maiorca, Spain – ceased operation due to financial problems. The company, that own 7 aircraft Airbus 320 was part of MyAir Group, the same that owns Myair.

On the European market other companies that merged this year: Vueling and Clickair (both Spanish airlines) and Condor, TUIfly and Germanwings (all German airlines) are still in talks for merging.

Foto: An Myair Airbus 320 preparing to take off from Bucharest Baneasa airport.
Foto by: Cristian C./Boardingmedia.net

Prima masura anuntata este: renuntarea la check-in-ul la aeroport si realizarea sa exclusiv online. Incepand cu data de 1 octombrie 2009 nici un pasager Ryanair nu-si va mai putea realiza check-in-ul la aeroport.Pasagerii care vor face check-in online si au bagaj de cala vor trebui sa se prezinte la aeroport la ghiseele “Ryanair bag drop desks” unde isi vor preda bagajul de cala.

Trecerea la noul sistem se va face in trei faze.

Prima faza – 19 martie 2009
serviciul de check-in online (limitat in momentul de fata) va putea fi utilizat si de:
- cetateti rezidenti ai unei tari din afara granitelor Uniunii Europene sau Economic European Area
- pasagerii care calatoresc cu bagaj de cala
- pasageri cu deficiente locomotorii
Toti pasagerii care vor utiliza serviciul de check-in online si care vor calatorii numai cu bagaj de mana (maxim 10kg) nu vor avea de platit nici o taxa suplimentara.
Pasagerii care vor calatorii cu bagaj de cala dar opteaza pentru check-in online vor achita o taxa de 5 euro per zbor.
Pasagerii care calatoresc cu sau fara bagaj de cala, dar vor dori sa realizeze check-in la aeroport vor achita o taxa de 10 euro per zbor.

A doua faza – 1 mai 2009
Toate rezervarile care vor fi efectuate de la aceasta data vor cuprinde serviciul de check-in online, care va fi tarifat cu 5 euro per pasager per zbor. In cazul in care pasagerul opteaza pentru check-in la aeroport taxa va fi de 20 de euro per pasager per zbor.

Pe parcursul verii Ryanair va renunta in marea majoritate a aeroporturilor la ghiseele de check-in.

A treia faza – 1 octombrie 2009
Nici un ghiseu de check-in nu va mai fi disponibil in cadrul aeroporturilor. Pasagerilor care nu vor efectua aceasta operatiune online li se va refuza imbarcarea in aeronava.

Pasagerii care vor calatroii doar cu bagaj de mana nu vor plati taxa de check-in online. Pasagerii care vor calatroii cu bagaj de cala vor plat taxa de check-in online de 5 euro si taxa de bagaj (10 euro/geanta – maxim 15kg, daca se achita online inaintea zborului sau 20 de euro/geanta daca se achita pin call center sau la aeroport). Toate gentile se vor preda la “Ryanair bag drop desks”.

Sursa foto

Aceasta imagine nu poate fi preluata fara acceptul autorului. Copyright Cristian Curus.

Starting November 1st all European Union based airlines must publish the tickets prices including all taxes and surcharges. Also, passengers will be able to see the breakdown of the different categories of costs making up the final price: tariff, taxes, airport charges and other fees.

The EU Commission for transport announced this new rule early in the spring, but said at that moment that airlines will have near 6 months to change the way they are advertising their tickets and how they are showing the full price during the booking process. There are still 10% of the airlines that failed to update their systems till November 1st.

The main points of the new regulations for EU airlines are:
- airlines must advertise their tickets prices all-inclusive – fare, taxes and surcharges
- the passenger should see the full ticket prices in the first page showing the results of their search
- the passenger should be able to see the breakdown for the taxes and surcharges also in the page with the flight search results

At the moment there are some airlines operating flight to/from Romania that are not fully respecting the new rules. The Romanian low cost carrier Blue Air doesn’t show the full price and tax breakdown in the search result page and the Italian MyAir doesn’t show the full price in the flight search results page.

Wizzair, EasyJet, Germanwings, Clickair and SkyEurope – also low cost companies – are showing the full price and the tax breakdown in the flight search results page.

