Clearly Michael O’Leary is as gifted at writing as he is at delivering financial results for Ryanair PLC. Anyone who has read one of his letters to the press must admit that he writes with a certain force, a touch of humour and a large dose of arrogance. Here is a recent comment from “MOL” on the subject of mobile phone usage onboard Ryanair flights.

“We’ve thus far had no complaints of any passengers who are annoyed by their cathedral-like sanctity of a Ryanair flight being besmirched by somebody on a mobile call“

Here is why I think Ryanair / Michael O’Leary should publish a blog :

• They are already the kings of free publicity. This would help cement their position and feed the flames.

• The blog would get hundreds of comments on every post, partly just because of who he is but also because each post would most likely be controversial and would incite comments from all over the world.

• As above but for inlinks from other blogs and websites. This will help the blog and the Ryanair website in search engines.

• The Ryanair blog could be used in the same way the Ryanair news section is now – to announce route changes, special offers and the more “political” manoeuvrings such as threatening to close bases if this and that doesn’t happen in Ryanair’s favour.

Airlines with successful blogs include Iceland Express and Southwest airlines. A lesser known example is the flyforbeans blog which doesn’t have many posts but has at least got articles from the most of the management of this long planned start up airline. Richard Branson also has a blog.

New flights from Newcastle ( NCL ) to Sharm el Sheikh ( SSH ) have been announced by Jet2.

Going on sale today the first departure will be 17th October. Sales of flights and holidays to Egypt have been selling really well this year, in part because of the strong Euro. In addition the Egyptian government supports tourism as a cornerstone of it’s growth and so there have been large investments in new hotels as well as marketing the Red Sea as a year round destination. 

This now brings the Jet2 route portfolio at it’s six Northern UK bases to: 

41 destinations from Leeds Bradford ( LBA )

20 from Manchester ( MAN )

14 from Newcastle ( NCL )

10 from Blackpool ( BLK ) 

16 from Belfast International ( BFS )

13 from Edinburgh ( EDI )

Emirates have announced they are to upgrade their twice daily Birmingham – Dubai service to an all 777 operation.

Starting from the first of June, Emirates will be adding a total of 86 extra seats a day by replacing the current A330 with a 777 on their evening departure from Birmingham (BHX).

An airline spokesman claimed the move was due to exceptional demand. Adding  “Over the last few months demand has continued to grow on the Birmingham route, necessitating an increase in capacity to meet the surge in passenger numbers.” 

A travel agency from Solihull told Airline News that services to Australia and South Africa are booking particularly well for Emirates so far in 2009.

Jet2 have announced a new route from their Belfast base (BFS).

The new service will be to Tenerife, Reina Sofia (TFS) every Friday commencing 30th October 2009.

Flights are scheduled to leave BFS at  08:30 and return to BFS at 18:40. 

Jet2 offers flights to Tenerife from all it’s UK bases except Edinburgh. Commenting on the announcement a spokesperson for the cheap hotels in Tenerife website said they welcomed the extra airlift to Tenerife. “As Thomson Holidays and flythomascook are also on sale for next winter and we are still waiting on the possibility of Aer Lingus also offering flights, it should mean great opportunities for the people of Belfast to get a bargain holiday to Tenerife”.

Skyscanner have revealed the most popular destinations for travel over Easter.

1.    London (UK)
2.    Malaga (Spain)
3.    Alicante (Spain)
4.    Barcelona (Spain)
5.    Amsterdam (Netherlands)
6.    Rome (Italy)
7.    Paris (France)
8.    Dublin (Ireland)
9.    Palma (Spain)
10.   Faro (Portugal)

Top 10 most searched for destinations from UK airports by Skyscanner users for travel during Easter period (8th-15th of April 2009).
If you want to look for flights you may be intersted in our flight route database.

Iceland Express will switch operations from London Stansted to London Gatwick from the start of May 2009.

Following 6 years of operating the route from London Stansted (STN), Iceland Express is switching it’s Reykjavik (KEF) – London flights to depart and arrive from London Gatwick (LGW) instead.

The reason given by the Icelandic “virtual” low cost airline is that their sister company, Astreaus, is based at Gatwick.

The airline’s first ever scheduled flights were from Reykjavik to London and Copenhagen back in 2003.

Emirates has announced that it will use the Airbus A380 to operate flights from Dubai to Toronto and Bangkok.

Getting underway on 1 June, the new flights will represent the debut of the A380 in Canada and an expansion of its presence in the Asia Pacific region following the launch of services to Sydney and Auckland in February.

The introduction of the superjumbo will provide a capacity increase of about 30% on both routes from Dubai.

Tim Clark, president of Emirates, said: ‘We are extremely pleased to announce the introduction of the A380 for our Toronto and Bangkok services. Our Toronto route has had consistently high demand since the thrice-weekly service was launched two years ago.

‘The A380 will allow Emirates to address some of the unmet need in Toronto while in Bangkok, the A380 will help support the Thai government’s new tourism initiatives.’

Emirates has equipped its A380 aircraft with 14 first class cabins, 76 business class seats and 399 economy spaces.

The airline recently unveiled the ‘e-zone’ technology and entertainment area at its business class lounge in Dubai.

Thanks to Opodo for this press release.

News coming out of Asia is suggesting full service airlines including Cathay Pacific and Singapore Airlines are preparing to slash capacity. The moves, expected to be revealed over the course of this week will include grounding of aircraft, meaning cancellation and rescheduling of routes.

Premium passenger numbers have plummetted in 2009 with airlines in the Asia region rumoured to be suffering as much as 25% declines in first and business class passenger numbers compared to last year with capacity stable. One analyst told airline-news that while passengers are trading down to economy the economic decline means that even overall load factors and holding up.

Ryanair pulls aircraft out of Liverpool base

Ten destinations are being cut from Ryanair’s Liverpool base with a reported loss of 50 pilot, cabin crew and engineering jobs.

Flights to Budapest, Faro, Paris, Friedrichshafen, Gdansk, Lodz, Salzburg, Santiago, Szczecin and Valencia have been cancelled this summer. Despite announcing a new route to Ibiza from Liverpool to start at the end of March, only two weeks ago, Ryanair is blaming Air Passenger Duty and the falling value of the pound for the cancellation of the flights.

The airline said more cuts to its winter schedule would be announced in due course.

The news means Ryanair will be shadowed by easyJet at Liverpool John Lennon airport. easyJet will have 8 aircraft based at LPL from the start of June.

bmi will cease flights from Heathrow to Jersey at the end of March this year.

Saint Aubin harbour, Jersey

Despite receiving subsidies to operate the flights, the airline said that the channel islands route had failed to achieve an “acceptable level of financial performance“.

Economic Development Minister for Jersey Alan Maclean said that a combination of change in ownership of bmi, deteriorating market conditions and poor economic prospects had led to the airline’s decision to withdraw.

Third Heathrow runway
Despite the announcement, bmi welcomed the decision that Heathrow will get a third runway with this statement:

“We congratulate the Government in making this bold decision. It will ensure that Heathrow maintains its pre-eminent position as one of the world’s leading international hub airports with all of the jobs and commercial benefits that go with it.”