Royal Caribbean Cruises opened its Asia-Pacific headquarters in Singapore’s central business district. The Sigapore office will support the marketing efforts in the Asia-Pacific region for three of the company’s cruise brands: Royal Caribbean International, Celebrity Cruises and Azamara Cruises. as well as provide sales and trade support in the region.

“This region shows great growth potential in terms of providing new destinations for international cruise guests from North America and Europe given the varied and exciting cultures throughout the region, and their accessibility to the coastline,” said Adam Goldstein, president of Royal Caribbean International. “This, coupled with the prospect of Asian markets being substantial source markets for new cruise guests, gives us tremendous opportunity for growth in the region.” [Read more…]

American Airlines will apply to the United States Department of Transportation to begin serving a new nonstop route between Chicago O’Hare International Airport and Beijing, China, effective March 25, 2009.

American will seek the route award as part of a new agreement between the United States and China to expand airline service between the two countries. The airline said its evaluation of potential new routes to China was based on the economics and likelihood of financial success in the China market as envisioned in 2009. [Read more…]

Expedia announced a new five-year strategic partnership with low-fare carrier JetBlue Airways Corporation, under which all of JetBlue’s published fares, schedules and inventory are now available to leisure and unmanaged business travelers through Expedia.com(R) and Hotwire. In addition, Expedia(R) Corporate Travel is now offering JetBlue flights to its managed business travel customers. [Read more…]

CheapoAir.com, a top budget travel website dedicated to leveraging the latest technology to deliver cheap airline tickets, is proud to announce that it has won the Hitwise Top 10 Award by Visitors among all US Websites in the Travel Agencies Category for the Quarter Ending March – January 2007.

The Hitwise US Top 10 Awards Program celebrates the most successful US websites in 160+ online industries. As Hitwise reports on the anonymous online usage and search behavior of more than 10 million US Internet users — the largest online sample of its kind — this unique awards program recognizes excellence in online performance through public popularity. [Read more…]

Wizz Air reached the six million passengers since its May 2004 launch. Within one year the carrier has doubled its passenger numbers and has over-performed its competitors. The next one million will be carried within only 3 months. The fast development will be supported by the new aircraft deliveries in May and June this year. Until 2012, on average Wizz Air will take delivery of 8 new Airbus A320 a year. This will underline its market leadership in the existing home markets, such as Poland, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Slovenia and Croatia and enable expansion into new geographies. [Read more…]

GOL airline, the Sao Paulo, Brazil-based low-cost, low-fare carrier, has signed a Limited Connect distribution agreement with global travel technology provider Worldspan. The agreement enables GOL to expand its reach to travel buyers worldwide through Worldspan’s multi-channel travel distribution network. GOL’s comprehensive schedules, availability, low fares and booking capabilities will be available to all Worldspan travel agency, corporate and online points of sale worldwide. [Read more…]

Overseas guests now have even more reasons to visit Hong Kong following the launch of a new “Buy 3, Get 1 Free” travel package to stay and play at Hong Kong Disneyland by Cathay Pacific and Dragonair. The package is available to travellers in a number of major Asian destinations served by the two Hong Kong airlines from today until 30 June 2007.

The special promotion allows visitors travelling in parties of four, who fly with Cathay Pacific or Dragonair from many of the airlines’ Chinese Mainland and Asian destinations and stay at one of the two Hong Kong Disneyland hotels, to receive the fourth person’s package free. [Read more…]

Malaysia Airlines today announced its 5-year plan to capitalize on high growth travel regions through a more connected network.

The 2007-2011 network master plan will see the national carrier expanding its core network in Asia Pacific while strengthening its hub and spoke connectivity in Europe, Australia and New Zealand.

Malaysia Airlines Managing Director/ Chief Executive Officer, Mr Idris Jala said, “Our focus is to grow profitably. We will continuously anchor all our key business activities around our 3-year Business Turnaround Plan. We will implement our network master plan, intensify our maintenance, repair and overhaul business, and secure new businesses which include Firefly. Other ground breaking projects are also in the pipeline and will be announced later.” [Read more…]

easyJet.com, Europe’s leading airline website, is the UK’s favourite travel website according to Hitwise, the leading online competitive intelligence service.

Hitwise today announced the most popular UK websites in their annual online performance awards, with easyJet winning the Number One award for Commercial Airlines and Travel – Transport. The awards, which recognise outstanding online business achievement and acknowledge the most successful websites in a variety of key industries, are defined by the number of user visits throughout 2006.

easyJet.com not only received more visits than any other travel website, but the airline is also the fifth most searched for brand online after ebay, Bebo, Argos and Amazon! [Read more…]

Heathrow Airport’s Terminal 5 will open to the world’s passengers on Thursday 27 March 2008 – exactly one year from today. Airport operator BAA and British Airways are today announcing the opening date for Terminal 5 (T5), which will become a new home for British Airways, serve around 30 million passengers a year and be a stunning new gateway to the UK.

With 366 days to go (leap year in 2008), over 90% of construction-related work is complete and the project remains on time and on budget.

An intensive six-month period of proving trials will begin in September this year, when over 16,000 people will be recruited to act as passengers and thoroughly test every aspect of the building including car parking, check-in, baggage systems, IT systems and security. [Read more…]