AVIATION

Etihad Airways increases baggage allowance

Etihad Airways, the national airline of the United Arab Emirates, has increased baggage allowances for all Pearl Business class and Diamond First class guests by ten kilograms.

Guests travelling in Pearl Business class will now have an allowance of 40kg, and guests in Diamond First class will have an allowance of 50kg.

Members of the Etihad Guest frequent flyer program travelling in the Diamond First class or Pearl Business class cabins will be able to enjoy additional baggage allowances.

For example, an Etihad Guest Gold member will now be able to take as much as 65kg of baggage when flying in Diamond First class.

Etihad Airways Chief Commercial Officer Peter Baumgartner said: “We are delighted to be able to reward our premium guests and loyalty program members with an additional luggage allowance.

At Etihad Airways, we are always looking to make the experience of flying as simple, convenient and rewarding as possible. We believe this increased allowance will prove very popular with our guests.”

Singapore to open new airport terminal

Singapore's airport operator said Thursday it will demolish the city-state's terminal for budget airlines in September and replace it with a bigger facility amid surging travel demand.

The tiny but affluent city-state welcomed a record 13 million overseas visitors last year, boosted in part by a boom in low-cost air travel.

Construction of the new facility, called Terminal 4, will start next year, the Changi Airport Group said in a statement.

It will have the capacity to handle 16 million passengers a year when it opens in 2017, more than double the seven million capacity of the current budget terminal.

Singapore's three other airport terminals have a capacity to handle 66 million passengers a year.

“The (budget) terminal will be demolished to make way for the construction of a larger passenger building... to cater to the growth of air traffic at Changi Airport and further strengthen Singapore's air hub status,” the airport operator said.

While the airport still had room to accommodate air traffic growth, the new terminal would “ensure there is capacity to handle further increase in traffic demand”, it added.

Low-cost carriers currently operating out of the budget terminal will transfer to Changi's Terminal 2 from September 25, the airport operator said.

Singapore is a regional aviation hub and Changi Airport handled a total of 46.5 million international passengers last year, up 5.2 percent from 2010.

Changi Airport, which serves over a hundred airlines flying to more than 210 cities, was last week ranked the second best airport in the world in a survey conducted by Airports Council International.

AFP

Argentina asks Britain for Falklands flights

Argentina is asking Britain to increase weekly flights to the Falklands from two to three and to let them be operated by the Argentine flag carrier, President Cristina Kirchner said Thursday.

Tensions have been building over the South Atlantic islands, which Britain controls but Argentina claims, ahead of April's 30th anniversary of the start of the war over the archipelago.

Kirchner said she had instructed Foreign Minister Hector Timerman to renegotiate a 1998 agreement that allowed for two flights a week to the Falklands, originating in Chile but with stops in Rio Gallegos, Argentina.

Speaking at the opening of a session of the Congress, the Argentine president said that instead of two flights “there should be three flights that leave from the continent, from Buenos Aires, on our flag airline.”

The proposal came as a surprise, coming just days after Argentina refused entry to two British cruise ships that visited the Falklands.

The two countries went to war over the remote archipelago 30 years ago next month, after Argentine forces seized the islands only to be routed by a British expeditionary force 74 days later.

In all, 649 Argentine troops, 255 British troops and three Falkland Islanders were killed in the conflict.

Tensions have flared anew since 2010 when Britain authorized oil companies to explore for oil in Falklands waters, and have sharpened with the deployment of a British warship to the islands.

AFP

New jolt for debt-hit Kingfisher Airlines

India's Kingfisher Airlines received a fresh jolt after federal revenue officials froze 40 bank accounts of the debt-crippled carrier, a report said on Saturday.

The Press Trust of India said Indian authorities had sealed the accounts because of non-payment of taxes.

“Over Thursday and Friday, we froze 40 bank accounts of Kingfisher Airlines. They failed to meet the February 29 deadline to make the (tax) payments,” service tax department commissioner S.K. Solanki told the news agency.

“The airline owes 400 million rupees ($8.16 million) to the department,” Solanki added.

The move comes after federal income tax authorities earlier froze other accounts of the struggling carrier after it failed to pay tax arrears.

In addition to back taxes, Kingfisher owes suppliers, lenders and staff millions of dollars and has scrapped scores of scheduled flights with only 28 of its fleet of 64 aircraft in operation.

Many of its planes have been reclaimed by lessors or are awaiting spare parts.

The airline was the country's second-largest until earlier this year when its cash woes deepened. Industry body the Centre for Asia Pacific Aviation has estimated that Kingfisher requires an injection of at least $400 million to keep in business.

The company's net loss widened sharply to 4.44 billion rupees ($88 million) in the three months to December from a loss of 2.54 billion rupees a year earlier while its debt totals at least $1.3 billion.

Company chairman and brewer baron Vijay Mallya has said closing Kingfisher “is not an option” and is seeking fresh capital infusions to avert collapse.

Late last month, media reports said Mallya told employees in an email that the airline had raised money to pay back salaries.

Mallya has told The Times newspaper in London that Kingfisher is in discussions with two unnamed foreign airlines about a tie-up that could save the carrier.

Analysts have mentioned IAG, parent company of British Airways, and Etihad Airways, flagship carrier of the United Arab Emirates, as firms that might be interested in a Kingfisher stake.

AFP

EU 'open' to talks on airlines tax, but won't change law

EU officials said Sunday they will negotiate with international partners angry at what they see as a climate tax on airlines, but refused to change hotly disputed legislation despite fears in Germany.

“We have always been open to continuing discussions on the possibility of equivalent measures” outside Europe, Isaac Valero, spokesman for European Union climate action commissioner Connie Hedegaard, told AFP.

“This way we hope to reach a global agreement,” he said, referring to a longstanding failure to bring industrialised and emerging powers onto the same page over environmental obje ctives for big industry.

“But awaiting this global agreement, we are not going to change our legislation,” he underlined.

Hedegaard has insisted that equivalent measures by other countries would lead to like-for-like exemptions from the annual tax bill.

The charges imposed on airlines taking off or landing in Europe entered into force on January 1, designed to help the EU achieve its goal of cutting emissions by 20 percent by 2020.

Airlines backed by overseas governments have challenged the scheme's legality in court, but for the first time Germany has expressed concerns mainly over Chinese threats that it could cancel orders for EU-built Airbus planes.

The growing tensions, with airlines having long warned of an inevitable protectionist backlash from Asia and the Americas in particular, will be debated when EU environment ministers meet on Friday in Brussels.

The German government urged the European Commission on Friday to negotiate with countries opposed to the EU's airlines carbon emissions fee to “de-escalate” opposition and avoid trade disputes.

Germany's economics ministry “is viewing the international development at the moment with the EU emissions trade with concern,” spokeswoman Tanja Kraus told reporters, adding that international trade conflicts should be avoided.

AFP