Virgin Atlantic said, just this past week, that it was in discussions with Lufthansa about BMI. They did not want this airline to fall into the hands of IAG. BMI would pose a big problem for the airline if it fell into the wrong hands.

Now some may be wondering, who cares which airline grabs up BMI? All reports clearly show that BMI is not profitable. However, the truth of the matter is that BMI has a lot of lucrative assets in the form of flight slots at London’s Heathrow airport. These are slots that a number of airlines would not mind having at their disposal. Thus, it could actually be a great move by Virgin Atlantic to buy BMI just to keep IAG from getting the rest of them.

British Airways currently controls about 44 percent of the slots at Heathrow. Not only that, but 1 percent of the slots are controlled by its sister airline Iberia. Thus, IAG is the dominant airline group at the airport with 45 percent of all slots. It would not be good for other carriers if IAG could get all of BMI’s slots as well.

Virgin Atlantic went on to say in a report that they are very concerned about the competition ramifications of an IAG purchase of BMI. British Airways already has a very strong position at London Heathrow. If they are to buy BMI, things could get worse.

The chairman and CEO of Lufthansa, Christoph Franz, said that given the big slump in prices on European routes, as well as competition, it seems extremely difficult to establish a profitable European network under a separate brand. Therefore, it makes perfect sense for the airline to focus completely on Lufthansa and its offerings on the Italian market.

It will more than likely be sad for some people to see the Lufthansa subsidiary bite the dust so soon. After all, this Italian subsidiary first came to life back in the spring of 2009. By the end of this October, the eight A319s that were used by the subsidiary will be reassigned to Lufthansa.

Of course, this is bad news for some people in London and Paris as well. That is because Lufthansa Italia did not just operate flights in Italy. The airline also offered a number of routes that operated to London and to Paris.

However, it was not all bad news coming from Lufthansa. Apparently its regional subsidiary, Air Dolomiti, is now going to extend its network. More than likely this airline is going to really work on its routes between Italy and Germany now that Lufthansa Italia will soon be out of the picture.

Air France confirmed back on December 15, that all of the planes flying on domestic routes would be equipped with a lighter short-haul seat by December 24. This will reduce fuel consumption by 1,700 tons per year. Reports show that consumers are pretty pleased with the new cabins, which were launched back in March of 2010. Air France said that satisfaction levels are on the rise and traffic was up 60 percent on European point-to-point routes.

On that very same day, Lufthansa announced a massive cabin refurbishment of its own. They promise to install some 32,000 new seats on over 180 planes within 12 months. These new seats, which will be made by the same company that produced the new Air France seats, will be designed to be 30 percent lighter. On top of this, they will also be more compact. This will allow for up to two extra rows to be installed on each plane.

Along with this new cabin design, changes are being made to in-flight services on domestic and European routes. Apparently new snacks and hot meals for cross border routes will be severed. These will be given on routes over two hours. The first dishes will be created by chef Heiko Antoniewicz.

Overall, the new changes to Lufthansa’s planes are likely to be well accepted by passengers. Travelers are also expected to really enjoy the addition of meals to some flights.

This project, which is being run in conjunction with the German national aviation research program, will operate an Airbus A321 on the Hamburg-Frankfurt-Hamburg route for the duration of the trial. Pending certification, one of the aircraft’s engines will use a 50-50 mix of biofuel and traditional kerosene.

The state secretary for economics and technology, Peter Hintze, said that with its aviation research program, the federal government is supporting the German aviation industry in its effort to master the technological challenges of establishing a safe and sustainable air traffic system. They would like to prove that backing this is affordable within internationally comparable framework conditions.

Pretty much, the primary purpose of this whole project is to conduct a long-term trial to study the effects of biofuel on engine maintenance and engine life. Will using biofuel increase or decrease the life of an engine? These are all things that the airline industry has to look at before they choose to make a jump to biofuel or not.

Either way, this is a step in the right direction for the airline industry. The whole industry is working hard at lowering their carbon emissions. This comes during a time when some countries, like the UK, are pushing more toward rail travel than short-haul flights. People are saying that rail travel emits less carbon emissions. In order to fight off this new threat, the airline industry has to lower their CO2 output.

This German flag carrier has reported a third quarter profit of €628 million. This is far higher than the €390 million that was forecast for the company. Operating profits for the period soared to €783 million. This is €500 million more than the figure reported for the same period last year.

The airline just recently said that the good result is the consequence of the increasingly positive development of demand in passenger and freight traffic. The in-house cost cutting and synergy within its group of airlines has also helped to raise profits. The good result is the consequence of the increasingly positive development of demand in passenger traffic.

The chairman of the company, Wolfgang Mayrhuber, said that the Lufthansa Group has successfully flown through the economic and financial crisis. This is great news, not only for the company, but for the travel industry as a whole.

Sadly enough Mr Wolfgang will not be around to enjoy this victory for too long. Soon Mayrhuber will be replaced by Christoph Franz in January. Thus, Franz will be picking up as the company is starting to come out of hard times and back into profitability.

Hopefully this news about Lufthansa means that other airlines will soon be seeing profits too. As travel demand picks back up, the travel industry as a whole should start to see increases in profits.

