BMI flying to Mumbai

BMI could spark off a fares war after being granted the right to fly to Mumbai in India, a service which commences on March 27.

The airline operates up to seven return flights daily on the Dublin-London Heathrow route, which will enable Irish passengers to connect to the new services.

The decision will be welcomed by air travellers in both India and the UK.

In Ireland, bmi recently announced a new partnership with LUXAIR, which will facilitate the introduction of through-fares from Dublin to a range of destinations in the US and the Caribbean.

Under the new interline agreement with LUXAIR, bmi can now connect travellers from Dublin to Manchester and then onwards to a range of long-haul destinations including Washington, Chicago, Las Vegas, Barbados, Antigua and St. Lucia. The new through fares start from €476 return, (incl taxes) from Dublin to Washington.

BUDGET Travel has launched a major offensive on the 2005 holiday market, claiming to offer holiday family packages at up to €900 cheaper than its competitors.

The company is also engaged in a stand-off with travel agents, having cut commission from ten to five per cent in order, the company says, to pass on savings to the consumer.

The aggressive pricing strategy sees Budget Travel claiming to beat the prices offered for the same or similar holidays by its rivals.

Budget gives a number of examples citing savings against companies like Airtours, Falcon Sunworld for specific resorts in Spain and Gran Canaria.

Budget boss Eugene Corcoran said that the company was determined to offer Irish consumers the best value holidays available; “We are committed to a low cost model which will enable us to continually outperform every other tour operator in the Irish market. We’ve aggressively attacked our cost base to enable us to launch these low price holidays and we believe that the other major players in the Irish market will be unable to compete with these prices.”

SUNWAY'S progamme to Asia has been modified.

The company is not taking bookings to Sri Lanka or the Maldives and parts of Phuket until further notice.

For details on unaffected parts of Thailand, go to www.tatnews.org.