Happy New Year to all our readers! Before we move on to this year’s news, here’s a round up of some of the biggest stories we covered on this blog in 2011, it certainly was an eventful year!

January started with the troubled BMI threatening to withdraw its Heathrow – Glasgow route after passenger charges at Heathrow were raised (this was confirmed a month later). Ryanair returned to Manchester with four new routes. And the political troubles in Egypt disrupted flights.

Spiraling conflict in Egypt caused complete cancellation of routes to popular holiday destinations in February. Meanwhile, Which? launched a super complaint on airline card fee charges,the cost of Qantas’ engine troubles were revealed, and airlines flying from the UK finally started to show clearer air fares.

March brought faster flight times under a deal signed by traffic controllers. But by far the biggest news of the month was the huge tsunami which hit Japan and led to re-routing of flights to avoid possible radiation risk, and advice to leave Tokyo.

A Skyscanner survey found Spain back in favour for British holidaymakers in April.

In May Belfast Airport started to charge for going for a cigarette break, and the ongoing battle between Unite and British Airways was finally settled!

More natural disasters happened in June with violent aftershocks in Christchurch, New Zealand and volcanic eruptions in Chile.

The News of the World phone-hacking scandal broke in July with airlines withdrawing their advertisements as a result.

In August research revealed the use of smartphones were ruining people’s holidays.

The Rugby World Cup was held in New Zealand in September, where Wales’ hopes were dashed.

The first biofuel passenger flight took place in October, however green campaigners claimed it wasn’t as environmentally friendly as everyone thought.

Europe announced a ban on body scanners at airports in November, but the UK decided to go against the decision.

Finally, December saw 150mph winds hit parts of Scotland, which is where we are now at the start of 2012 as tremendous winds continue to batter the UK once more.

So, what travel news is in store for 2012? Keep up to date here!

The European Court of Justice has ruled that all airlines flying to and from Europe with have to pay for any carbon dioxide emissions above an agreed limit as part of the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS).

This controversial decision to include non-EU airlines in the ETS has been strongly opposed by economic powers worldwide. They say that the control of emissions should be left to the International Civil Aviation Organisation.

The ETS will start on 1st January 2012 and function under a credit system. Airlines will be given credits to cover most of their emissions, but they must buy more to cover any further output.

European airlines fear a retaliation from other countries which may include other taxes being imposed on them. The US said it goes against the EU-US open-skies agreement. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said America would respond with “appropriate action” if the scheme went ahead.

However, Europe’s highest court insisted that the ETS did not infringe on the sovereignty of other nations, as it only applied to carriers when they were operating within the EU.

IAG (parent to British Airways) has reached a binding agreement with Lufhansa to buy BMI, despite a competitive counter-bid from Virgin Atlantic earlier this month.

The agreed price is £172.5 million and will be completed in the first quarter of 2012. The deal could mean job losses in order to restructure the ailing business.

BA chief executive Willie Walsh said: “‘Unfortunately, this will mean some job losses but we will secure a significant number of high quality jobs here in the UK and create similar new jobs in the future.”

The takeover is still subject to clearance by competition authorities as IAG will stand to gain an additional 56 daily slot pairs at Heathrow, a prospect Virgin Atlantic vows to fight.

A spokesperson for Virgin Atlantic said: “We will be asking the competition authorities to stop this deal and to protect the many millions of passengers on routes where BA and BMI currently compete. With Heathrow sewn up BA can use its monopoly power to force up prices at the expense of the consumer.”

But Walsh insisted the deal was good news for the UK and for consumers: “Using the slot portfolio more efficiently provides the option to launch new long haul routes to key trading nations while supporting our broad domestic and short haul network.

“This deal is good news for the UK as we will maintain a comprehensive domestic schedule including Belfast. Our plans to expand our longhaul network would guarantee growth by making Britain better able to compete on a global scale. It will also help maximise Heathrow’s position as a world class hub airport.”

A Spanish Housewives association has made a formal complaint about the Ryanair charity calendars, which features scantily-clad cabin crew. The Provincial Association of Housewives and Consumers of Valencia (TYRIUS) say that it is exploiting female workers and have made their complaint to the airline and the Non-Sexist Advertising Observatory of Valencia.

The calendar is sold in order to raise money to send 50 British families with children suffering from a fragile skin condition on holiday to Spain. However, TYRIUS say the airline is profiting from the publicity to sell its low-cost flights. It also says that the calendar is preying on the dignity of women workers and its cabin crew, so should be taken off the market.

Ryanair has already sold 9,000 of the 10,000 2012 calendars, raising €100,000 for the charity, DEBRA. It said men in other professions also posed semi-naked to raise money for good causes.

Is this a bit of fun? Or is it exploitation under the guise of charity? Let us know your comments below.

Chancellor George Osborne has announced the double inflationary rise of 10% to air passenger duty tax next April. He also confirmed that the tax will also be extended to business jets.

There will be a review of APD on 6th December, which could lead to changes in tax bands but will not affect the overall tax rise in April.

Many think that this will be a huge blow to the aviation industry. Mike Carrivick, chief executive of BAR (Board of Airline Representatives) UK said “Air travellers are being milked yet again and used as a soft target to prop up Treasury coffers. This announcement is completely at odds with the Chancellor’s wish to invest in the transport infrastructure. No increase is justified, this action demonstrates the continued discrimination against air travellers.

