More time to book an American Airlines bargain

Sale extension: American Airlines' "January" sale will now close on Tuesday, February 21.

AA is offering flights from London (Gatwick and Heathrow) to New York from £246, Boston from £266 and Miami from £296. All fares listed are return and include taxes.

London (and Manchester - valid only on the non-stop services to Boston, Chicago and Miami) departures also include Baltimore from £266; San Francisco and Los Angeles from £296; Orlando and Tampa from £306; Chicago from £311; Phoenix from £316; Dallas from £341; Houston from £343 and Seattle from £346.

Sale fares and last-minute bargains

Sale ends Saturday, February 11: Excel Airways has discounted the price of more than one million seats for travel until April 2007.

Excel Airways flies from 12 airports around the UK - London Gatwick and Stansted, Manchester, Glasgow, Bristol, Belfast, East Midlands, Birmingham, Newcastle, Humberside, Cardiff and Exeter - to 50 sun and beach holiday destinations in the Mediterranean, Canary Islands, Egypt and the Caribbean.

Last-minute bargains include Chambery from £47 return without charges. Depart on February 5 (for seven nights) from Bristol and Manchester airports.

Scorching summer fares

Jet2.com has announced its "scorching fares" to Tenerife for this summer.

Fly from Blackpool, Newcastle and Leeds Bradford from £39 one-way without taxes.

New route: Leeds Bradford to the Balearic island of Menorca starts this summer. One-way flights with taxes cost from £19 each way excluding taxes.

Stranded passengers hit with £600 bill

Budget airline easyJet has moved to reimburse UK passengers who were charged hundreds of pounds after their flight home from Switzerland had been cancelled by bad weather, the BBC reports.

Passengers due to fly back from Geneva to Northern Ireland yesterday were informed that Belfast International Airport had been forced to shut due to excessive fog.

They were promised free tickets if they took an alternative route via Luton but ended up being charged to the tune of £600 for the second leg.

Manchester to Doha route goes daily

Brits bound for the Middle East are set to enjoy more flight options as Qatar Airways announced it would begin a daily service between Manchester and Qatar's capital, Doha, from March 26.

Qatar's national airline already operates four flights a week between the two destinations.

A fifth flight will be added from Sunday, February 12, with flights running daily from Sunday, March 26, The Manchester Evening News reports.

Choose your seat online with Iberia

UK fliers are being offered the chance to print off their own boarding passes online by yet another airline.

Spanish carrier Iberia is now rolling out its online boarding pass service for passengers at Heathrow Airport, The Times reports, following similar moves by British Airways and BMI.

The scheme will allow all passengers, including those with hold luggage, to print off boarding passes up to one day in advance of the flight.

Free tickets if you name a plane

Cornish travellers should get their thinking caps on fast if they want to win free tickets with Air Southwest.

Whoever comes up with the best name for its new Dash 8-300 aircraft – due to be delivered in February - will be rewarded with four return tickets to any destination the budget airline serves from Newquay.

Fuel shortage causes long-haul delays at Heathrow

Passengers flying with a number of airlines from Heathrow are suffering delays as a result of the fuel shortage brought on by the Buncefield oil disaster, The Times reports.

Despite claims from airport operator BAA that "Heathrow has been able to maintain near-normal airport operations," several long-haul airlines admit fuel restrictions are regularly delaying their journeys.

Australian airline Qantas came clean after one of its planes was spotted at Stansted Airport - an airport it doesn't serve.

Scandinavian savings

As reported here on January 20, Scandinavian Airlines (SAS) will launch a twice-daily service from London City Airport direct to Stockholm with one-way fares from £51 including taxes. The new service takes off on Monday, February 13.

From Sunday, March 26, Blue 1, the Finnish member of the SAS Group, will also launch a new twice-daily service from London Stansted direct to Helsinki, with onward connections to Kittila, Kuopio, Oulu, Rovaniemi and Vaasa. One-way fares start from £79 including taxes.

Both routes offer morning and evening flights Monday to Friday, and one evening flight on Sunday. The airline already flies twice a day to Copenhagen from London City.

Airline news from the US

If you enjoy reading the Cheapflights UK news then you are sure to find a story or two that will interest you on our US site.

