Easyjet has now been ranked as the UK’s largest airline for the second year running in terms of the number of passengers flown. More than 28 million passengers flew with the budget airline through UK airports last year, with Ryanair in second place, followed by British Airways in third, according to Civil Aviation Authority figures.

Chief executive Andy Harrison claimed: “EasyJet is now the UK’s national airline. Passengers have clearly voted with their feet, boarding Easyjet’s aircraft more than any other airline”.

Easyjet expects to grow by 10% to carry more than 50 million passengers across Europe, and currently offers over 500 routes across 29 countries with a fleet of nearly 200 aircraft.

With almost 22 million people set to visit countries across the region, the “eurozone” is expected to remain the most popular destination for UK travellers this year. The calculation comes from First Rate Exchange Services and a previous announcement that 58% of UK adults plan to take at least one overseas holiday this year.

Holiday costs have fallen across all “eurozone” countries over the last year, with prices in Spain seeing cuts by as much as 30%, the latest Post Office holiday money report shows.

First Rate managing director Gordon Gourlay said: “Lower tourist prices across the “eurozone” are extremely good news for the millions of UK holidaymakers who are set to make to a return to traditional holiday destinations such as Spain and Portugal this year.

“UK foreign currency retailers can expect strong demand for the currency as savvy travellers stock up on euros in order to get best value from foreign exchange deals in the UK.”

The majority of UK travellers intend to make the most of their holiday money by picking up foreign currency before they travel. Two in five (40%) travellers also said they would have to withdraw cash at ATMs whilst overseas even though this runs the risk of hefty commission and cash withdrawal fees; while travellers’ cheques are still popular with over 15% of travellers including them in their holiday wallet.

More than half of German companies are confident in seeing an upturn in business travel before the end of the year it has been reported in the results of a poll of members of the Association of German Travel management (VDR) for trade show ITB. The poll found that a quarter of those questioned expect to see a recovery in business travel activity at the start of next year. Only ten per cent of companies said they were concerned that there would not be a recovery in business travel.

Almost 60% of VDR member companies are still paying particular attention to costs and are looking at cheaper travel options. Only 11% of these companies are cutting out all travel which is not deemed absolutely necessary, compared with twice as many in October 2009.

In order to cut down on travel, companies are making more use of web, video and telephone conferencing. One third of the VDR member companies that were questioned now use this technology instead of business travel. A further 20% are following this trend in order to improve internal communication.

Dr Martin Buck, director of the competence centre travel & logistics and show organiser Messe Berlin, said: “The trend that has been revealed by the latest snap poll by the VDR is giving the industry reasons for cautious optimism. This is good news for ITB Berlin.”

Trade Travel Show, ITB Berlin 2010 takes place from 10th- 14th March.

Cheapflights has hit back at research by search marketing agency Greenlight that suggested that it had suffered a 25% drop in search visibility.

The company said it “suspects their source data might be at fault” and that Greenlight may have placed too much importance and weight on the single word “flight”, suggesting it accounts for 59% of all searches.

A spokesman for Cheapflights said: “We respectfully disagree with this weighting and in fact, Cheapflights’ data shows this is a considerable over-estimation and skews the data.

He added: “According to Hitwise figures for last December, the term ‘cheap flights’ drives around 85 times more traffic than ‘flight’. In addition, the term ‘flight’ was not amongst the top 600 plus terms driving traffic to the industry. Only a few years ago the top name associated with the search word ‘flight’ was NASA!”

He added: “Applying Hitwise figures for December to Greenlight’s data would fundamentally change the order of most visible sites. We suspect it would leave Cheapflights.co.uk at or very close to the top of the pile.

“Whilst Cheapflights may not have top visibility for every flight related term, the Company’s attention is focused firmly on the terms that we believe are important for consumers, and consequently Cheapflights continues to enjoy strong visibility across the board.”

To view my previous blog connected to this story click here.

Ryanair has lost almost 60% of its visibility online since September, according to analysis of key search terms used when consumers use the Internet to find a flight. Ryanair held fourth position in the third quarter of 2009 but by the last three months of the year EasyJetcame in at fourth place whereas Ryanair dropped to thirty-two.

Flight price comparison company Cheapflights also saw a 25% drop in search visibility dropping from position two to eight.

The independent research was carried out by search marketing agency Greenlight who determined the best positioned and most visible websites in the online flights sector based on the volumes for each keyword.

The company identified the 3,200 of the most commonly used search terms by UK web users. They cumulatively delivered 28.1 million searches for flight-related terms in December. The term ‘Flight’ accounted for 59% of all flight-related searches.

Short-haul destinations, mainly within Europe, accounted for almost 5.3 million searches in December. Long haul flight search volumes fell 43% since September although when compared to domestic and short haul, they decreased the least.

New York, Bangkok and Australia were the most popular destinations.

In natural searches and with 89% share of voice in December, SkyScanner ranked first place on page one of Google for 445 of the 3,200 keywords analysed, including the most searched for term – ‘Flight’. Travelsupermarket followed with 72% visibility and Expedia followed with 57%.

