UPDATE: Rather bizarre turn of events two hours after this article was originally posted. TripAdvisor is either on a recruitment drive or has turned into one of those companies that likes to create quirky and edgy videos to show off how, err, quirky and edgy it is. Or both.... Read More

Aircell, which is implementing its Gogo Wi-Fi solution on the aircraft of major North American airlines, picked up $176 million in equity financing from new and existing investors. Aircell stated that the proceeds will go "for capital investments for network expansion and operating needs during this rapid growth phase of the business." The company says it has installed its Wi-Fi service on more than 700 commercial aircraft and has commitments from nine airlines. Among them are Air Canada, AirTran, American Airlines, Delta Air Lines, United Airlines, Virgin America and US Airways.... Read More

A new website -- coming "soon" -- forsakes the comprehensiveness gods and will focus on discount airlines only. Budget Center, which recently launched BudgetHotels through an affiliate deal with HotelsCombined, aims to launch BudgetAirlines.com in the next week or so, and plans to have an exclusive focus on low-cost carriers because "discounted flights and airlines are generally difficult to source on large travel sites such as Expedia and Travelocity and are being under-serviced to online consumers," the company says. The company says BudgetAirlines will search discount airlines -- including Southwest, JetBlue and WestJet -- but "will not search for flights from the major carriers such as British Airways, Cathay Pacific etc. as these airlines do not represent its target market."... Read More

There once was a day when consumers could visit an airline website and simply purchase a flight ticket. In North America, Air Canada kicked off the end of that simple process several years ago when the airline introduced branded fares -- Tango, Tango Plus, Latitude, and later Executive First Lowest and Executive First Flexible -- all with their own attributes. Now, along comes the new Continental Airlines chairman and CEO, Jeff Smisek, who took over these posts Jan. 1, and he apparently has a conceptual vision for Continental's future which parallels what Air Canada and other airlines have done. But to Smisek, it's all about pizza and lactose intolerance.... Read More

Twelve months ago almost to the day Tourism Queensland re-wrote the travel marketing rule book with its widely praised - and much copied - multimedia PR campaign. Ben Southall, winner of the Best Job in the World campaign, ended his tenure on the infamous Queensland island this week and is now hitting the talk shows in the US. The next phase of his "caretaker" job for Reef Island is as an evangelist-on-tour for Tourism Queensland, most notably on Fox News in the US this week alongside Anna Bligh, premier of the Australian state.... Read More

Read the headline again... That's right, the UK's official body which represents the interests of travel organisations and consumers has a rather interesting idea. But first, some background: two key distribution models are emerging in consumer-facing online travel.... Read More

Tom Klein - heir apparent? Sabre Holdings announced today that Klein, who had been executive vice president of Sabre's GDS and airlines solutions businesses, was appointed president of the company. In the history of Sabre Holdings, it has never had a presidential slot, the company says, and created the position for Klein's role. With Sabre - and Amadeus, too - reportedly mulling initial public offerings, Sabre competitor Travelport, raised eyebrows in November when it likewise created a new position, deputy CEO, and tapped Gordon Wilson to fill the slot.... Read More

Southwest Airlines chairman and CEO Gary Kelly says he'd welcome the prospect of other airlines stepping up their bag-fee increases because they have provided impetus to Southwest's market-share gains. "Let them charge $100 for bags," Kelly says. "We'll have 100% load factors." Speaking to analysts Jan. 21 after the airline recorded $116 million in profits for the fourth quarter, Kelly notes that overall the U.S. domestic airline market is not growing, yet Southwest picked up 1% in market share, which he labels "huge," on increased passenger traffic despite a capacity cut of 8%.... Read More

With Priceline releasing its new commercial featuring the omnipresent William Shatner as The Negotiator, metasearch engine Kayak is also in quickly with its latest effort. The ad, known simply as Kissing, features two insatiable office workers who struggle to contain themselves during an important meeting.... Read More

Plenty of praise for a major development by mobile handset manufacturer Nokia to produce what some believe is a serious threat to the sat-nav GPS systems but is probably more of a rearguard against recent similar moves by Google. The upgraded Ovi maps are being touted as a personal sat-nav (it uses similar tracking technology) coupled with trip planning and other travel-friendly features such as location and activity search and networking. Missing from the announcement was any mention of Dopplr, the travel social network and trip planning business that Nokia acquired in 2009.... Read More

Significant moves in Scandinavian online travel with news that TravelStart has sold its European business to Swedish rival eTRAVELi, a consortium of web-based travel brands. TravelStart founder Stephan Ekbergh will retain the rights to the South African division of the company and continue to operate the business as the market leader in Africa with a view to expanding in other emerging markets. The undisclosed deal gives the eTRAVELi group a major presence in the Nordic market through its portfolio of ten consumers brands including TravelStart, FlyBillet, Seat24 and GoToGate.... Read More

Continental Airlines provided an update Jan. 21 on the status of various onboard technology services. The airline will begin this summer installing Gogo Inflight Internet service on the carrier's 21 Boeing 757-300 aircraft. Powered by Aircell network, the Wi-Fi service will be available in the lower 48 states -- the continental U.S. -- starting at $4.95, depending on the flight length. Around these parts -- North America -- Air Canada, AirTran, American Airlines, Delta, United and Virgin America offer Gogo Wi-Fi at least on some flights. US Airways plans to introduce Gogo Internet service on its 50 A321 aircraft "early in 2010."... Read More

Two travel companies - HostelWorld and Teletext Holidays - have joined the frantic rush to develop Apple iPhone applications. The Dublin-based HostelWorld app is a major attempt at replicating much of the functionality on the main website onto the handset including hostel bookings, ability to view photos and read reviews of accommodation and pinpoint a user's location on a local. The free app also allows users to store favourites and personal preferences for later use.... Read More

In the fifth of a series of exclusive interviews, Tnooz Node Claude Benard meets Klaus Kohlmayr, director of IDeaS Advantage. Kohlmayr discusses how hotels can improve their yield and revenue management systems, ancillary revenues and takes questions from readers via Twitter.... Read More

Major U.S. online travel agencies picked up a victory on the hotel tax issue Jan. 20 when a district court judge issued a summary judgment, dismissing hotel occupancy tax claims brought by the City of Houston, Harris County and the Houston Sports Authority. The defendants' argued that the complaint should be dismissed because the OTAs do not control hotel inventory and the judge apparently agreed by dismissing the suit. The ruling in Houston stands in contrast to a decision last fall in San Antonio, Texas, in a class-action lawsuit brought on behalf of 173 of the state's municipalities. In that ruling, Expedia Inc., Priceline.com, Orbitz Worldwide and Travelocity were socked with a $20.6 million hotel occupancy tax tab as a federal jury concurred with the plaintiffs that the OTAs were "controlling hotels" when they offered rooms on a merchant model basis.... Read More