This week, Ryanair will be cancelling flights that were purchased on websites other than their own for this summer all the way into next March. Their claim is that websites are illegally ’scraping’ content from their site and making it slow or unavailable for legitimate visitors to ryanair.com. The third-party sites they are targeting include eDreams and Opodo in France, Bravoflight in Switzerland, V-Tours in Germany, Tui in the UK, and Atrapalo in Spain. They also purport that these sites charge more than Ryanair’s rates and don’t adequately notify customers of flight changes. The fares will be credited back to customers on the same card used to purchase them, and the company will also notify the affected consumers by email.
Of course this has created a stir, and the European Commission is checking into whether this violates European consumers’ rights. It appears they’re agreeing in the case of those sites using Ryanair.com illegally, but yet to determine whether this affects travel agents operating in the same network.
On other fronts, Ryanair announced that it will open a number of new flight paths this fall, including one from Malaga to London (Stansted) starting October 28. This path will have a frequency of three flights a week on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. The option for booking these flights is already on the Ryanair site, and of course they will only show available if you choose a flight date after the opening date of that path.
A group of private investors are building a second airport in the Murcia region. Original plans to have a 1.5 million passenger capacity has been doubled, with planners hoping the initiative to implement a capacity of 3 million will be approved while the building works are in progress. The opening date has also been shifted; originally slotted for 2009, the wait for Spanish government approval has pushed it back to 2010, with works to begin as soon as possible this summer.
The Aeropuerto Internacional de Corvera is to be located near the town of Corvera, about 20 minutes’ drive from Murcia’s capital city. The development has some residents and golf course owners concerned about noise pollution, although it remains to be seen exactly where the airport footprint will lie and whether flight paths will indeed be over locals’ heads. The current Murcia airport at San Javier pulls around 2 million people a year into the region, so this new airport is expected to provide an alternative route for low-cost airlines.
Want to visit one of the beautiful nearby islands? You can do so free if you’re quick enough. Vueling is offering a limited number of free flights to visitors to a special section of their site, which requires entering a special code at precisely 9:30am (Spain time). They are giving away 20 free (2-passenger) prizes each weekday until April 30. Oh, you wanna know where to get the secret code? Well the link’s coming, but you have to know something first. The flights are only from Madrid, and only good for residents of Spain. So if you’re from the Malaga area, you would also have to find a quick-hop flight to Madrid or take the AVE. No problem? Then flip through the Madrid print edition of 20minutos (click on the "Edición completa" link), and look for the Vueling ad, something like the image on the right. There will be a special code listed, good for only that day. Visit the Vueling special page before 9:30 and be ready to enter your name, surname, email address and the special code as quick as possible. I tried it today, but my old fingers must be getting feeble! Even if you’re like me and don’t get in the first 20, you can take advantage of their 50€ offer (per person) for the same destinations.
The airline industry is shakin ‘n bakin lately. With American Airlines having so many flights grounded for inspections, fuel prices rocketing and not showing any mercy signals of slowing down, airlines going bankrupt is just the icing on the cake. Four other small airlines have filed for Chapter 11 in the last few weeks. Delta and Northwest didn’t let that stop them though; they came through bankruptcy protection a year ago, and although they’re still losing money, have decided to merge. The decision was made yesterday by both companies’ boards, although federal officials still have to approve it. This news clip talks about a few key points.
This union will make the world’s largest airline, beating out American Airlines for that title, and a combined workforce of 80,000…for now. Of course it’s not all roses - any merger means ‘restructuring’, or for the layman, cutting a lot of jobs and probably a number of other growing pains. Delta’s getting the upper hand here, since the new company will retain their name and chairman, although Northwest’s chairman will come on the new board as vice-chair.
Adding to its direct connections in the Malaga Airport to Dublin, Shannon, Brussels, Frankfurt, Bremen and Düsseldorf, Ryanair announced this week a new route to Liverpool. This announcement comes on the wings of indications that the airline is doing pretty well, even in the face of a dim financial year for everyone besides the oil industry. They purportedly carried 4.5 million passengers in March, a 19% increase over last year’s stats. Anyway, back to Malaga. Other non-stop connections to the UK to be opened in 2008:
- Bournemouth (April)
- East Midlands (June)
- Edinburgh (September)
They will also be linking to France with a new route to Marseilles. With all these new connections, the airline expects to round out this year with a total of 460,000 passengers in flights to Malaga.