Philadelphia International Airport is applauded for the work they have undertaken to ensure disabled travellers are able to get to their flights easily and quickly.

New Yorkers may soon be able to jet off to Bermuda with low-cost airline JetBlue who are looking for permission to fly twice a day to the sunshine destination.

And the march of technology continues with the news that passengers on Southwest Airlines can now check-in or keep up-to-date with flight delays via a wireless connection.

The impact of low-cost flights on property prices

One of the spin-offs of the increase in the number of cheap flights across Europe has been the appeal of buying a place in the sun.

Clearly in the time it can take for some people to get home on a Friday, you could be jetting off to a holiday home and sipping a glass of wine as the sun sets over the hills.

This has seen the price of property close to regional airports rise at a frightening rate, ensuring speculators keep a keen eye on the latest routes announced by airlines.

Winter sun from Newcastle

Twice-weekly flights from Newcastle to Tenerife are to be offered by Jet2.com with the start of a service later this year.

The airline will begin a winter service on October 3 with one-way tickets starting at £52.50, including taxes and charges.

Boss of Jet2.com Philip Meeson said that travellers from the North East had been desperate for their airline to fly to Tenerife.

Ryanair plots Polish expansion

Budget airline Ryanair is pressing ahead with plans to expand its services to and from Poland, according to Polish newspaper Puls Biznesu.

The no-frills airline only launched operations there in March 2005, but plans to have 15 million passengers travelling on Polish routes within eight to ten years.

Ryanair flies to and from eight Polish cities but its current offerings are heavily skewed towards the UK.

easyJet lifts mountain bike ban

Mountain bikers across the UK will be celebrating on the news easyJet has reversed its ban on bikes with fluid suspension forks or hydraulic discs, BikeBiz.com reports.

The ban was implemented by easyJet in response to Civil Aviation Authority regulations on prohibited substances.

But UK cycling body the CTC successfully lobbied for the ban to be lifted, arguing that the policy was an "overly-zealous interpretation" of the rules.

Doubts raised over Crossrail project

The government may be forced to scrap plans for a rail link between the eastern suburbs of London and Heathrow Airport, leading politicians and businessmen have asserted.

The £10 billion Crossrail project is designed to ease congestion on the London Underground and would dramatically improve access to the UK's biggest airport from Canary Wharf and the east of greater London.

Schoolteacher's no-frills commute

They say that cheap air travel is making the world smaller.

Well, this has never been more in evidence than in the case of a Norfolk schoolteacher who jets across Europe from the Czech Republic to get to work each week.

Since moving away from London in December, Mary Page flies from Prague to Stansted to attend her one-day a week job in Thetford.

Ryanair ditches plans for seating choice

No-frills airline Ryanair has ditched plans to allow passengers who book online to choose their seats, The Sunday Business Post reports.

The budget airline had previously indicated it could introduce pre-assigned seating for passengers checking in on the web.

It was also thought passengers would be presented with the option of paying extra for seats with additional legroom.

The pick of the Sundays - travel section digest

The Sunday Times follows previous weeks with a special on France, and like past issues, it covers the top 20 great French summer-holiday ideas, the top options for a summer lease, what's on when and France for bookworms.

In The Observer Jill Hartley reports from Koh Chang, "a backpackers' paradise of bargain beach huts, massage on the beach and nights listening to Bob Marley", which is just appearing on tour operators' radar.

For those who like to stay ahead of the pack, Sarah Turner, has uncovered a quartet of under-discovered places in Asia. Much closer to home, the cover story is about the joys of overland travel. Dan Kieran explains why he and his family prefer trains to planes, and Tom Robbins looks at the real cost of air travel.

Saturday papers' travel roundup

David Baddiel, a self-confessed "fusty fortysomething", presents his Ibiza in The Times. The comedian has always been keen to avoid the island because, as he recalls the words of one DJ, it "is only 20 miles (32km) long, but has seven of the best clubs in the world". So he waits for the clubbers to go home, flies there in late September with his partner and two small children, and discovers that after all Ibiza is not "just a clubbers’ paradise".