The new EU rules also ban airlines from adding optional additional charges without passengers’ express consent.

Most known optional additional charges are:
- credit card booking fees
- checking bags into the hold
- ‘fast-track’ boarding service charges
- airport check-in charge

For the moment none of the European low cost carriers is respecting the new rule about the optional charges.

The new tax called “Collective madness” will be paid by each carrier taking off from any airport in the two mentioned countries, no matter it is a local or a foreign airline. The tax will be paid for each passenger carried on board of the aircraft.

In Ireland there the tax will be introduced starting with 30th March for each passenger that is outbound for another European country. The tax will be 8 euro for a passenger flying to one of the countries very close to Ireland – UK, Iceland, France, Spain and Germany, and 10 euro if he/she is flying to another European destination and the north African countries. For the moment the government have not mentioned if there will be a tax for the intercontinental flights (other than those to north Africa).

The press is expecting a very vehement reaction from low-cost airline Ryanair which is flying from all Irish airports to more than 90 European destinations. In the same time, Ryanair has a base at Bruxelles Charleroi Airport (the secont Bruxelles airport) from were is flying to almost 30 European and north African destinations.

Ryanair is flying to over 90 destinations from Irish airports. The company official are expected to attack the new tax in the next couple of days. (photo source)

In Belgium, the tax can be even higher, and if so it is expected that airlines will cut flights from the four main airports: Bruxelles International, Charleroi, Antwerp and Liege. For the moment, the government did not said how much this tax will be.

A French newspaper said (noting that there is not an official source to be quoted) that the new Belgian tax will be 10 euro for any European outbound flight and 40 euro for all the others.

A person working in the Belgian aviation sector told Boardingmedia.net that he hopes taxes will not be like those imposed last spring by the Dutch government: 11,25 euro per any passenger on an outgoing flight to any European destination and 45 euro for anybody flying to any worldwide airport.

The Belgian tax concern a lot the Dutch travelers too as many of the are using the Bruxelles International airport to fly intercontinental flights and Charleroi to reach European popular destination, as they do not want to pay the high Dutch taxes impose to airlines flying out Amsterdam or Rotterdam airports.

IATA (International Air Transport Association) criticized the Irish and Belgian proposals for the new tax, “Collective madness is the only way to describe the EUR 150 million Irish and EUR 132 million Belgian departure tax proposals. Filling budget gaps or financing government investment in the banking industry with gratuitous travel taxes is policy myopia at its worst,” told Giovanni Bisignani, IATA’s Director General and CEO, quoted by Associated Press.

And the Alitalia workers knew it too. So they played until the very end was very close. In this way they the change to get as much as possible out of the new investors, and to be able to get better contracts and less job cuts. It was risky, it could have been tricky … but in the end this is the way that country is going: up to the limit. When that limit is reached they are trying to find a solution. Most of the time they are finding it.

Photo from AP Photo by Andrew Medichni. Via.

Anyway… I salute the new CAI (Compagnia Aerea Italiana) with a new banner on this blog, with an Alitalia ticket to Napoli (via Malpensa, and back via Rome) for next week… and with a “pax” of Prigat/Cappy that mr. Popa (a coleague) has to “pay” in December! Why at that time? Because we made a bet: I said the company will not colapse till December, he said it will!

The short story with what is going on about Alitalia:
- the four leading trade unions – CGIL, CISL, UIL and UGL – agreed with a new contract on Wednesday
- the pilots union agreed on Friday night with the new contracts, were the commandants will get the status of “managers”; they also agreed on less job cuts.
- on Saturday the cabin staff is still negotiating, with discussions set to be finished till Monday at noon.

What are the plans in the near future:
- if all agreements are established till Wednesday, Thursday the company will be split in two: the good part (civil flights operations – including slots, ticketing/handling/Atitech) and the bad part (cargo operations and some other assets of the company).
- there will be the fusion of Alitalia and Airone (the segond biggest operator in Italy) under the name of CAI, but it seems the company will use the Alitalia name and logo.
- the new company will operate under the temporary flight license till October 15th.
- there is also some interest showed by Lufthansa and Air France, that want to participate with 10 – 15 % each in the new company.

