Not good news for expats and regular travelers in Spain who travel tourist class with Iberia as they have announced they will be charging for second suitcases checked into the hold from 1st March 2010, in an attempt to lighten the planes, save fuel costs and speed up operations ….. no mention of making more money or reducing costs to passengers you note!

The much anticipated merger between the British Airways and Iberia could take place as early as next month, according to a statement by Caja Madrid, the bank which is also Iberia’s largest shareholder.

The bank’s chairman Miguel Blasa said that February could prove to be a decisive month for the deal as things were on track and did not feel that threats of strikes by the British Airways’ cabin crew would have any kind of impact on the merger.

The board of Spanish national airline Iberia have agreed in principle to the terms of the merger offered by UK airline British Airways. The general terms are 55% of the new company will belong to BA and and 45% to Iberia.

The stock of both companies has rocketed on the stock market.

A joint report by both companies has been issued to British and Spanish market regulators informing them of the advance in the plans to merger.

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.

Iberia have cancelled 34 flights in Andalucía as a result of continued strike action by cabin crew, most of them in or out of Málaga airport.

There are 18 cancellations today and 16 tomorrow, Wednesday. Sevilla and Granada have had 8 flights cancelled and Jerez has had 6 cancelled.

There are currently plans to continue the strike action during December. (Via Nerja Today)

Spain’s national carrier Iberia will create a new airline to handle its short- and medium- haul routes in a bid to confront declining revenues amid the economic crisis, it announced Thursday.

Iberia, which is in merger talks with British Airways, will concentrate on long-haul flights, “where Iberia is market leader, on those that connect Europe and Latin America, in order to maintain and increase this lead,” it said.

Spain’s national carrier Iberia said Wednesday it was considering charging passengers for check-in baggage.

“It is being studied, but we don’t know if it will affect all passengers or when it will be implemented,” an Iberia spokeswoman said.

The newspaper El Mundo quoted an internal Iberia document as saying that the airline plans to charge passengers less that EUR 15 to register their first check-in bag starting 20 October.

Iberia has reported a loss of 165.4m euros ($237.2m; £145.7m) in the first half of the year after passenger numbers fell during the downturn.

Revenue plunged almost 20% to 2.2bn euros. The group said declines in business class passengers accounted for almost a third of this fall.

As a result of the loss, Iberia said it would cut capacity by a further 5% in the second half of the year.

The Spanish carrier lost 19.2 bags for every 1,000 people who boarded its planes during the winter months, ending in March.

It was rated the worst performer among 26 participants in a survey carried out by the Association of European Airlines.

Air France came next, with 18.9 bags going astray per 1,000 passengers, followed by the Portuguese carrier, TAP with 17.3 bags and then Bmi, who “mishandled” 17.2 bags.