Over 20,000 passengers have been left stranded after Barcelona-based airline, Spanair cancelled 647 flights due to financing problems.

Options are being offered by UK based low cost airlines, Easyjet and Ryanair to passengers hit by the cancellations. Spanair also said it was working with Vueling, Iberia and Air Europa to find alternatives for passengers.

The airline made the decision to cancel flights when applications for government-backed loans fell through and talks with Qatar Airways about taking a stake in the company ceased.

The airline said it was finalizing an agreement with IATA to get refunds for those with tickets that had yet to travel; and a statement on its website advised customers with reservations to contact their credit card company, insurance company or travel agency.

The Spanish government says it is taking legal action against the airline for suspending its flights without proper warning, a case which could result in a 9million euro fine.

Spanair was the country’s fourth largest airline, and this situation has led to suggestions that Europe’s debt crisis may spark airlines from the Mediterranean to the Baltic to consider mergers or risk failure.

Last week there was a battle between Jet2.com and new start up airline JetXtra.com as Jet2 issued a solicitor’s letter to the other airline to warn that it would take legal action if JetXtra did not drop its name by last Thursday at 4pm. Jet2′s reasoning for this action is that it believes that members of the public might mistakenly believe that both companies were the same or related in some way because of the similarity in their names.

JetXtra was to launch flights from its Humberside Airport base to Palma and Malaga in June. Jet2 is based at Leeds Bradford Airport, 78 miles away.

JetXtra director Daniel Reilly said: “It is absolutely absurd that Jet2, a well known and generally respected airline is attempting to disrupt our services, I cannot believe they would resort to such dirty tactics to stop a new company which poses no threat to them from entering the market, especially at a time when our country is desperately in need of enterprise and job creation.

“The only similarity between our companies is the word ‘jet’, our logos and websites are completely different and Jet2 operate from Leeds Bradford Airport, serving and targeting a different market to that of jetXtra.com.”

In a twist to the situation, JetXtra has been ordered by the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) to stop selling flights to prevent the sale of unlicensed tickets. JetXtra had advertised that flights were covered under its partner company, CCT’s Atol. CTT holds a licence to carry just 620 passengers in the year to September and only 150 this summer, when JetXtra hopes to carry 9,000 passengers.

A CAA spokesman confirmed the reasons for stopping sales: “CTT sought permission to trade with JetXtra.com. We have not yet approved that and until we do it cannot sell holidays. We would not allow a company to sell seats it does not have a licence for.” The spokesman confirmed: “This has nothing to do with Jet2.”

However, JetXtra claimed on its website that they had stopped sales because of Jet2′s letter: “JetXtra.com have been told by the CAA . . . that until a decision is made by Jet2.com in relation to any legal proceedings, the JetXtra.com trading name will not be allowed on to the Atol licence of CTT Group.”

JetXtra’s director Daniel Reilly said: “Any customer who has already booked should not be concerned as this decision to temporarily halt trading will not affect their booking or financial protection offered under the CTT Group Atol.”

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!

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.

Iberia parent company, IAG, has confirmed that it will launch a new low-cost carrier, Iberia Express. The airline will be based at Madrid Barajas airport with the launch of four new aircraft, growing to 13 by the end of 2012.

Willie Walsh, who recently came out of an 18-month battle with unions when he was chief executive of British Airways, looks set to have more confrontations with unions in his new role as chief executive of IAG. The announcement of the new low-cost airline has provoked fears from the unions that over time, Iberia will transfer domestic and European services to the new airline which will lead to job losses.

Iberia Express will use existing Iberia aircraft, but will recruit new staff on lower salaries and different terms and conditions to the main airline.

The Spanish pilots’ union, however, say that the budget airline broke agreements signed with Iberia during its merger with British Airways to create IAG.

The number of second homes overseas has finally overtaken the number in the UK. That’s the news we would almost certainly be reporting by now if the government had not stopped collecting the figures in 2008.
The official figures relate, oddly enough, to second homes owned by households living in England only – not the whole of the UK. And a recent departmental reorganisation means the figures only go up to 2007/8. But the full table from the turn of the millennium onwards makes fascinating reading:

So by 2008, the number of households owning a second home had gone up by 43.6 per cent, from 404,000 to 580,000. But of those extra 176,000 holiday homes, all but 35,000 were overseas.
While these figures show that in 2008 slightly more people still owned second homes in the UK than abroad, given the strong trend it seems likely that, three years on, overseas home ownership has powered ahead.
These figures for home ownership abroad are lower than many you see quoted – anything from half a million to a million is a popular estimate – but they would need to be increased by perhaps 15 per cent to include owners based in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. And, of course, they are for second homes so do not include those who have moved semi-permanently to a home abroad.
According to research carried out for the Post Office, France is the number one destination for owning a property abroad (41 per cent) followed by Spain (38 per cent) and Portugal (5 per cent). British buyers in France are most likely to have gone for a farmhouse or a cottage, compared with buyers in Spain who prefer flats and villas.

