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Delta Air Lines has doubled its fee to check a second bag for domestic flights to $50 from $25 to help offset record fuel prices.

The carrier has also announced a number of baggage fee increases on domestic and international flights including a rise in the cost for items that require special handling such as surfboards or ski equipment. Furthermore it has increased the price for a third checked bag from $80 to $125 on domestic flights and from $150 to $200 on international flights, as well as raised fees for bags that exceed passengers normal weight allowance.

Irish carrier Ryanair Budget Flights has announced plans to establish two new bases in Italy. The airline will initially position a single Boeing 737-800 at Forli from March 2009 for use on domestic routes, while from March 2010 two aircraft will begin flying from Bologna with plans to grow the fleet to five aircraft in the future. Ahead of the opening of the two bases the company will transfer seven of its existing routes (Birmingham, Charleroi, Dublin, Frankfurt / Hahn, Girona, London / Stansted and Valencia) from Forli to Bologna from this winter.

Virgin Atlantic Airways has reported a pre-tax profit before exceptional items of £60.9 million for the past financial year and attributed this to a significant increase in business passengers. The UK airline says it has seen a 22% rise in premium passengers, while total passengers increased by 7.6% to a record 5.7 million. Virgin Atlantic claims it has benefited from what it describes as the T5 Effect and said it has attracted custom away from British Airways.

Virgin Atlantic has started the current year strongly, reporting a pre-tax profit of £23.5 million for the first quarter of this financial year. Its also says its cash position remains strong with nearly £600 million in the bank at the end of the financial year.

Easyjet Budget Flights is to introduce its first factory new Airbus A320 models into its fleet having converted orders for 25 A319s to the larger variant. The aircraft, likely to be powered by CFM International’s CFM56 engines will help it to develop a standard configuration throughout its Airbus short haul fleet.

Some will replace the nine A320s and six A321s acquired following easyjets takeover of GB Airways last year, which are expected to be returned to the lessor. The GB Airways models are fitted with the International Aero Engines (IAE) V2500 powerplant and have a different internal configuration to the rest of the fleet. According to Airbus, easyjets order backlog now consists of 84 A319s and 25 A320s.

Russian operator Transaero has been ranked as the country’s largest international carrier in terms of passenger traffic for the first time, beating long time rival Aeroflot Russian Airlines to the prestigious position. According to official figures from the Transport Clearing House, Transaero carried 522,568 passengers in June 2008 (up 75% on the same month last year), Aeroflot was just behing with 517,949 and S7 Airlines a long way back handling just 174,447 passengers.