Diehard clubbers though can still party out of season. Malika Rodrigues has a brief guide to the biggest clubs.

The Guardian stays in Ibiza, or rather Simon Mills puts his wife and two children in a car and drives there.

A "scorching" holiday in Finland

Tourists in search of a hot, hot destination this summer should forget the likes of California's Death Valley or Cairo.

For the ultimate scorcher, turn 180 degrees in the other direction and head north to Heinola in Finland to witness the World Sauna Championships.

Dubbed by organisers as "the world's hottest event", this year's contest will see around 80 contestants frazzling themselves in 110-degree temperatures in a bid to be crowned the sauna champion of the world.

Chill out with the birds in Shetland

If you're stressed out at work and just want to get away from it all then why not try bird watching in Shetland?

The rugged islands lie 150 miles northeast of the northern tip of Scotland - where you're boss can't reach you.

And with hundreds of miles of uninhabited coastline to explore, you'll arrive back on the mainland feeling truly refreshed and with your Zen repaired.

Launch of Heathrow to Doha flight by bmi

British airline bmi is expanding its presence in the Middle East with the launch of flights to Doha, in Qatar.

The airline will begin a daily service from Heathrow to the city on March 26 with fares starting at £399 return, including taxes and charges.

This new route follows the launch of a link to Riyadh last September and the recent announcement of services to Jeddah, which start in April.

Nigel Turner, bmi chief executive, said: "The addition of Jeddah was an important step following the extremely encouraging start to our Riyadh route.

Delays on roads to Glasgow Airport

Air passengers driving to Glasgow Airport are being urged to allow extra time for their journey due to repair work on the M8.

Essential repairs to the White Cart Viaduct – which is located near the airport - will begin on February 10 and will last until May.

Holidaymakers are being warned of long delays and a speed limit of 40mph will be in place alongside contraflows on certain sections of the motorway.

KLM opens up central China

A new route is to be launched by KLM from Amsterdam to central China, opening up a part of the country few airlines currently service.

KLM has said it will offer flights twice a week to Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan Province, from May 28.

City breaks just got cheaper

Sale ends at midnight on Wednesday, February 1: easyJet, the low-cost pioneer, has discounted flights to eleven city break destinations by up to 35 per cent. Sample offers include:

- London Luton to Amsterdam, Barcelona, Budapest and Berlin from £12.99.
- London Gatwick to Cork from £8.99; Madrid and Milan from £17.99; Rome from £19.99.
- London Stansted to Amsterdam and Barcelona from £14.99; Copenhagen and Valencia from £17.99.

Flights to Europe from 5p

Book by midnight on Monday, January 30. Ryanair has halved the price of its flights since last week's sale and are now available from 5p one-way without taxes (which do not exceed £15.20, the website says).

From Stansted Airport, Ryanair's largest hub, there are 5p flights to Zaragoza, Eindhoven, Santander, Derry, La Rochelle, Hamburg (Lübeck), Poitiers, Glasgow, Balaton in Hungary, Haugesund, Parma, Blackpool, Düsseldorf, Toulon, Frankfurt and the Polish city of Szczecin.

The other destinations, from Stansted, range in price from 14p to £3.64 one-way excluding taxes. Other airports around the UK - London Luton, East Midlands, Liverpool, Glasgow, Newcastle, Bournemouth, Manchester, Bristol - also offer 5p flights.

Luton to Reims flights from Air Turquoise

Air Turquoise, a low-cost airline based in France, has announced it will begin its first flights to the UK in March.

The airline will operate a daily flight to Luton Airport from Reims Champagne, which is to the east of Paris and a 90 minute drive from the French capital along the A4 autoroute.

Flights will begin on March 28 and ticket prices are set to start from £35 one-way, inclusive of taxes.

Flight details:
Luton to Reims Champagne
Departs 2.20pm, arrives 4.40pm

Reims Champagne to Luton
Departs 1.30pm, arrives 1.50pm

No-frills battle for Liverpool supremacy

Budget airlines Ryanair and easyJet continue to battle for supremacy at Liverpool John Lennon airport (JLA) as the northern hub's reputation for low-cost flights rockets.

Ryanair has landed the latest punch, boasting that it has just handled its four millionth passenger at JLA since it set up shop in 1988.