“In the interests of the economy, we urge him to listen to A Fair Tax on Flying campaign, of which BAR UK is a member, and immediately reverse his plans and not impose this double inflationary increase in the next Budget.”

Multicom MD John Howell, whose e-petition for a freeze on the tax attracted 550 signatures,also expressed his dissatisfaction with the announcement: “I am disappointed our voice appears to have been ignored by the Chancellor and the opportunity to keep APD levels at their current rate for another twelve months has been lost.”

According to an article in the Telegraph, those landing at Heathrow today did not face the horrendous queues and delays predicted before the strikes. In fact, it seems that processing passengers through customs was even quicker than normal!

The airport had drafted in special ‘volunteers’ from other sectors of non-striking civil service that had been trained a month in advance of the strike and were overseen by members of staff not involved in the strike. BAA had brought in piles of water bottles and chocolate bars at immigration boarder control for passengers if the queues went on for too long, but not even a break down of the iris scanners slowed down the pace.

Many felt that they were getting VIP treatment as they were guided around by volunteers in purple ‘help’ sashes and many were even outnumbered by the baggage reclaim staff.

British traveller Victoria Malloy said she had feared the worst as she landed from her flight from New York: “We were told in the plane there would be delays of between eight to 12 hours. But it’s never been so quick. I’ll make sure I travel during a strike next time,” she said.

Some airlines had cancelled flights or flown at half capacity as a preventative measure, which seemed to contribute to today’s smooth running of boarder control.

Ryanair has found a way to stop two online agents from buying its tickets. Last year it won a ruling by a Spanish court that stated they would have the exclusive rights to advertise their lowest fares on their own website against that of screenscraper Atrapalo.

This year, the airline has stopped two more Spanish agents by installing technology that makes customers manually type a series of letters and numbers to access parts of the site. The technology means the agents can no longer compile databases of flight prices.

A a result, Spanish screenscraper websites Edreams and Bravofly have stopped displaying the airline’s prices on their websites.

“By eliminating unauthorised screenscraping, Ryanair has improved consumer access to, and the response times of, the Ryanair.com website for genuine consumers/passengers,” it said in a statement.

“Ryanair welcomes the decision by Edreams and Bravofly to no long display Ryanair’s fares and seats and hopes they will continue to desist from unauthorised screenscraping.”

Ryanair’s Stephen McNamara said: “Ryanair will continue to implement measures to get rid of unauthorised screenscrapers and travel agents from our website.”

The airline said that it had seen a rise in bookings since this was implemented.

According to the Metro, the controversial airport x-ray scanners have been banned by Brussels over fears that they could cause cancer.

The scanners hit the headlines initially over the images that made people appear naked, which caused concerns over privacy and dignity of passengers. Now the focus is on the low doses of radiation they emit when in use, as initial research suggests that up to 100 US airline passengers could get cancer from them each year.

However, the Health Protection Agency said: “The radiation dose from an examination of two or three scans is less than that received from two minutes flying at cruising altitude.”

The scanners have been tested in Germany, France, Italy, Finland and Holland but will be banned from using the scanners in April next year. Manchester airport has been told it has another year’s use of them as they have 16 of the £80,000 machines, and do not let anyone board an aircraft if they refuse to go through them.

Britain could be given a fine if it ignores the ban, as it has argued that the scans are a “proportionate response to a very real terrorist threat”.

Trying to squeeze your possessions in might not be your only problem! Photo by Flickr user gorriti

Check-in staff for Ryanair are being paid to spot over-sized hand luggage and make people put them in the hold at an extra charge.

According to the Daily Mail, the Servisair staff at Liverpool John Lennon Airport receive £5 for every 10 pieces of checked in hand luggage. Ryanair charges up to £55 each way for baggage checked in at the airport, so spotting over-sized luggage is an important factor for the airline.

A spokesperson for Servisair said passengers were aware of terms and conditions relating to luggage. Ryanair said passengers were allowed to take a bag weighing up to 10kg on board and only those exceeding the free allowance would be charged.

Have you ever been ‘caught out’ with an over-sized piece of hand luggage by Ryanair or any other airline for that matter? How much were you charged to put the luggage into the hold?

Over 70,000 people in over 22 nations have been affected by the recent Qantas dispute with unions, which saw all domestic and international aircraft grounded yesterday by order of Qantas management in response to the strikes. However, in an independent tribunal ruling forced by the action, a permanent end to the industrial action was ordered, with flights able to start again as early as tomorrow (Monday).

In August strikes started as a result of Qantas declaration that it is to restructure and outsource some of its work in order to combat the approximate $200m annual losses it has been making internationally. The unions claimed the need for more job security of staff and argued against the proposed job losses. Talks were not leading anywhere, which is why Qantas decided to take such a bold step in grounding all flights, thus costing the economy “tens of millions of dollars every hour” according to the BBC, and forcing the tribunal.

The Fair Work Australia ruling said: “We have decided to terminate protected industrial action in relation to each of the proposed enterprise agreements immediately.”

The decision requires both parties to get back into negotiations and to reach an agreement within 21 days.