AirMalaga.com News from The Ultimate Independent Malaga Airport Guide

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.

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…

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.

Plan to book any flights with Ryanair early or else wait several days. The Irish-based company specializing in low-cost flights will be performing a upgrade to their booking system, meaning that access to reserve, change, or check-in will be unavailable via their website or call centre. The timeframe is between 10 pm Feb. 22 (tomorrow) – 11 pm Feb. 25, during which you can only check-in at the airport. Ryanair reports it is due to a system changeover from Navitaire OpenSkies to Navitaire NewSkies. The old system is based on the HP 3000 operating platform, soon to be unsupported.

This also comes on the heels of the demand in August of last year by the UK’s Office of Fair Trading (OFT) that 13 airlines reform the appearance of their prices online. They required that the culprits make taxes and fees appear in the all-included advertised price throughout the booking process. Ryanair hadn’t completed this by the Jan. 31 deadline, and is at the end of an extension to take care of it. This isn’t the first time they’ve been in the public eye of scrutiny — they have had several other run-ins with the OFT for their passenger contract terms and the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) for their ad campaigns.

Despite Ryanair’s official word that this “will not have an effect on bookings, loads or financial results”, it will be tough for their sales to balance out by counting solely on bookings before and after the shutdown. There’s a good chance rival Irish airlines Aer Lingus and Aer Arann will also take advantage of the situation by offering special deals during the blackout.

Following a joint decision of Iberia’s board, Spain’s most profitable airline has made a proposal to purchase main competitor Spanair, subsidiary of SAS. The Scandinavian company SAS has been losing money for years, and recently announced plans to withdraw investment in subsidies not oriented to the Scandinavian market. On the other hand, Iberia has turned profit for 11 straight years even after their privatization in 2001. This move may be a strategy to compete with low-cost airlines similar to Spanair or to ward off the increasing reach of the high-speed AVE trains.

The bid is being made in conjunction with private aviation company Gestair, conceding 60% of the future ownership to them in order to avoid anti-competition claims by the national commission, Comisión Nacional de la Competencia. British Airways may even have a final hand in the mix, as they are 10% shareholders of Iberia. Once SAS chooses a bid proponent, they expect to close the sale by end of the second quarter.