Spanish Air Traffic Controllers are threatening to disrupt flight plans for thousands of expats living in Spain either wanting to fly back to the UK to spend time with their families and take advantage of the current exchange rates, or wanting to fly out to their holiday homes and get some sunshine over the Easter break.

Passengers who fly with no-frills carriers leave a softer “carbon footprint” than those on full-service airlines, new research has shown

Apparantly the combination of newer fleets, direct flights and a higher ‘seat density’ means that the budget airline flights can produce 35% of the carbon emissions per passenger of the larger ‘full-service’ airines.

British Airways is to train ‘scab’ aircrews from the rest of its workforce in a bid “to keep as many planes in the sky as possible” in the event of looming industrial action.

Many expats living in Spain will no doubt be interested to read that BA are considering training up non-cabin crew staff to act as aircrew to maintain services in the event of a strike. Although the threat of a strike has been ruled out for Easter, BA seem keen to ensure that in the event of a strike they can continue to fly to Spain, and all other countries.

British Airways faces the renewed threat of strike action after the Unite union said it will ballot cabin crew later this month.

The Unite union said today that a new ballot will open on January 25 after two weeks of talks BA management failed to produce an agreement on changes to working conditions.

Disaffected British Airways cabin crew have resorted to pouring vintage wine down the sink on the plane and throwing away unused washbags in protest at what they claim is the airline’s “disregard” for their working agreements.

Members of the British Airlines Stewards and Stewardesses Association (Bassa), a branch of the Unite union respresenting BA’s 13,000 cabin crew, said they were opting for “passive resistance”.

Seven companies are being approached by the provincial government

The Diputación provincial government in Granada wants to see more flights operating out of the Federico García Lorca airport and is understood to have started a round of talks with seven companies with a view to bringing more tourists to the province. The Diputación is understood to have already had meetings with Air Berlin and Vueling and plans another with Air Lingus at the Fitur International Tourism Fair which takes place in Madrid later this month.

Monarch Airlines has hit back at bookmaker Paddy Power for running a book claiming it could be the next carrier to collapse.

The bookmaker has slashed its odds on Monarch being the next airline to go bust from 50-1 to 4-1 after taking more than 100 bets over Christmas.

“If it wasn’t so serious it would be laughable,” said Monarch managing director Tim Jeans.

Paddy Power said it did not have any insider information.

Paddy Power has opened a book on which airline will go bust next, and claims that the UK’s largest charter airline, Monarch, is favourite to fold.

The Irish bookmaker claims that in the past seven days more than 100 bets have been placed on Monarch, shortening the airline’s odds from 50/1 to 4/1 to be the next airline to go bankrupt.

A strike by British Airways cabin crew planned for Christmas has been declared illegal in a High Court ruling.

The court agreed with BA that the cabin crew’s union, Unite, had not correctly balloted its members on the strike action.

The injunction means that the 12-day strike cannot now go ahead.

Unite called it “a disgraceful day for democracy” and vowed to hold a fresh ballot of cabin crew if the dispute with BA was not resolved.

Castle Donington based Bmibaby has today announced that due to current market expectations and through optimising its operational efficiencies it will retain two aircraft between its East Midlands and Birmingham Airport bases.

This will further reinforce its position as a leading low cost airline in the Midlands and cements its expansion programme from East Midlands Airport in 2010. This plan will include flying to the previously announced eight new routes and increasing capacity to the most popular destinations in 2010 from East Midlands Airport.

Virgin Atlantic has taken the decision to put larger aircraft on key routes such as New York, Boston, Washington and Delhi, providing over 1,600 extra seats during the period of industrial action.

The extra seats will go on sale over the next 24 hours.

“It is a nightmare for passengers, and you have to feel for them at Christmas time. Any strike would obviously be extremely damaging to everybody – the company, employees and most importantly the travelling public.” said Sir Richard Branson, president of Virgin Atlantic.

Researchers from Which? Holiday magazine compared luggage and payment-method costs for flying with low-fare carriers bmibaby, easyJet, Ryanair and Jet2 to four destinations – Paris, Rome, Malaga in Spain and Faro in Portugal.

A flight to Paris with bmibaby increased by around 25 per cent when one piece of hold luggage was checked in and the ticket was booked using a credit card, and the price of a flight to Malaga increased by 23 per cent.

Managers are braced for news of walkouts by thousands of members of the Unite union in a long running row over changes to working practices, a pay freeze and job cuts.

A mass meeting of workers will be held today ahead of an expected announcement of what action will be taken.

The union will have to give seven days notice of strikes, so the first walkout could be on December 21, at the start of one of the busiest weeks of the year for airlines.

Lord Adonis, the Transport Secretary, wants to extend financial protection to an estimated five million people who put together their own holidays on the internet.

As things stand only people who buy complete tour packages are covered by the Air Travel Operators Licensing scheme.

But this protection does not extend to people who book their flights directly with an airline.

Ryanair announced last week that it will only exempt one payment card from its transaction fees – the MasterCard Prepaid. Any other card attracts the £5 or €5 fee per flight, regardless of whether it is credit or debit.

So, passengers must now jump through another hoop to avoid Ryanair’s heinous extra charges, but it isn’t the only baddie of the airline world. There are plenty of ther carriers charging pounds for a transaction that costs a few pence, particularly in the case of debit card transactions.

Nine new planes are to be based at the El Altet airport

Ryanair has announced new routes from Alicante which will link the city with Venice in Italy, Spanish cities Sevilla and Valladolid, Altenburg in Germany, Krakow in Poland, and Smàland and Stockholm in Sweden.

The company plans to start the new services at the end of March 2010 and also to strengthen some current routes from El Altet, Alicante. The Sevilla route will run on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays.

The no-frills airline is seen as doing little to promote family values and not enough to be seen to care or listen to customers, according to the FamilyBrands poll.

Almost 100 famous firms from Asda to Andrex were ranked by 1,500 Britons for criteria such as how they treat families or their social responsibility.

Ryanair came top of the worst brands while the best was Marks & Spencer, just ahead of the Co-op, Boots and Kellogg’s.

Budget airline Easyjet has reported a big fall in full-year profits to the end of September, after the rising price of oil pushed up fuel costs.

Pre-tax profits were £54.7m ($92.2m), a drop of a half on the £110.2m the airline made a year earlier.

This came despite a 13% rise in sales from £2.36bn a year ago to £2.67bn.

British Airways (BA) has said that it and Spanish airline Iberia are holding separate board meetings later to discuss some form of merger.

BA said in a statement that the meetings would consider a “potential transaction” between the two sides.

However, it added that no decisions had been taken and there could be no guarantee a deal would take place.

The firms have considered a tie-up for a number of years, holding talks on the issue in July 2008.

Flights will be cancelled again over the days, most of which are in December

Following the second day of 48 hours of strike action by cabin crew in Iberia today, the CTA and Sitcpla unions have announced another eight days of strike action.