The announcement comes hot on the heels of a major route expansion by rival easyJet.

London to Manchester flights under fire

Airlines flying between London and Manchester are being damaged by improved rail travel between the two cities, The Guardian reports.

British Airways and BMI are among the carriers that have seen passenger numbers on London to Manchester flights drop, following the £7 billion upgrade to the west coast mainline in December 2004.

The investment has knocked over half an hour off the train journey and in the intervening 13 months Virgin Trains' market share has increased from 40 per cent to 60 per cent.

Irish airport to get €1 million face-lift

Ireland West Airport Knock (IWAK) is to receive a major facelift this year to cope with the anticipated boom in passenger numbers.

The Western Development Commission (WDC), an Irish statutory body, has announced it will fund expansion of the western Irish airport's car parking, catering and retail facilities in a €1 million (£685,000) investment.

Branson: Bird flu will ground aircraft

A global outbreak of avian flu would force airlines to ground more than half of their planes, Richard Branson warned today.

Although arguing that a pandemic would be unlikely in any given year, the Virgin boss said that such a scenario would hit the aviation industry hard.

Valentine's value from Thomsonfly

Book by midnight on Tuesday, January 31 to bag a bargain flight to Europe's most romantic cities and sunniest beach resorts around Valentine's Day and until the end of March.

Thomsonfly has flights to Paris, Amsterdam, Lyon and Jersey from £14 one-way including taxes.

Spain is on offer with flights to Barcelona, Palma, Valencia and Malaga from £24.99 one-way with taxes.

1p flights to Germany

Book the new Manchester to Hanover route with Hapag-Lloyd Express from 5pm (GMT) today (Thursday, January 26) from 1p excluding taxes (add on about £20 for taxes).

The German no-friller will start flying between the two cities in March.

The airline has a great low-fare finder, which, when you fill in your departure and arrival airports and the month in which you wish to travel, lists availability and the prices over a range of dates.

Extra flights for Irish racing fans

Irish racing fans should have no trouble reaching this year's Cheltenham festival after Ryanair announced that it would up the frequency of flights between Dublin and Birmingham during the four-day event.

The no-frills airline is adding a total of 16 extra flights between the two destinations from March 14 to 17, The Irish Examiner reports.

A ‘pick and mix’ ticket

It is interesting to wonder what lies ahead for people using low-cost airlines especially in light of recent announcements by Ryanair and Flybe regarding baggage.

Flybe’s decision to increase charges for passengers checking-in bags was soon followed by a similar plan from Ryanair.

Both airlines say the move will be ‘revenue neutral’ but should see people enjoy a speedier passage through check-in desks, especially if this step is carried out online.

Air beats rail in Liverpool to London race

It's official: the fastest way to get from Liverpool to central London is now by plane, according to a study by the Daily Post.

Staff on the newspaper conducted a test following the completion of a new rail link between London City Airport and central London.

They concluded that flying from Liverpool John Lennon Airport to London City Airport with VLM and then hopping on the new link would get you there twenty minutes faster than the quickest train.

Air miles to be universal with Virgin Atlantic

From March 1, all Virgin Atlantic Flying Club passengers can earn air miles on any of its routes, The Times reports.

The move will lift current restrictions that prevent economy-class passengers earning air miles on transatlantic routes.

The airline already allows discounted economy passengers to clock up air miles on flights to Tokyo, Mumbai, Delhi, Johannesburg, Cape Town, Lagos and Port Harcourt.

Winter sun bargains from Monarch

After enduring sub-zero temperatures throughout the past week, Brits may well be tempted by some of the winter sun deals on offer from low-cost airline Monarch.

The no-frills airline is offering cheap flights to a host of destinations in Spain, Portugal and Gibraltar on selected dates in February and March.

One-way tickets including taxes and charges start at £33.99.

Hopes grow for London-Shetland link

A planned route between Shetland and London Stansted now looks more likely to be extended beyond summer 2006 following strong ticket sales.

The twice-weekly service, operated by Atlantic Airways, is due to kick off on June 23 and will run until September 4.

Demand appears to be high, with 15 per cent of available seats sold five months before the first flight takes off, Shetland News reports.