The most difficult part:
- getting a new flight license from Italian aeronautical authority – ENAC – till October 15th. (But this thing will get fixed in the Italian way ).

——–

George was writing that Alitalia had some flights suspended this week between Romania and Italy. He is also telling a very hard to believe story: that the company was paying the handling agent cash for the services. This is very hard to believe that a company will let so much cash to the captain, pilots or crew members to pay for handling, food and re-fuel of the aircraft. There are contracts that the airlines are signing with the handling firms… and they choose some services and they pay for those services through bank transfers once in a while. If the company do not have money to pay at a certain point there can be negotiations for paying the services in rates or once at all but at a later date.

George was also saying that there were six extra crew members that should have remained in Bucharest till next Monday (this was happening Thursday). No airline in the world (especially one that has problems with the cash) will pay four nights in a four star hotel for their crew members.

So those six crew members were for the plane that will have arrived at midnight, and was supposed to live in the morning. The crew arriving at midnight would leave next day on another flight, after spending a night resting. With the company decided to cancel the evening flight, and the midnight flight (and also the morning flight) it was normal that the extra crew to fly back to Italy. What is not clear… is why they left with the plane empty.

- Moo ofera un discount de 20% pentru comenzile de MiniCards, Stickers, Postcards, NoteCards si ce mai vand ei pe acolo. Codul este: 

I was thinking on it… it looked nice as a design and would fit a very-well-retro-designed-kitchen, but still is the price justified? Meaning would a normal person spend this amount of money for a FRIDGE?

This fridge is produce by the Italian firm # SMEG. And # here are all the models, and below just four of them:

In case you want to order for a SMEG fridge, or for other products they are making ovens, dishwashers, laundries and some more house stuff. And if you want to buy … you can check # here.
Remaining on this topic … here are some fridge ads, vintage and also recent ones.

I got this e-mail:
“We appreciate your recent purchase of Yahoo! Phone Out.

To protect you from unauthorised credit card usage we first need to verify a quick fact before we can turn your service on. We recently added a small credit to your credit card account (it’s between $0.01 and $1.99). As the credit card owner, you’re the only one who has access to this transaction amount — so we need you to verify it.”

But it happened somethign strange: I’ve entered the amount three time … and it got blocked.

So I arrived to talk with the a Customer Care person:

Julius has entered the session.
cristi: I have bought some credit for Yahoo! Voice – 10 USD. And there is that small amount of money blocked by you on my credit card. Yahoo! asks me to verify the amount of money blocked and to insert the sum in Yahoo! Voice verification page. My card is a Mastercard …and its in EURO. My bank can’t say me the precise amount of money you blocked in USD. How we fix the problem?

Julius: Thank you for contacting Yahoo! Premium Voice Services Support! Please wait a moment while I review your issue.
Julius: Thank you for waiting. According to your records, you are currently in our Verification Process. This will verify your credit card that was used to activate the service.
Julius: You will need to verify first the small Mystery Credit or verification amount before the system activates your account.

cristi: I have tried to verify … but on my account is saying 0.78 EUR, this means something like 0.99 USD

Julius: It could have been that the Yahoo! Verification amount or Mystery Credit has not yet appeared on your bank or card statement.
cristi: it is there … the yahoo mystery credit …of 0.78 EUR
Julius: Depending on the bank, it normally takes three to five business days before the small amount appears on your bank or card statement.
cristi: Please stay with me and understant that the Mistery credit is already on my statement. Yahoo! Voice – 0,78 EUR

Julius: Alright. I submitted the 0.99 amounts and confirmed that it was not your verification amount. The Yahoo! with Voice system rejected it.
Julius: I stornly suggest that you wait for a few more days like after three to five buisness days because the verification amount does not appear on a user’s statement immediately.
cristi: IT IS ON MY STATMENT SIR!!!!!! IT IS THERE ! I CAN SEE IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Julius: 0.99 USD or 0.78 EUR is not your verification amount
Julius: Please wait a moment…

Julius: 0.99 is your amount but I can’t figure out why the website does not recognize it!