More than half of UK adults intend to take at least one holiday overseas this year, according to a new study. The research from First Rate Exchange Services found that 58% of consumers plan to take at least one foreign break in 2010.

The 18-24 age group is the most likely to travel internationally with 64% planning to go on holiday in 2010. This compares to 54% of 35-44 year olds, many of whom have children to take on holiday with them, may not be able to afford to go abroad this year. However, a quarter of this age group (24%) say they have still to decide where they will holiday this year, and whether it will be overseas.

First Rate managing director Gordon Gourlay said: “It is of course good news for the travel industry that the majority of people intend to take at least one international break this year.

“It appears, however, that in the early part of 2010 there may be greater demand for holidays which appeal to younger age groups, as many families are set to forgo their traditional break or intend to leave it until later in the year to decide whether finances will stretch to a holiday abroad.”

I wonder if this is a trend that the readers of this blog will agree with? Is it mainly the younger demographic who will go abroad this year? Are families more likely to holiday in the UK? The blog on our sister site, Holiday Cottages.cc suggests that this may well be the case with a survey by  BDRC Continental indicating that families are at the heart of the UK’s recent ‘Staycation’ boom. Read the full blog here.

Holidaymakers to Turkey face paying more for tourist items, despite normally being seen as a value destination outside the eurozone. While the Turkish lira has weakened by more than seven per cent against sterling in the past year, a new Post Office Worldwide Holiday Costs Barometer reveals a price lift of almost 44% for meals, drinks and other holiday items. Spain emerges as the cheapest eurozone destination – placed fourth overall in the Barometer and showing a price fall of 30% for the same items surveyed a year ago.

Overall, tourist costs are down in 17 of the 25 destinations previously surveyed, with some of the biggest falls in Bulgaria, Mexico, Mauritius and Barbados.

Jamaica, Egypt and Dubai top the list of destinations where holidaymakers are financially best off thanks to a strengthening of the pound over the past year. Tourists will receive over 21% more Jamaican dollars, almost 14% more Egyptian pounds and 12.6% more UAE dirhams compared to January 2009, according to the annual Post Office Travel Services Holiday Money Report.

Post Office head of travel money Sarah Munro said: “Judging by the price rises recorded in our latest cost comparison survey, Turkey is unlikely to be the cheap destination that it was just a couple of years ago when the Post Office barometer identified the country as a best buy.

“For 2010 our shopping basket of eight tourist staples indicates that Turkey is now 68% more expensive than Spain.

“The eurozone looks to be striking back after the battering its resorts took in 2009 when Post Office euro sales were down over 14%.

“This meant that although the euro remained our bestselling currency by far, accounting for a dominant 72.2% of our travel money business, its share reduced by over two per cent compared with 2008.

“However, the Post Office Worldwide Holidays Costs Barometer research has revealed an underlying reduction in eurozone prices and, when you add the improved exchange rate to this, the outlook looks relatively sunny for UK holidaymakers.”

Travellers both young and old are increasingly using mobile devices for flight notification, check in, and seat selection, and are also willing to accept advertising with free travel applications according to a mobile survey of travellers by Sabre Travel Network.

The survey of 800 corporate and leisure travellers from Asia-Pacific, Europe, Latin America and North America covered topics ranging from preferred features to fees travellers might pay for travel applications.

The majority of travellers surveyed had a smart phone (69%), with North American travellers most likely to own one (78%) and APAC travellers least likely (46%). Daily usage is highest for email at 63% with Internet not far behind at 49%.

Corporate and leisure travellers both showed strong adoption for using their mobile phone to gain timely and relevant information, in particular:

· Flight notification (72%)

· Weather forecasts (68%)

· Viewing of hotel locations via map (67%)

· Flight performance (65%)

· Destination information/city guides (64 %)

“Smart phones are becoming a traveller’s preferred tool for managing post-booking activities and getting relevant information,” said Greg Webb, chief marketing officer of Sabre Holdings.

“This trend has seemingly penetrated all ages across all continents, highlighting the tremendous opportunity for travel agencies and suppliers to leverage mobile solutions to demonstrate value to their customers and creatively reach target audiences,” he said.

Other results show:

· 71% of Europeans are interested in using their mobile device to check in for flights, compared to 64 percent of North Americans.

· 64% of Europeans would like to select/change seats via their smart phone, higher than the 59 percent of North Americans.

· 55% of Europeans would use their mobile device to track their baggage, against 45 percent of North Americans.

· 54% of Europeans would like to use their smart phones to book flight upgrades, compared to 44 percent of North Americans.

Sabre’s 2009 launch of TripCase, a mobile application available today for both iPhone and Blackberry users, continues to gain momentum with tens of thousands of individual downloads, Innovator of the Year nomination by PhoCusWright and being named “Best Travel App” by Business Week. Sabre’s Virtually There itinerary service is used by more than 30,000 travel agencies around the world and their customers.