Keep your eye on the clock for €19 fares

Offer opens at 5pm GMT (6pm CET) today, Thursday, January 26: Germanwings has 100,000 tickets for €1 (about 70p) one-way excluding taxes and charges.

With taxes, a €1 fare will come to about €20 or approximately £14.

This offer is valid as long as flights are available, and relates to new web bookings only. The offer ends at 11pm GMT (midnight CET) on Sunday, January 29.

£15 all-in fares to Central Europe

Book by February 28: SkyEurope has released one-way fares from £15 including taxes.

Fly from London Stansted to Bratislava/Vienna, Poprad/Zakopane, Budapest, Krakow and Warsaw.

From Manchester, fly to Bratislava/Vienna, Krakow and Salzburg.

Escape the cold with easyJet

easyJet has thousands of winter sun deals from £25 one-way including taxes.

Almeria (1,500 seats) and Valencia (2,500 seats) are on offer from £24.99 one-way with taxes. Depart from London Gatwick or London Stansted or Bristol (Valencia flights only).

There are 6,500 seats to Malaga, 5,500 seats to Alicante, 1,800 seats to Majorca and 800 seats to Murcia all from £29.99 each way. Fly from London and regional UK airports.

Oh Canada offers

Air Canada's January sale is coming to an end next Tuesday (January 31). The Canadian national airline has flights from London Heathrow from £272.

Fly to Toronto or Montreal from £272 and Halifax from £269.

On the west coast, fly to Calgary from £466 and Vancouver from £384.

Stay safe when backpacking

The appeal of loading up the backpack, with cheap flight in pocket, and heading out to discover hidden corners of the globe is strong amongst many of us.

But in this rush for a taste adventure some people may leave their common sense behind and face trouble through a lack of preparedness.

The Guardian has a very useful article about the steps you can take to make sure you don’t become a crime statistic or rack up a steep medical bill.

Running nude through Pamplona

Have you heard about the Running of the Nudes?

Well now that I’ve got your attention, this is an event that takes place a few days before the well-known bull run through the streets of Pamplona.

It is organised as a protest against the running of the bulls and aims to show people that there is more than one way to attract tourists to the town.

Ryanair turns screw on hold luggage

Budget airline Ryanair has announced it will "revolutionise" its ticket pricing to reward passengers who fly without hold luggage and penalise those who do.

From March 16, Ryanair will slash £2.50 off every single fare.

But, there's a catch: those carrying hold luggage will have to pay an extra £2.50 or £5.00 per bag per flight, depending on whether they pre-book it or not.

BA urges fliers to do US paperwork online

British Airways is urging all passengers flying to the US to fill out newly required immigration details on its website before they get to the airport.

The airline is worried that new details required by US officials to help protect against terrorism could lead to delays at UK airports if passengers don't cooperate.

All international passengers arriving on US shores must now provide a first night destination address and other details not contained in their passport.

Twin stewardesses take to skies

If you're 25,000-feet up in the air and think you're seeing double then it's probably not the altitude.

At least that's if you're flying with no-frills airline Air Southwest, which has just unveiled identical twins as part of its new cabin crew line-up.

32-year-olds Mandy and Michelle Cole were born three minutes apart and will now take to the skies together as part of the budget airline's flight team.

Most fliers opposed to mobile phones

Most business fliers would be opposed to airlines allowing mobile phone use on airlines, new research reveals.

The new survey, by corporate travel agent Carlson Wagonlit, comes as both the US and Europe move towards lifting the ban on mobile phone calls in the air.

Six out of ten (61 per cent) business travellers questioned in a survey said they would be opposed to such a move.

Fly early and escape the crowds

Book by Thursday, February 9: Flybe is encouraging travellers to dodge the Easter crowds in April by taking a break in March.

The Exeter-based airline has made thousands of March flights available from £19.99 one-way including taxes.

Flybe flies from ten airports around the UK. Some of the routes on offer from its home base include Norwich and Manchester (both new routes) from £21.99; Edinburgh and Glasgow from £24.99; Dublin and Brest Brittany from £29.99 and Paris, Guernsey and Jersey from £31.99.