Air France is mulling its own budget airline under the umbrella brand of KLM’s low-cost Transavia unit, the newspaper reports, adding it hasn’t yet been decided whether the Transavia brand would be maintained for it.

Die Welt says that while Transavia flies from Dutch destinations also served by KLM, French pilot unions have so far managed to block Transavia from the routes in France that Air France already serves.

In terms of Air France-KLM’s long-haul strategy, the article says the airline is focusing principally on China.

Etihad Airways, the flag carrier of the United Arab Emirates and major shareholder of German airline Air Berlin PLC , has offered Air France-KLM a cooperation, the article says.

“A co-operation with Etihad would only make sense for us for the Paris – Abu Dhabi connection and some other transfer destinations,” the article quotes Spinetta as saying.

“By contrast a wide-reaching co-operation would be possible if Air Berlin and its transport network in the German market were factored in,” the article quotes the CEO as saying, adding Air France-KLM is considering that option.

Brought up by an expat Austrian mother and a Chinese-Malaysian father, it’s perhaps no wonder that Rachel Khoo one day decided to make a go of life abroad. The vivacious former PR girl left London on a whim to enroll in a patisserie course in Paris in 2006 and, as she puts it, “have a bit of an adventure”. Fast-forward six years, and she’s not only had an adventure; she’s also become something of a celebrity along the way.

“The young used to go to discos,” said Barcelona’s councilor for women and civil rights, “But now they go to brothels. It’s just another form of entertainment to them.” The EU’s open borders and cheap travel is fueling the boom in Spain, along with a legal and unregulated sex industry there, say experts. One small border town just opened a 101-room brothel, one of the largest in Europe. “For me, life is finished,” said a woman smuggled into Spain from Romania and forced to work as a prostitute, “I will never forget that I have done this.”

Women such as Valentina, whose story the Times sketches with soul-crushing detail, are lured from Eastern Europe with promises of legitimate work in a hotel, only to essentially be held hostage by the people who helped bring them to Spain and are threatened with death if they don’t become sex workers. Other groups, like the Nigerians, control women by threatening their families, while still others are sold to traffickers by their own families.

Thirty years ago, virtually all the prostitutes in Spain were Spanish. Now, almost none are. Advocates and police officials say that most of the women are controlled by illegal networks – they are modern-day slaves.

Prostitutes have been able to practice their trade freely and advertise frequently in the “Relax” section of the classifieds in newspapers and magazines written in thinly veiled sexual jargon. However, a proposal in July 2011 suggested that all contact sections of newspapers should be closed down to prevent the advertising of prostitution.

Meanwhile, the visibility of the sex industry has come under fire recently, most notably in a political battle over whether to allow newspapers to advertise prostitution ads, which appear in even the most reputable publications. And while some politicians would like to see prostitution outlawed outright, others worry that it would only force the trafficking industry further underground and make it even harder to help women caught in its already hidden web.

The problem in a country such as Spain, where prostitution is essentially legal, isn’t a dearth of legislation aimed at stamping out sex trafficking — Western Europe realized in the 90s that women were being trafficked from the former Soviet Union and created a legal framework to deal with the problem. Putting those measures into practice, however, and adequately policing sex trafficking is another thing altogether. The trafficking industry is huge, with some 2.4 million people according to the United Nations being “traded” at any one time. The operators of human trafficking networks pull in US$32 billion a year, and almost 80 percent of of those trafficked are sexually exploited. Women account for two thirds of trafficking victims and only one out of every 100 is rescued each year.

What is illegal is street prostitution. Both prostitutes and their clients can be prosecuted in some parts of Spain, including Barcelona.

Prostitution in Spain doesn’t have the stigma that it has in other countries. According to another Expatica.com article for the Spanish, going with a prostitute “damages a marriage far less than an affair.” In a recent survey, it was found that one in four Spanish men has paid for sex.

However, prostitution in Spain is not the regulated wholesome affair that it is in, say, Holland, and prostitutes in Spain should be avoided. Many double up as pickpockets, especially in busy areas like Gran Via in Madrid and Las Ramblas in Barcelona. So keep well away.

The practice is, in other words, big business, and big business has a way of maintaining whatever status quo of legal loopholes or law enforcement lassitude that allows it to create the largest possible profit margin. In a business that commodifies the human body, stamping out exploitation can be difficult, since sex work — even the totally legitimate kind where workers are willing and more or less (insofar as any working person who needs to pay bills can be) autonomous is itself exploitative. Then again, so is waiting tables, performing open heart surgery, or arguing a case in front of the Supreme Court — any functioning economy, whether legitimate or otherwise, requires its participants to exploit whatever assets they’ve honed through practice and a varying degree of formal or informal education.

The persistent abuse of trafficked sex workers isn’t evidence the sex trade should be made illegal or that its workers should be pushed to the fringes of society, out of sight and mind of the law and the general public. Such abuse only reveals the iniquity suffered by women (and men) who are deemed only marginal members of the society they live in because of the way they earn a living. Until squeamish and misogynistic attitudes (which you better believe still exist in even the outwardly progressive metropolises of Western Europe) about sex and the human body vanish from at least the Western consciousness, no mountain of legal assurances can stymie the flow of trafficked sex workers, since they’ll still exist on the fringes of a culture not yet comfortable with the whims of whatever sits between its legs.

Statistics Mauritius said on Tuesday arrivals for the first three months of 2012 fell to 261,995 from 262,626 in the period a year ago, although March arrivals rose 0.6 percent to 83,827.

