To be honest, we’re surprised we can form full sentences after last night’s incredible Women in Travel Awards. Please excuse the multitude of spelling errors in this.

The perfect Christmas stopover with British Airways

Singapore will be the perfect Christmas stopover this winter for those travelling to London, UK, Europe and beyond. Operating a daily flight between Sydney and London via Singapore, British Airways offers customers an ideal opportunity to enjoy a tropical Christmas stopover as part of their journey, at no additional cost.

British Airways’ early bird fares include return fares to Singapore from $669* in World Traveller economy class and from $1,273 to the UK and Europe. For more information and booking, please visit ba.com. To add a stopover, customers can simply select the option, ‘book multi-city’ on the booking page.

To get in the Christmas spirit, visitors can explore Singapore’s famous Orchard Road. For six weeks every year, it is transformed into a magical Christmas paradise, filled with millions of glittering lights, festive decorations, and performances by local musicians and carollers. It’s during the festive period that this famous road really comes to life and is at its most enchanting, allowing travellers to enjoy a dazzling array of colour and interactive displays.

AirAsia X celebrates new route to Jaipur, the “Pink City” in India via Kuala Lumpur!

AirAsia X is celebrating the launch of four times-weekly flights to Jaipur, India via Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia commencing 5 February 2018.

The world’s best low cost airline is running a special promotion with all-in fares to Jaipur from AUD$241 one-way. Fares are available on airasia.com and on the AirAsia mobile app for booking now until 25 November 2017 for travel from 5 February 2018 until 06 May 2018.

AirAsia X is the first low-cost long-haul carrier to fly direct from Kuala Lumpur to Jaipur, the capital city of Rajasthan. This follows a successful launch of the Bangkok-Jaipur route in September this year operated by its short-haul affiliate AirAsia Thailand.

The award-winning airline also flies to New Delhi, which commenced in February 2016 and has registered a healthy average load factor of 88 per cent. Jaipur is the 12th destination in India on the AirAsia Group network.

Leezair starts work on their Partner Program

Leezair is a tech company focusing on data with a clear vision for travellers. They started building databases with live connections, then APIs, then built mobile apps listening to early adopters. They don’t focus just on gift vouchers or individuals listing things to do.

One of the missions at Leezair is to empower strategic partners to provide a complete travel experience to their guests. Imagine it – you could simply discover your destination before you land and save tours in your wishlist from the sky. Or discover an activity for your family when you check in at the hotel or instant book from a smart car while driving with kids. This is the future of Tourism and it’s coming sooner than you think. The likes of Amazon, Google and Facebook disrupted the world in less than 10 years thanks to data and the trend is accelerating.

If you are a potential partner feel free to sign up to Leezair Partners and start improving your traveller journey. You will add value to your core business by recommending relevant Experiences, Tours & Activities. It’s free, there is no commitment and you will be able to start distributing in just a few minutes with widgets or simple marketing pilots if you want to test the opportunity first.

Qantas codeshare update with LATAM

From today, Qantas has expanded its code to cover 74 nonstop return services each week between Santiago and São Paulo, and Santiago and Rio de Janeiro operated by LATAM Chile and LATAM Brazil, providing more opportunities for Qantas customers to earn and redeem points.

In addition, Qantas code has been expanded to cover 34 LATAM Chile nonstop return services each week between Santiago and Lima.

In June, Qantas announced its code would be added to LATAM Brazil’s services for between Santiago and São Paulo and Santiago and Rio de Janeiro for the first time.

Qantas currently operates four direct return flights per week between Sydney and Santiago, and codeshares with LATAM Chile on seven return flights per week via Auckland. Qantas also codeshares on LATAM Chile’s direct flight between Melbourne and Santiago, which launched earlier this month and is operated by a Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner.

Finnair to add 100 plus weekly flights including Lapland, Russia, Stuttgart, Lisbon and the Baltics for 2018/19 European Winter

Finnair will continue to grow its operations during the 2018/19 European Winter season with additional capacity on existing routes in Lapland, Russia and the Baltic countries.

Finnair’s direct flights to Lapland from London Gatwick, Paris and Zurich will also continue during the next European Winter.

Stuttgart and Lisbon, two new destinations for Finnair starting on 23 April and 1 June 2018 respectively, will continue throughout the European Winter and become year-round routes for Finnair.

Finnair is adding an overnight flight to Moscow, which will greatly improve connections for Russian passengers travelling to Europe and North America. Additional capacity for St. Petersburg will see the route operated with a larger aircraft.

Tigerair Australia celebrates the airline’s tenth birthday with a network wide super sale and a range of customer activities

Tigerair Australia is celebrating a significant milestone with today marking ten years since the first Tigerair flight from Melbourne to Gold Coast took to the skies in Australia in 2007.

