In Brief

Lufthansa operating profits rise by 63%

Lufthansa reported a 63% rise in its operating profits from €845m in 2006 to €1,378m last year.

According to preliminary figures released by the German national carrier, revenue rose by 19% from €19.8bn in 2006 to €22.4bn in 2007.

The figures showed a projected increase of more than 100% in net profit from €803m to €1,655m.

This included €503m from the sale of its shares in Thomas Cook.

The airline will release its full results for 2007 on March 12.

HRG expands into Tunisia

HRG has signed Fides Voyages as its new partner in Tunisia.

The Tunis-based agency will trade as HRG Tunisia immediately.

Founded in1996, Fides has more than 125 clients including global pharmaceutical companies and telecommunications groups.

After the signing of agencies in Senegal and Uganda earlier this month, HRG now has 19 partners in Africa.

HRS signs deal with Regus

HRS.com, one of Europe's major online hotel booking agencies, has signed a deal with the Regus Group to integrate booking systems.

Under the agreement, Regus, which provides offices and meeting rooms for rent, will have access to more than 225,000 hotels worldwide for its clients.

Jayne O'Brien, chief marketing officer for Regus, said: "In an era of ever increasing mobility, we are committed to providing Regus customers with a variety of solutions to make flexible working as easy as possible." 

Starcite reports 30% increase in business

Venue finder Starcite said it dealt with requests for 20,000,000 room nights in 2007, representing $7.5bn in meetings business, a 30% rise on 2006.

The Philadelphia-based company which has moved into Europe with a new EMEAEurope, Middle East and Africa headquarters in Düsseldorf, said its major clients had grown by 38% during the year.

It said it now had 15,000 clients around the world ranging from large corporates to the SMEs.

Michael Boult, StarCite president and ceo, said: "With businesses focusing more on strategically managing meeting spend as they have long managed other areas of indirect corporate spend, we anticipate growing interest in solutions for small meetings with real-time booking, dinner meetings, and other typically unmanaged areas of a company's overall meeting and event programme."

Air One to fight court ruling

Air One, the Italian low cost carrier which wants to take over Alitalia, said it would appeal against a court ruling which prevents it making further bids for the carrier.

The decision, by the Lazio administrative court, leaves the way open for Air France-KLMKoninklijke Luchtvaart Maatschappij (Royal Aviation Company) the flag carrier of the Netherlands and a good example of how acronyms can aid simple discourse., the favoured buyer, to resume its exclusive talks with the near-bankrupt Italian national carrier.

The Italian government wants to sell off its 49.9% stake in Alitalia but the sale has been delayed both by Air One's court action and the fall of the government of Romano Prodi which backed the AF-KLM bid.

A general election is due to be held in Italy in April.

Alitalia denied this week that it might get a government loan to keep it in business until the talks are concluded.

The airline's board said earlier this month that it needed a cash injection of €750m to keep it going.

Eurostar to improve Gard du Nord terminal

Eurostar is to improve its check-in area at Paris Gard du Nord station.

The work will include installing new check-in gates, enlarging the area through which passengers have to pass for border controls and increasing the number of baggage x-ray machines.

The new check-in gates will accept the bar-coded tickets which Eurostar plans to trial later this year.

Travelocity to track unused tickets

Travelocity Business has announced a new service to track and flag up clients' unused non-refundable air tickets.

The online agency, owned by Sabre, said the service would help corporates reduce travel costs.

Travelocity said its major clients re-used about 60% of their unused tickets in 2007, compared to a figure of about 30% of for the industry.

Lesley Harris, president of Travelocity Business, said: "By empowering travelers with actionable information on unused non-refundable tickets at the purchase point, we're facilitating another best practice for our clients."

Kuoni 'ordered to pay HRG £2.8m'

Kuoni has reportedly been ordered to pay Hogg Robinson Group (HRG) £2.8m plus in compensation over the sale of BTI Central Europe four years ago.

The figure is the result of arbitration by the Geneva Chamber of Commerce after HRG issued a claim against the Swiss travel company.

Kuoni sold BTI Central Europe to HRG in December 2003 for a reported £36m.

The subsequent dispute is understood to be about the alleged failure of Kuoni to transfer clients to HRG as part of the sale.

HRG said in a statement: "The issue between Kuoni and Hogg Robinson Group (HRG) is in private arbitration and the full extent of the damages which Kuoni is to pay HRG will not be determined for up to 60 days.

"HRG is honouring its obligations to the arbitration panel that all discussions remain confidential between the two parties."

"Turbulence ahead" – Bisignani

There is likely to be "turbulence ahead" as the rate of growth of passengers figure slowed down, Giovanni Bisignani warned.

Mr Bisignani, director general and ceo of the International Air Transport Association (IATAThe International Air Transport Association: IATA represents and serves the airline industry, with a membership made up of around 230 airlines. The association seeks to raise awareness of how aviation benefits the economy, fight for airline's interests and ensure industry regulations are sensible. IATA helps its members directly by offering advice on reducing costs while improving efficiency and on improving safety standards. It also provides professional support in the form of publications, training and consulting. ), said year on year figures for air passengers grew by 4.3% in January.

But this figure was “sharply down” from the 6.7% growth in December and the 7.4% for the whole of 2007.

"A month's data is not enough to define a trend, however, the sharp shift in demand growth patterns makes it clear that the US credit crunch is negatively impacting air travel.
"Fasten your seatbelts. There is likely to be turbulence ahead," he said.

He added: "This is an unusual situation for the industry. Asia, outside of Japan is looking strong, even as the US economy weakens.

"This highlights the need for the air transport industry to globalise. The outdated bilateral system and national ownership rules will prevent the industry from responding as a normal business to economic shifts.

"Airlines cannot diversify risk, so the parts of the industry will see the impact of the US credit crunch with very little buffer. This must change."

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