In November of last year British Airways pulled out of an Iberia takeover bid, and by the beginning of this year still held about a 10% share of Iberia stock. Last Friday though, BA showed they’re still in the game by buying about 29 million shares, increasing their stake to just over 13%. Spanish law limits core shareholders to how much stock they can purchase each year; in Iberia’s case, each is limited to 5% annually. If any shareholder passes this limit, they are required to present a purchase offer. BA head man Willie Walsh hasn’t ruled that out as a possibility: “We will consider further opportunities to increase our stake.” The reason for BA pulling out in November lies with the Spanish bank and principal shareholder Caja Madrid, who seems to have an aversion to foreign takeover interests. Stay tuned…
Top destinations for the Easter week: Malaga, Seville, Barcelona, Madrid and Palma de Mallorca. Whether you’re thinking of a pilgrimage to see the processions, or renting a car to just get away from it all and take a nice excursion, Malaga is going to be a dense traffic area. The national traffic authority predicts almost 2.7 million trips in and out of Malaga capital city for the week and surrounding weekends, a dizzying statistic for anyone considering travel. Hotspots will be the opening weekend and Thursday and Friday of Holy Week, between 12:00 and 2:00 pm. The Malaga provincial government also expects 6-10 pm to also have high chances for traffic jams. With the possibility of precipitation later next week, it sounds like the best times to drive are early in the day and early in the week.
Beware of driving in the capital itself: the main street drag (Alameda Principal) will be cut off almost all day the first Sunday, and there will be much more restriction on allowed parking areas. Authorities are recommending avoiding the city’s nucleus entirely by car, instead using the ring road and public transport. Renfe is adding 9,000 seats to its Madrid-Malaga AVE trip and opening their regional Cercanias train to Fuengirola up for additional nighttime hours. Depending on the day, you can catch a train home from downtown Malaga as late as 1, 2, 3, or 4 ‘o clock at night.
They haven’t set a date or even how much this may impact the taxpayers’ pocketbooks. But travellers between Malaga and Barcelona now have hope of making the trip via the high-speed AVE train in even less time, by skipping the now-obligatory stop in Madrid’s central Atocha station. Minister of Public Works Magdalena Alvarez mentioned the plans for this new route without telling too much really. However, it is known that the route will use a good bit of the existing lines between Malaga/Madrid and Madrid/Barcelona, with the new section being a bypass around Madrid from Getafe to Vallecas. This should help reduce congestion in the already crammed Atocha station and decentralize the AVE service, making for more efficient travel itineraries. But don’t think this will stop flights, car rentals and private transfers from making this same journey; we need options, right?
Now that the Malaga Airport is getting more competition from the AVE high-speed train, comparisons are being made between the two. One thing they have in common is a long rank of taxis waiting to take arriving passengers away. But a number of under-handed practices are giving them a bad light, and have clients up in arms for a solution. Complaints centre around drivers contending for the best fares, but also extend to the lack of police personnel to take care of problems. One of the most common complaints is when a passenger mentions they are going to Malaga centre, a short-distance trip. The driver will defer them to the next cab, hoping to instead get someone going to Marbella or other lucrative fares. This may happen several times to a weary traveller, and is compounded when the drivers get into spats between themselves, even resulting in aggressive behaviour. It doesn’t stop there - drivers have been known to also react aggressively or just in bad taste to passengers who criticize their attitude.
Representatives of both the Association of Salaried Taxi Drivers (Asociación de Asalariados del Taxi) and Self-Employed Taxi Drivers (Aumat - Autónomos del taxi) concede these as common occurrences, but haven’t posed any viable solutions. Even though the local authorities also recognise the problem, they believe in the sector regulating itself. A good example is right outside the airport - there’s a local police post near the taxi stop, but users say police rarely intervene.
If this fray doesn’t sound appealing, check out the options for Malaga car hire and pre-booked taxis. There’s a number of companies who offer quality services, especially taxis that provide personalised, friendly service, and in your own language.
Starting today and through the weekend, Ebay users will be able to battle it out for more than just collector 8-tracks or like-new cell phones. For the first time ever, travellers will be able to bid on flights and set their own prices, thanks to the new Spanair store on Ebay.es. The flights are limited to the Iberian Peninsula, the Canary & Balearic Islands and a few select European cities. Spanair is hoping this venture will reach Spain’s 3 million Ebay users, and because of the timing, may also be hoping to grab some of Ryanair’s potential clients due to that company’s intentional reservation system blackout (yesterday’s post). This is the first of 3 such planned auction rounds, the following 3-day cycle period set for March and April. Bidders pay the winning bid plus taxes and fees, and pick up the tickets in person; the terms are detailed in each bidding page.
Want to visit one of the beautiful nearby islands? You can do so free if you’re quick enough.