Globe Merchant Travel Blog

Travel Dates & Times for Weekend Getaway Fares

Depart anytime between Tuesday, October 7, 2008, and Friday, October 10, 2008.
Return anytime between Monday, October 13, 2008, and Wednesday, October 15, 2008.
Tickets must be purchased by this Sunday, October 5, 2008, 11:59 p.m. (CT).
Fares displayed are for round-trip coach class travel.

Round Trip Fare

Aguascalientes, Mexico (AGU) – Dallas / Ft. Worth, TX (DFW) $415
Dallas / Ft. Worth, TX (DFW) – Aguascalientes, Mexico (AGU) $415
Dallas / Ft. Worth, TX (DFW) – Frankfurt, Germany (FRA) $719
Dallas / Ft. Worth, TX (DFW) – San Luis Potosi, Mexico (SLP) $415
Dallas / Ft. Worth, TX (DFW) – Santiago, Chile (SCL) $888
Dallas / Ft. Worth, TX (DFW) – Sao Paulo, Brazil (GRU) $888
Dallas / Ft. Worth, TX (DFW) – Torreon, Mexico (TRC) $415
Miami, FL (MIA) – Maracaibo, Venezuela (MAR) $599
Miami, FL (MIA) – Santiago, Chile (SCL) $838
Miami, FL (MIA) – Sao Paulo, Brazil (GRU) $838
San Juan, PR (SJU) – Caracas, Venezuela (CCS) $529
San Luis Potosi, Mexico (SLP) – Dallas / Ft. Worth, TX (DFW) $415
Torreon, Mexico (TRC) – Dallas / Ft. Worth, TX (DFW) $415

*Taxes, fees and conditions apply.

Additional Fees and
Restrictions May Apply

Visit www.aa.com/netsaaver for additional fare offers for this weekend and other travel dates.

International Herald Tribune
ROME: Executives of Lufthansa, the German airline, met with representatives of unions at the Italian carrier Alitalia on Friday to discuss the possibility of taking a stake in Alitalia as negotiations continued to in an attempt to rescue it.

Lufthansa and Air France-KLM hope to increase their presence in the Italian market by taking minority stakes in Alitalia should a consortium of Italian investors succeed in acquiring the carrier.

The deal by the investor group, CAI, collapsed last week but lurched back to life on Thursday after winning the support of four major unions at Alitalia. Anpav, a union of flight attendants, on Friday also agreed to the plan, and talks continued with unions representing pilots and other airline employees.

The Italian labor minister, Maurizio Sacconi, said CAI, which has extended its offer until Oct. 15, planned to press ahead with its bid even without the backing of the remaining unions.

Representatives of the four major unions backing the bailout met on Friday with Wolfgang Mayrhuber, the chief executive of Lufthansa, and they said he had conveyed its in Alitalia. Lufthansa said Mayrhuber was in Rome at the Italian government’s request, to discuss Alitalia.

Air France-KLM, whose deal to buy Alitalia collapsed this year in the face of union opposition, is also considering a bigger stake in Alitalia. It now owns 2 percent of the airline. But it could face an uphill climb, with major Alitalia unions openly supporting Lufthansa and signs that Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi would also favor the German carrier after opposing Air France-KLM’s deal in the past.

“It’s not a question of liking one particular nationality – it’s about the national interest,” said Raffaele Bonanni, head of the CISL, a major union at Alitalia. Lufthansa “has a multi-hub system that works well with our need to favor two Italian hubs, Milan and Rome.”

Berlusconi has repeatedly emphasized an eventual foreign partner for Alitalia would be allowed to acquire only a minority stake.

Air France-KLM and Alitalia have been longtime commercial partners in the SkyTeam Alliance, while Lufthansa has a sales and technical alliance with Alitalia’s biggest domestic rival, Air One. CAI intends to combine Alitalia’s viable operations with Air One.

Alitalia has been on the brink of collapse for years, resulting from a mix of political interference, labor unrest, inefficient strategies and high fuel prices.

Sealing the carrier’s latest rescue would be a political triumph for Berlusconi, who made an election vow to save the airline and keep it Italian. His top aide and key ministers have been presiding over the labor talks.
Greece acts to sell airline

The Greek government on Friday began the bidding process to sell Olympic Airlines, the debt-ridden state carrier, The Associated Press reported from Athens.

A government committee “decided to start the tender process to select private investors” for Olympic, the Finance Ministry said. The carrier is to be split into three companies handling flights, ground services and maintenance and repairs.