Visitors from France dropped 2.7 percent to 89,626 while arrivals from Europe overall declined to 171,669 from 176,460.

Tourism typically generates about 10 percent of gross domestic product for Mauritius’ $10 billion economy. European tourists account for some two-thirds of arrivals.

The tourism industry in Mauritius has been hit by the fallout from the global economic slowdown and continued worries about the euro zone crisis.

“It’s a sign of capitulation and obedience to illegal orders from the Israeli government since European regulations state that people have the right to travel,” Nicolas Shahshahani, an organizer with a French delegation of approximately 500 persons originally planning to arrive in Tel Aviv on Sunday, 15 April, said.

German airline Lufthansa cancelled all flights from French airports into Tel Aviv scheduled for Sunday. Activists also reported that British airline Jet2.com, Air France and EasyJet had cancelled activists’ tickets, after Israel circulated a no-fly list and threatened legal action should the airlines transport the activists to Tel Aviv.

Up to 2,000 international Palestine solidarity activists had booked flights to Tel Aviv in order to spend a week volunteering and visiting different areas of the occupied West Bank, including Bethlehem, Hebron, Ramallah and the Jordan Valley. They planned to openly announce their intention to visit areas under Israeli occupation upon arrival at the airport.

The activities — which include renovating a kindergarten, planting trees and repairing water wells — were coordinated with 25 local Palestinian organizations.

France is also Malta’s fourth largest tourist market. During the past five years, French tourist arrivals increased from 72,000 to 103,000.

French tourists can now opt to board a Malta-bound aircraft from the Charles de Gaulle and Orly airports in Paris, Marseille and Toulouse.

“Malta is the place to be, today,” according to Air France KLM CEO Christian Lahccen, who commended the warm welcome given to the airline’s first clients on the island.

Malta will be featuring in Air France’s in-flight and e-magazines, and French journalists will also be brought over on informational visits as part of an on-going promotional campaign.

“However, apart from enhancing our existing markets, we also have to find new emerging ones,” Tourism Minister Mario de Marco said, adding that one such market – Israeli arrivals – had grown from 3,000 to 30,000 in three years. The Spanish market has also increased threefold to 60,000, from 20,000 in 2009.

Additional scheduled flights made it easier for tourists to reach Malta as a destination, he pointed out. In fact, the number of direct scheduled routes to Malta had increased from 47 in 2007 to 81 this year.

Foodies can enjoy Croatian specialities such as fresh olive oils, fine wines and fresh fish as well as listen to presentations all around the popular Croatian holiday region of Istria.

Top wine producers Giorgio Clai, Moreno Coronica and Franc Arman will present their wines personally and of course you can have a taste! Croatian olive oil producer Valter Smilović who was voted one of the best olive oil producers in the Italian Olive Oil Bible will be presenting his very best Croatian oils.

Ranko Vlatkovic, director of Croatian tourism in Vienna, as well as Bernard Musulin expert in gourmet tourism in Croatia will also be on hand to present the very best of Istria tourism to guests whilst they taste the specialities on offer.

Following the presentation guests can enjoy a meal in the top quality restaurant.

IAG, which agreed in December to buy BMI for 172.5 million pounds ($275 million), will cede 14 takeoff and landing slots at Heathrow to rivals out of the 56 controlled by BMI and connect passengers to competing long-haul flights there in order to maintain competition, the European Commission said today.

“It’s a price worth paying and, if anything, makes integrating BMI somewhat easier in the short-term as there’s less pressure to find a profitable use for all of its slots,” said Douglas McNeill, a transport analyst at Charles Stanley in London who recommends buying IAG stock.

Opponents of the merger who include Virgin Atlantic Airways Ltd. and Scottish lawmakers say it will give BA a monopoly on flights to Scotland and northern England from Heathrow, which operates at 99 percent of capacity, making slots expensive and tough to come by. Lufthansa Chief Executive Officer Christoph Franz said March 20 that the deal was vital to save BMI jobs.

In creating a travel company specifically geared towards wheelchair users, two women in Russia have fulfilled their dream as well as those of their clients.

The last Air France-KLM flight left Manila for Amsterdam on Sunday night. The flights were discontinued because of the CCT.

Urcem made the statement after he was informed that House Bill 444 had been approved on second reading; the measure now needs only the approval of President Aquino to become law.

Once signed, the CCT, which earns the Bureau of Internal Revenue some P1.3 billion in annual income, would be scrapped.

“I am very happy, but we will have to reconsider the operations. You have to make decisions long in advance. You are working with very, very expensive aircraft and you have to make a complete summer and winter schedule,” Urceem said.

He added: “We cannot bring them [direct flights] back to the old schedule anymore, but as we mentioned before, if the change comes and it is final, we will reconsider.”

Earlier, Urceem said that they needed to see the total abolition of the CCT before KLM and the rest of the European airlines decide to resume direct flights from Europe to Manila.

AF-KLM terminated 60 years of direct flights to Manila and started intermediate stops to Taipei in December 2011 after complaining of difficult economic circumstances and high fuel costs servicing the Manila-Amsterdam routes.

However, the airline said it has decided to transform its current non-stop operations between Manila and Amsterdam to one, with an intermediate stop in Taipei to pick up passengers before continuing the journey onward.

Scores of European carriers have terminated direct flights from Manila to Europein the past years because of the imposition of the 3-percent CCT and 2.5-percent gross on billings tax.