Ryanair and easyJet, the big two no-frills airlines, have become increasingly dominant in the UK low-cost flights market, with many smaller players either cutting back or squeezed out entirely. That has led to fears that reduced competition could eventually lead to much higher fares.

So it’s good to hear that Bmibaby, now owned by Lufthansa, has announced seven new holiday destinations as part of its summer 2012 schedule. The additional routes are from Birmingham to Barcelona, Lisbon and Rome (Fiumicino), and from East Midlands to Corfu, Gibraltar, Murcia and Naples.

Bmibaby is increasingly focusing on the Midlands, with the new routes bringing the airline’s tally of destinations served to 31 from East Midlands and 14 from Birmingham. The new flights will start in April 2012.

A similar strategy of regional specialisation has seen healthy growth from Jet2, which concentraties on the North of England. Exeter-based Flybe, on the other hand, has carved out a different niche by using its fleet of smaller planes to serve routes between regional airports with insufficient traffic to fill the larger jets used by the big two.

Brits are looking to Spain for holidays over other countries once again, according to flight comparison site Skyscanner.

Searches for Tenerife, Malaga and Alicante have all shown significant rises for Easter this year as Brits take advantage of the potential 11 day holiday over the Royal Wedding period.

Skyscanner says Tenerife is now the second most searched destination on the site, jumping up 21 places from this time last year. City breaks have suffered; although Amsterdam and Barcelona are still in the top ten, they’ve both dropped four places compared to last Easter.

Skyscanner chief executive officer Gareth Williams said: “Malaga and Alicante remain immensely popular with the British, but it also looks as though people are taking advantage of the extra Royal Wedding holiday and going a little further afield this Easter with Tenerife, New York and Istanbul all up considerably compared to last year.

“This has come at the expense of city break destinations which have all dropped significantly this Easter. The fact that London doesn’t even appear in this year’s top ten certainly seems to suggest that many Brits are trying to escape the hype around the Royal Wedding ”.

Most popular destinations for British travellers Easter 2011

1. Malaga

2. Tenerife

3. Alicante

4. New York

5. Istanbul

6. Faro

7. Amsterdam

8. Barcelona

9. Rome

10. Palma

Bilbao is the first new port destination added in 25 years by Brittany Ferries. The first sailing of the route from Portsmouth took place last Sunday and was served by the 33,000 Cap Finistère.

The Portsmouth-Bilbao crossing will be twice a week and take between 24 and 32 hours, it will arrive at Bilbao’s new terminal, close to Spain’s A8 motorway, with connections to Madrid, the Costa Brava and the south.

The operator made sure it was well placed to catch airline business last year when the ash cloud meant thousands of air passengers wanting to get to and from Spain were stranded and last week picked up an award for its marketing strategy based around this.

Brittany Ferries Group passenger commercial director Mike Bevens said: “As the numbers of air travellers from the UK to Spain have declined, we’ve witnessed a surge in demand for direct UK Spain crossings.

“Our customers welcome being able to relax on a comfortable and spacious cruise-ferry and the freedom that having their own car brings.”

Cap Finistère, which was added to the Brittany Ferries fleet last year, features a children’s playground, a cinema and cafe, a dedicated dog walking area and ten pet-friendly cabins.

Threats to hold 22 days of strike action by Spanish airport workers over Easter and throughout the summer have been cancelled.

The threat of strikes were made following publication of plans to part-privatise national airport operator Aena, however they were called off when guarantees of job security and certain conditions were made.

Union members said that around 70% of their 10,000 members had decided against action after the reassurances.

A statement from the union representing the staff, the CCOO, said: “The ratification of this deal means the cancellation of the call for 22 days of strikes planned on different days between April and August.”

Spanish tourism authorities will be pleased as they anticipate a popular spring and summer season as holidaymakers opt for Spain over Middle Eastern tourist spots.