Guardian
By George Hatzidakis
ATHENS, Sept 26 (Reuters) – Greece’s privatisations committee on Friday gave the green light for the launch of a tender to find buyers for three new companies to replace ailing flag carrier Olympic Airlines.
Greece’s conservative government announced last week it would break up the troubled airline, ending years of wrangling with Brussels over illegal state aid, with a view to fully privatising it.
“Competitive procedures to choose private investors to buy the three companies — flying, ground handling and aircraft maintenance — will start,” Greece’s privatisations committee said in a statement. “The procedures will proceed as planned.”
The new airline will retain Olympic’s name and trademark — the five Olympic rings that symbolise the five continents.
The ministers of finance, development, transport and labour make up the privatisations committee.
“We are moving to rid citizens of the burden of Olympic Airlines … a burden that costs Greek taxpayers millions of euros each day,” Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis said at a party conference on Friday.
The airline, founded by shipping tycoon Aristole Onassis in 1957, is losing nearly 2 million euros ($2.93 million) a day, and had accumulated debts of 2 billion euros as of last year.
The European Commission has approved the Greek government’s plan to break Olympic into divisions covering flights, ground handling, and maintenance, which would be sold to investors by 2009. So far no suitors have stepped forward.
The Commission has also ordered Olympic to repay 850 million euros in illegal state aid it received between 2005-2007, but Greek officials say most of this is unlikely to be returned.
Late on Thursday, Transport Minister Kostis Hatzidakis tabled amendments to a bill in parliament that would allow the airline to be placed under a “special liquidation status”, offering the carrier protection from creditors.
But the bankruptcy status would not mean the airline would cease operating. Under the plan, Olympic will continue to fly until owners for the new company are found. The amendments will be voted on next week.
The architect of the plan, Hatzidakis has said Olympic’s 8,000 employees would be redeployed at government agencies or compensated.
Unions turned down his invitation for talks, pledged to take their opposition to the streets, and have called a strike on Oct. 1.
The agreement to sell Olympic has also drawn stinging criticism from opposition parties, but the government said it has decided to end a “30-year-old problem” which burdens taxpayers. (Editing by George Georgiopoulos and Simon Jessop)

International Herald Tribune
ATHENS, Greece: Greece launched the bidding process Friday to sell Olympic Airlines, the debt-ridden state carrier, officials said.

A government committee “decided to start the tender process to select private investors” for Olympic, according to a Finance Ministry statement without elaborating.

The carrier would be split into three companies handling flights, ground services and maintenance and repairs, the statement said.

Last week, the EU approved Greece’s plan to break up and fully privatize Olympic by the end of 2009, transferring most of its 8,100 staff to public sector jobs. The company will keep its name and logo.

But the EU said Olympic must pay back state subsidies worth €850 million (US$1.25 billion).

Employee unions oppose the plan, and have staged a series of protests over the past week.

The company has accumulated total losses of around €2.7 billion (US$3.97 billion).

Travelbite
Hundreds of member of staff from the Olympic Airlines have launched a protest against the proposed privatisation of Greece’s flag-carrier airline.

A group of staff blocked a runway at Athens airport, but did not seriously disrupt flights scheduled to take off.

Greece’s conservative government announced last week the ailing airline would be split into three units – all of which are be auctioned off to private investors, ending years of wrangling with the European Commission over illegal state subsidies.

However, it is feared this will lead to wide scale job losses as the airline is rebranded as Pantheon.

In response, around a thousand protesters wearing their official uniforms marched along one of the airport’s two runways.

The European Commission approved the Greek government’s plan to break Olympic into divisions covering flights, ground handling, and maintenance, which would be sold to investors by 2009.

The privatisation comes as soaring fuel prices pile pressure on Europe’s struggling airline industry, with Italian flag-carrier Alitalia presently teetering on the edge of bankruptcy.

Chris O’Toole

Each Way From To

Washington, DC (DCA) Lisbon, Portugal $275
Philadelphia, PA Lisbon, Portugal $280
Chicago, Il (ORD) Lisbon, Portugal $290
Charlotte, NC Lisbon, Portugal $310
San Francisco, CA Lisbon, Portugal $325
Philadelphia, PA Venice, Italy $315
New York, NY (LGA) Venice, Italy $315
Boston, MA Venice, Italy $330
Los Angeles, CA (LAX) Venice, Italy $380
Phoenix, AZ Venice, Italy $400

More International USAir e-savers……

thens – Hundreds of workers with Greek state carrier Olympic Airlines blocked the main runway at Athens International Airport Tuesday over plans to privatise the airline.

The demonstrators, including pilots, air stewards and technicians, prevented planes from taking off and landing on the runway.

Airport officials said the protest forced air traffic controllers to divert planes to a second runway. The demonstration did not affect any flights, they added.

Tuesday’s airport protest was the second in one week.

The European Commission last week approved a government plan to privatise the airline while ordering the current company to pay back more than 1 billion dollars in illegal state aid.

The decision was expected to reverberate in other European countries that are struggling to save their flagship carriers at a time of high oil prices and slowing economic growth.

The more than 8,000 employees at Olympic Airways oppose the government’s plan to privatise the airline, despite promises of early retirement payoffs and transfers to other public sector jobs.

The fate of Olympic Airlines follows that of other European carriers such as Belgium’s Sabena, which was relaunched as Brussels Airlines and is to be taken over by Germany’s Lufthansa.

It could also set an example for Alitalia, which is estimated to be losing around 2 million euros (2.9 million dollars) a day.

Trade unions representing some of Alitalia’s cabin crew have gone on strike in Italy over a government-backed rescue plan for the state airline. The plan involves the airline’s takeover by a group of Italian investors, CAI, and cuts of at least 3,000 jobs.