The celebrations begin at 9am this morning AEDT with the launch of a network wide super sale featuring thousands of bargain airfares available across all 24 domestic Tigerair routes, with great value fares starting from $10*. The sale finishes at 11.59pm AEDT Friday 24 November (or until fares sell out), with the vast majority of airfares on sale for travel between the start of May to the end of June 2018.

Tigerair also recently asked its staff members to nominate a deserving family in need of a break and will today send two families on a ‘mystery holiday’ from Melbourne to the Gold Coast. The families will be picked up from their homes by Tigerair cabin crew later this morning and taken to Melbourne Airport’s Terminal 4. The families will be aware they are going on a holiday; however specific details will only be revealed once they arrive at the airport.

Qatar Airways continues expansion in Europe and Russia with additional non-stop flights

Qatar Airways has announced that it will increase daily frequencies to the Scandinavian capitals of Stockholm and Oslo, alongside the Italian cities of Milan and Rome.

Due to an increase in demand to key European destinations, especially from the Asia Pacific region, flights to Rome, Milan and Stockholm will increase to 17 per week from Doha’s Hamad International Airport, while flights to Oslo are set to increase from seven to 10 frequencies per week.

The award-winning airline has also announced that double daily flights to the Russian capital Moscow will increase to three times daily from 14 December, just five days before Qatar Airways’ inaugural daily flight to the Russian city of St. Petersburg. The additional frequency to Moscow will be operated by an Airbus A320 aircraft.

Emirates Group releases 2016/17 Annual Environmental Report

The Emirates Group, comprising Emirates airline and dnata, published its seventh annual Environmental Report which outlines the Group’s environmental performance for the financial year 2016-2017.

Audited by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), the report presents environmental sustainability initiatives and performance data from a range of Group activities covering airline operations, dnata’s cargo and ground handling businesses, and other commercial activities such as engineering and catering.

With 2017 being the United Nations International Year of Sustainable Tourism for Development, the Group has linked its environmental priorities to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals to help it focus better on where it can have the greatest impact.

Surcharge effective for tickets issued on/after 1 December 2017 to 31 January 2018

Fuel Surcharge Amount:
Ex Australia Fares

• to Japan: USD43 oneway / USD86 return
• to Europe: Not applicable
• to North America: Not applicable
• to Beijing: USD49 oneway / USD98 return
• to Seoul: USD45 oneway / USD90 return

The fuel surcharge shall apply to all passengers, and the same amounts apply to adults, children and infants only if they are occupying a seat. Further advice will be sent for tickets issued on/after 1 February 2018.

Hawaiian Airlines Fifth Anniversary of flights to Brisbane

Hawaiian Airlines is staging an event tonight in Brisbane to celebrate Hawaiian Airlines fifth anniversary of service between Brisbane and Honolulu.

They are hosting travel agents and industry partners from Brisbane/SEQ.

Hawaiian’s Regional Director Australia-New Zealand Gai Tyrrell and Karen Macmillan, Director of Sales and Partnerships Australia/New Zealand will be in town together with management and teams from major chains who support Hawaiian.

Qatar Airways Renews its partnership with Orbis UK

Qatar Airways has renewed its sponsorship as Official Airline Partner to Orbis UK for a further three years. The airline has been a proud supporter of Orbis and its blindness prevention programmes since 2012.

Orbis is a global charity that brings people together to fight avoidable blindness through access to quality eye care. Together with its partners, Orbis trains eye teams, strengthens eye care services and works on the ground to provide lasting solutions to communities in need.

Orbis’s pioneering Flying Eye Hospital spearheads the charity’s global efforts to transform lives. The world’s only accredited eye hospital with wings is equipped with a state of the art operating theatre which is connected to a class room at the front of the room with a 3D screen, enabling those learning to get a very real view of the surgery taking place. The aircraft also features pre and post-op spaces for patients to recover.

Leezair launches ‘Give as a Gift’ Feature 

Today, Leezair announced the launch of its ‘Give as a Gift’ feature, allowing users to give the gift of adventure to friends and family.

Users can purchase Leezair gift vouchers of whatever monetary amount they wish.

These gift vouchers can be uniquely customised as the gifter can write a personalised message, choose a photo and select the delivery date for the gift voucher. They can also suggest a Leezair experience for which the giftee can use their voucher.

The premise behind the feature is that giving an experience, as opposed to a material good, is a special and memorable present. What’s more, experiences can be shared, so the giftee and gifter can enjoy experiences and activities together.

With Christmas just around the corner, Leezair gift vouchers are a great present idea for loved ones looking to share unforgettable adventures together.