There had been a lot of rumors that Lufthansa would launch scheduled A380 routes on the Frankfurt New York route. However, it would appear that Lufthansa feels that the jumbo jet would be more useful flying to Tokyo.

Lufthansa says that its Frankfurt-Tokyo route will run three times weekly with an A380 starting June 11^th on flight number LH710. The carrier will then launch three times weekly A380 flights to Beijing starting August 25^th. These flights will be on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. The return leg of the flights will leave China on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays.

There will also be a Lufthansa route that will be handled by an A380 to Johannesburg. This route will kick off on October 25^th and will also fly three times weekly. The flights will leave Frankfurt on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Saturdays. They will arrive in South Africa the day after departure. The return leg will leave Johannesburg on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Sundays by 6:55pm and should be back in Frankfurt by 5:20am the next day.

The timing on all three of these routes will offer good connections to and from the UK and mainland Europe. Lufthansa takes delivery of its first A380 on May 19^th. It is due to fly the German football team and lucky fans to Johannesburg on June 6^th just in time to start the FIFA World Cup.

This call comes just after the German national carrier staged flights at various altitudes to see what effect the ash cloud would have on its planes. A spokesman for Lufthansa said the tests included flying at the low altitude of 3,000 meters, which some experts have suggested is a possible way of avoiding the ash cloud.

The spokesman said that they had no problems with their flights. Everything went perfectly. There were no problems with the cockpit windows or with the fuselage, which they have been told could be damaged by the cloud. The planes were in perfect condition after the flights.

He also went on to say that the airline now wants new tests by scientists as current mathematical models were not in correlation with what is happening in the skies. New tests would enable flights to be resumed as soon as possible.

Right now aviation experts warn that the particles of rock, glass and sand caused by the volcanic eruption could jam airline engines. All four engines of a British Airways plane shut down when it flew into an ash cloud over Indonesia back in 1982. The plane landed safely after the pilots got the engines to restart. Right now no one is sure when all flights will be running as normal throughout Europe.

Europe’s largest airline by sales also confirmed that its operating profits fell by 90 percent to just €130 million. This is down from €1.3 billion in 2008. In response to this news, the executive board has proposed not to distribute a dividend for the financial year of 2009.

Despite the very difficult year, the airline did note that there has been some successes. Lufthansa increased its third quarter earnings following the inclusion of acquisitions, Austrian Airlines and British Midland, in the results. Lufthansa also owns or holds stakes in other airlines as well. These other airlines include Swiss International Airlines, Brussels Airlines, and JetBlue.

Following this announcement, Lufthase rose 3.6 percent to €11.50 in Frankfurt trading. This is the biggest gain since August 21st. So far in 2010, however, stock has fallen back down by 2.1 percent.

Lufthansa has outlined its plans to reduce annual costs by € 1billion by the end of 2011, as well as a 20 percent reduction in its workforce. Officials at Vereinignug Cockpit, which is the pilots trade union, called off a planned four day strike after just 24 hours, which is also being used as good news for the airline. The union has agreed to resume talks with the airline following the walkout. It is not known yet if an agreement can be reached, but both sides would like to work something out.

BMI will also be operating an additional service from Lufthansa between Heathrow and Hamburg. This will allow Lufthansa to operate four times a day on this important route. This new route, with a departure time of 7:15am is, of course, aimed more towards the business market. BMI will also operate all three daily flights on behalf of Lufthansa between Heathrow and Berlin Tegal. There will be a fourth daily service aimed at business travelers as well.

All of the flights will be operated by A319′s, and BMI will be proving a business class cabin. This is a smart move since a lot of the routes are aimed at business passengers anyway. The British airline will adopt Lufthansa’s policy of not selling the middle seat of three to give a 2-2 business class

BMI is already currently operating a number of other routes to and from Heathrow on behalf of other Lufthansa group carriers. The British carrier will soon operate between Heathrow and Vienna, alongside Austrian Airlines. Other BMI services for the Lufthansa group include a shared flight schedule with Swiss International and Lufthansa Italia out of Heathrow to Geneva and Milan Malpensa respectively.

It is not yet known what other routes, if any, BMI will operate for Lufthansa after this. Right now there are still a number of other routes that could be passed on to the airline. However, Lufthansa says that all of the switches are to better serve their customers.

Since talks are being restarted, no further action will be taken until March 8th the union has confirmed. As many as 4,000 pilots at the German airline chose to leave their job in protest over perceived threats to job security. Some 900 flights had to be canceled yesterday across the Lufthansa network.

Pilots are right now concerned that Lufthansa may attempt to cut costs by outsourcing posts to European subsidiaries. Concerns have been heightened following recent deals with Austrian Airways and British Midland Airways.

Vereinigung Cockpit said that it is prepared to resume talks with the airline. Lufthansa had warned that the strike would cost some £22 million a day. Even the German transport minister, Peter Ramsauer, warned of untold damage to the airline’s reputation and even possible consequences for the nation’s economic recovery due to the strike.

Despite the fact that pilots are returning to work, Lufthansa warned of modified timetables that would run in place for Tuesday and Wednesday. However they do expect Wednesday to have more of a normal schedule plan.

Any passengers that are experiencing delays on domestic flights will more than likely be offered alternative rail transport. The ones that are seeing heavy delays on international flights may be offered travel with Star Alliance partners. It is not clear how many people will be given this choice.