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European trains to start competing with airlines. Railteam, an alliance of 9 high speed rail companies across 7 countries, has formed to offer the best prices and to recognise each other's loyalty schemes. They have also agreed to coordinate timetabl ...more

Th EU has backed an Open Skies deal with the US. The unanimous vote by EU transport ministers will liberalise transatlantic aviation, easing restrictions on travel between Europe and the US. The deal may still collapse, however, over the US's usual ...more

First Choice and Thomson Holidays merge to form Europe's top tour operator. The new firm, TUI Travel, will be based in the UK and there are plans to list the shares on the London Stock Exchange. First Choice said that there would be job duplications but it was too early to sa ...more

Air Asia's new long haul no frills airline launch has been postponed. They had been hoping to launch in July but the company has had to put the new service on hold, citing minor technical problems - no planes. They had been hoping to lease planes from Airbus but problem ...more

The sale of BA Connect to Flybe will lead to about 900 flight cancellations. The airline said that it would offer passengers alternative flights on either BA or Flybe. The deal will create Europe's largest regional airline carrying 10 million passengers on 152 routes. The flig ...more

The first ever Father Ted Festival has been held on Inis Mor, one of the Aran Islands off the west coast of Ireland. Dermot Morgan, who played Father Ted, died nine years ago, but his comedy character lives on through repeat showings and huge DVD sales. The Ted fans, most of them aged under 30, have invaded the port ...more

Developers have launched a paperless boarding system to speed up airport waiting times. The new virtual boarding passes, available on mobile phones and handheld devices, use barcode technology to encode passenger's details. The information is then read directly from existing airport scan ...more

Chaos expected at UK airports next month. Many airlines are expected to insist that passengers pay an extra levy when they turn up for their flights, even if they booked them months ago. Air Passenger Duty is increasing by between £5 an ...more

The first long haul no frills airline is about to be launched. The biggest no frills carrier in the east, Air Asia, has announced the launch of a sister company travelling between it's hubs in Asia and Europe, primarily the UK. The first route is expected to be K ...more

Foreign Office warns against travel to Fiji. The prospect of a military coup in the island nation has increased after armed forces chief Commodore Frank Bainimarama gave the government an ultimatum to fulfil a series of demands or face action. T ...more

The UK travel industry has unveiled a health and safety based hotel database. After a 6 and 7 year old brother and sister died from carbon monoxide poisoning in a Corfu hotel in October, ABTA drew up reliable, independently-audited hotel database". The database will comprise t ...more

Research shows that jetlag can damage your health. Animals who were subjected to changes like those experienced by humans with jetlag, died earlier than others. Writing in Current Biology, the researchers say it raises concerns for humans affected by ...more

How to survive a plane crash. Flying may be the safest form of transport, according to some statistics, but many people are still terrified of crashing. Most people assume that if their place crashes, they will almost certainly be ...more

Pollen is now being used as an excuse for late trains. Leaves on the line, the wrong kind of snow, and now pollen are apparently able to delay trains even after 200 years of train technology development. Arriva, a train operator in Wales, said that high q ...more

Vilnius has launched language buses. The scheme to teach people foreign languages while they travel is being funded by the European Commission. On particular trolleybus routes in the Lithuanian capital, passengers will find worksheets fo ...more

Virgin joins Quantas and Korean Air in banning Dell and Apple laptop batteries. The airline now requires that all batteries are removed from Dell and Apple laptops and that they can only be used onboard their aeroplanes with the batteries removed. This is after Dell announced a r ...more

Abta is reducing the travel protection for customers if things go wrong. From 1 September, compensation will no longer be paid to people who have lost money to a dishonest travel agent. Abta say that this does not affect their other protection, but they will no longer pay ...more

London's public transport system has been voted the best in the world by a travel survey. London gained a quarter of the vote with New York coming second with only 16 percent. London's taxis also came out as the best in the world according to the TripAdvisor survey of international tourist ...more

Does a blue flag really men the beach is good? Since the Blue Flag award was started in 1989, with only 12 beaches getting it, 120 beaches now satisfy the criteria for the award. According to research, 78 percent of us recognise a blue flag as an ...more

Gordon Brown comes under fire from MPs for failing to cut the rise in aircraft emissions. The MPs say government reasons for freezing air passenger duty for a fifth year are "incoherent and unconvincing". The MPs believe that increasing the cost of air travel by increasing air travel taxes ...more