Gulf Air's Frequent Flyer Program Partners With Bahrain Credits Imtiaz Card

Gulf Air recently signed an agreement with Bahrain Credit so that passengers enrolled in the airline's 'Falcon Flyer' Frequent Flyer Program earn miles every time they use "Imtiaz" Bahrain Credit's credit card. The Gulf Air loyalty program offers members a number of loyalty points and miles when they fly which can be exchanged for benefits including free flights, lounge access and excess baggage as well as membership upgrades. With every Imtiaz credit card purchase, customers will earn miles that can be redeemed with offers from Gulf Air such as priority in waiting-lists, special baggage identification tags and others. 

 

Emirates Airline To Expand American Routes

Emirates Airline plans to significantly expand its footprint in the US across the next five years.  Additionally, it is possible that all these flights will be operated by the ultra large Airbus A380. Currently Emirates services New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco, while its Houston services will be switched to Dallas. At this point in time another four or five US destinations are planned.

Thus far primarily Delta airlines has voiced criticism of Emirates operations, while in Europe there are reports of Lufthansa lobbying to restrict Emirates encroaching market share.

Higher Fares or Lower Margins?

In a recent interview with Airline Business magazine the president of Emirates Airlines, Tim Clark said: "The stubbornness of the oil price is giving us concerns about the bottom line. As the rate of growth of our profit has fallen as a result of the oil price, we must [look at our costs]... [Emirates set] some fairly stiff parameters" for the Emirates management team with regard to reducing costs, looking for cuts of 5-8 per cent.

If oil prices continue to increase who will be more subject to the pinch, customers with higher fares or shareholders with reduced margins? Are there alternative methods of cost management and increasing revenues that businesses should be looking into? One could argue this economic situation bodes well for Boeing's 787 Dreamliner and for various other customer facing technologies. 

Turkish Airlines to provide wifi/internet and live TV

Turkish Airlines will be the first carrier to offer live inflight television on Trans-Atlantic flights. The carrier will also become among first European airlines by introducing wifi internet access to it’s passengers via the PLANET IFE Platform, a Global Communication Suite System developed by Panasonic Avionics Corporation. TV programming will initially include access to BBC World, BBC Arabic and Euronews channels with sport channels to be added. Passengers will be able to go online using their mobile devices such as (ipad, notebook, tablets) on available Turkish Airlines flights.

I'm wondering if the FAA from the US side of things would allow full internet for inbound flights? As their security measures reflect a different perspective on aviation.

Flydubai Partnership With Citibank

Citibank card holders can now convert their Citi Miles and CitiDollars into Flydubai vouchers which can then be used to purchase Flydubai products and services through the website or call center. Flydubai CEO, Ghaith Al Ghaith said: “Flydubai is all about catering to our passenger’s needs. We aim to make the whole experience, from booking and paying for flights to reaching a destination on time, easier and partnerships such as this are part of that commitment to quality and convenient travel.” 

As a customer its great to observe Flydubai expanding their customer outreach via new products and partnerships. The gulf budget carriers are making good headway towards customer benefiting partnerships (banks, hotels, car rental service) that foster a more comprehensive travel service.

Flydubai, Dubai’s first low cost airline and the world’s fastest growing start-up airline, maintains a global route network to 44 destinations across the GCC, Middle East, North Africa, Indian sub-continent, Asia and the fringes of Europe. Citibank has been present in the Middle East for more than 50 years and is directly represented in UAE, Egypt, Qatar, Kuwait, Jordan, Bahrain, Lebanon, Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco.

Pegasus Airlines - Turkey's first low-cost and fastest growing airline

Pegasus Airlines has made the shortlist of companies nominated for Best Website at the 8th annual Budgies Awards, part of the forthcoming World Low Cost Airlines Congress. The carrier was the first full low-cost model service in Turkey and has become the fastest growing airline in Turkey. It expanded the number of its customers 4.5-fold in just 5 years.

As a traveller I found Pegasus Airlines better than the UK based budget carriers, however I was surprised that they didn't have a mileage program at the time (summer 2011). Oddly, sometimes their flights are priced above British Airways but that must have been a random event (I hope).

Etihad Airways: Airline of the Year in the 2011 TTG Travel Awards

Etihad Airways has been named Airline of the Year in the 2011 TTG Travel Awards. It’s the latest in a series of honours to be bestowed on Etihad in recent months including the carriers Diamond First Class being judged the best in the world by Skytrax, the aviation industry’s pre-eminent global rankings system, determined by the votes of 19 million travellers from more than 100 different countries.