On Thursday, Scandinavian carrier SAS said that it had abandoned its schemes to sell its loss-making unit Spanair as a result of challenging market conditions, bringing its shares ten per cent down.

The carrier, half-owned by Sweden, Denmark and Norway, revealed in a statement that a tough market in Spain, sky-rocketing prices of fuel and turbulence in the financial market meant it had not accomplished its targets and conditions for the bookings.

Mats Jansson, chief executive of the carrier, said, "The value we could realize does not reflect the underlying value in Spanair".

After the deal inked in the month of November and introducing Spanair's mobile boarding service. Spanair and Vodafone have now pulled out their collaboration to include spanair.mobi on Vodafone live, which would be very beneficial for the passengers.

As part of its pledge to mobility services, Spanair has created its portal spanair.mobi that allows accessibility from all mobile phones with a direct internet access without paying any extras.

The introduction of spanair.mobi on Vodafone Live allows nearly 10 million users having a Vodafone Live handset to have access to a number of services including Check-in, flight changes, consulting the times and flight status; and Information on Spanair, the new Spanair x 4 structure, checking their Spanair Plus points, offers, Spanair hotels and Express sales,

Spain's Iberia said on Thursday that it would give up its bid for Spanair, shortly after the Chairman said that the carrier was reconsidering its stand on the move due to tough times in the industry.

In a statement issued to the Spanish Stock Exchange after the closing of the market, Iberia said that it would take out its bid as there was no agreement on conditions of the offer.

Shares of the airline all over the world have been affected in recent months as a result of a huge rise in oil prices and a slowdown in economic development, making its bid steeper than when the board of the Spanish carrier passed an offer in the month of February.

By way of reaffirming its pledge to the Valencian Community, Spanair is increasing its services to and from Valencia and Alicante by 13%. Under this move, the frequency of services between Alicante and the cities of Madrid and Barcelona will be increased in addition to those between Valencia and Madrid. This move intended for the summer season is expected to establish the position of Spanair as the top carrier for the Lavente region.

Notably, Spanair is the only airline in the Alicante-Lanzarote route to launch its services once again to operate from June till the end of the summer season. Initially, a Tuesday frequency will give a start to the move. Eventually between 31st July and 28th August, there will be additional flights on Thursdays. Similarly from 3rd May until 14th June and from 20th September until 25th October, Spanair will offer links between Alicante and Bilbao with services on Saturdays.

The other moves include a five times weekly service between Alicante and Madrid and a six times weekly service between on the Alicante-Tenerife Sur route in April.

Jerez de la Frontera is one of Spanair's strategic destinations: on the route to/from Jerez de la Frontera, the Palma De Majorca based carrier has the most expanded network for domestic services and is the second placed carrier in terms of the number of passengers it served.

For its summer schedule, Spanair will strengthen its operations in Jerez de la Frontera. It will start serving routes between Jerez and Tenerife Sur, and between Jerez and Gran Canarias. Exclusively operated by Spanair, these two routes will be served every Thursday.

Between Jerez and Madrid, the carrier operates four flights per day on weekdays (from Mondays to Fridays) and two flights on the weekend.

Spanair, the airline based in Palma de Mallorca, Spain, has confirmed that Scandinavia is one of its key destinations.

Also, the airline is the leading operator in terms of the number of flights operated between Copenhagen and Spain, respectively Stockholm and Spain along with SAS Scandinavian Airlines-a code-share associate of Spanair.

Spanair operates most of the flights serving the route between the Danish capita and Spain, with a total of 37 weekly flights between Copenhagen and Madrid, Barcelona, Palma de Mallorca and Malaga.

To be launched in the spring, Ryanair has planned to help its passengers use their mobile phones while in-flight.

Interestingly, the low-cost operator will be fitting out 25 of its aircrafts with the technology provided by OnAir. The project will be accomplished in the quarter extending from June and April. Benefitted by this technology, the passengers in-flight can make international calls via their mobile phones. The calls will be charged at international roaming rates and notably, Ryanair will be receiving a cut of this profit on each of the calls.

Though it was expected that the service would be launched last year, Ryanair boss Michael O'Leary remarked that the regulatory approval was actually taking longer time than what was expected. The results of tests are expected to arrive in March, which will allow Ryanair to launch this facility in its aircrafts after this date.

With effect from 5th of November, Spanair has further enhanced its punctuality guarantee to improve the standards of its services to its customers. The airline has stretched its commitment further 30th June 2008.

Set up for the first time in the Madrid-Barcelona route on 12th February 2001, this commitment has been extended to all the domestic routes of the airline. Unique to the Spanish aviation industry, this commitment is now into its sixth year. This would be welcome news for customers, as they can expect a lot from this offer till it runs.

Under the Punctuality Guarantee system, the airline rewards the Business Avant travellers by issuing an Avant electronic voucher, which the passenger can exchange for another flight in any class based on his choice. The scheme covers the whole of Spanish peninsula and the Balearic Islands. For availing a travel to or from the Canary Islands, the passengers will need to produce two electronic vouchers.

In partnership with Vodafone, Spanair has introduced its new mobile boarding card service providing the mobile connectivity services from the beginning of this month.

With this move, Spanair becomes the first airline to provide this service to its passengers after IATA published a mobile boarding standard on the basis of two-dimensional codes. This service will be operated till the end of this year in the Madrid-Bilbao route. Thereon, the company will start rolling out the mobile boarding card on all its domestic routes.

This innovative system focuses mainly on business passengers. Under this system, a Spanair boarding card will be forwarded to the mobile of the passenger through a multimedia message (MMS) containing an image with a two-dimensional code transmitting the information necessary for automated boarding with all travel details. This requires the passengers to avail their boarding cards from special check-in desks and pass the code through a scanner.

From October 1, Spanair is adding a new flight to its Madrid-Girona timetable, which will now feature four daily return flights on weekdays.

Spanair carried over 60,000 passengers with since the launch of the route on the 29th January – it is proof of the steady growth in passenger traffic between Girona and Madrid.

In the opening timetable, there were only two flights, with an addition of another flight in mid-April.