Air Berlin, STR Global, bmibaby, Travelport, Meridian and Finnair
Air Berlin increases profit
Air Berlin, Germany's second largest airline, announced a €95.2m profit for its third quarter, a rise on the €45.1m surplus posted in the same period last year.
The low cost carrier said revenue had 8.2% year-on-year to €974m partly through capacity cuts.
But it said its operating profit rose 33.5% to €118m from €88.4m a year ago.
Joachim Hunold, AB's ceo, said: "Despite the generally difficult economic environment, we have delivered attractive figures to our shareholders.
"We continue to expect a positive operating income for 2009."
But he said it was still too early to make a forecast for the year 2010, due to the persistently challenging economic situation.
European hotel pipeline totals 570
There were 570 hotels with 93,163 rooms in Europe's hotel pipeline in October, according to STR Global.
Its Construction Pipeline Report said London had the largest number of rooms with 4,429, followed by Berlin with 4,190 and Hamburg with 2,084.
STR said the largest number of rooms were in the up-market sector with 22,013, followed by 19,945 in economy properties.
bmibaby signs new deal with Travelport
bmibaby has signed a new full content deal with Travelport, owners of major GDSs Galileo and Worldspan.
The agreement will come into force this month using Travelport's direct connect solution on Galileo aimed at low cost carriers.
Travelport said bmibaby, part of bmi, was the fifth LCC to sign up to the service this year.
The travel IT company said booking made through the direct connect were "four times quicker" than those made through the web.
Jerome Moisan, Travelport GDS's general manager UK & Ireland, said: "In today's challenging economic environment, we are seeing more and more businesses wanting to tightly manage their travel expenditure and this technology effectively enables travel agents to compare low cost alternatives alongside traditional airfares in their preferred booking environment.
"It also provides low cost airlines with a very efficient and simple means of distribution."
www.travelport.com [3] www.bmibaby.com [4]
Meridian launches new EMS
Meridian Global Services, a VAT and travel expense consultancy, has launched a new expense management system (EMS) which it says is the first "complete" process available.
Its Expenseflo EMS enables business travellers to submit expenses online and for their managers to approve them "with a single click".
It said the difference was that its EMS also tackled two other "crucial" tasks: expense audit and VAT recovery.
Adam Smith, Meridian's commercial director, said: "We believe we are the first company to offer all three services in-house and put them together into a single integrated process.
"Expense management does not begin and end with an EMS. To gain full visibility and achieve maximum savings, it is vital to follow up by auditing the receipts and then recovering the VAT.
"We estimate this complete expense management process cuts an additional 6% off clients' total travel bills."
www.meridianglobalservices.com [5]
Finnair pilots' strike ends
The two day strike of Finnair pilots ended today (November 18) with some of the airline's scheduled flights returning to normal.
Finnair and the Finnish Pilots' Association (FFL) said they had accepted a peace settlement plan from Esa Lonka, the national conciliator.
The airline said it had agreed to the level of savings in the Esa Lonka proposal.
Tomi Hänninen, Finnair's UK sales director, said: "In addition to structural changes, we achieved significant short-term cost savings through this agreement.
It has been agreed that, in addition to the 5% wage reductions, we will together pursue a 13% cut in unit costs."
During the dispute Finnair cancelled more than 500 flights which affected about 40,000 passengers.
www.finnair.com [6]