Ryanair gets more Ryanair every day. Here is a video of the Ryanair calendar girls on location in Alicante (including Edita Schindlerova, the air hostess 'outed' by the Sun a few months ago for moonlighting as a porn star). Makes you think - exactly what does Ryanair understand by "no-frills?"

Like high-street lights and jingle bells in the supermarket, the Ryanair calendar is an annual reminder that Christmas is upon us once again. As usual, the girls are Ryanair cabin crew, and proceeds are to go to the KIDS charity. The calendar is on sale on Ryanair flights, priced at €10.

My interest was piqued when Ryanair began issuing pre-emptive rebuttals before (October 9th and 11th) the Panorama programme on the low-cost airline was broadcast (October 12th). Ryanair then promised to issue "100,000 Free Seats for Every False Claim on BBC Panorama." But the BBC does not allow its TV programmes to be seen on the Internet outside the UK, so I missed it. Then came the reactions. "Panorama fails to ‘expose’ Ryanair," said TravelMole. "Both sides came off badly," said Damian Corrigan, who has my old Spain slot on About.com. Ryanair announced that it was giving away 1.1 million free seats, and identified Panorama's 11 "false or misleading claims." Dang, this is too good to miss, I thought, so (entirely in the public interest, of course), I did a bit of proxy wizardry on my PC and sat through 'Why Hate Ryanair?'. And I came away with the same impression as Damian and TravelMole, that both the BBC and Ryanair had taken a bruising, without a clear winner emerging.

Spanish trade union Comisiones Obreras (CCOO) has called 24-hour strikes of easyJet maintenance staff at Palma de Mallorca, Tenerife, Alicante and Málaga Airports on the last three Saturdays in August - August 15th, 22nd and 29th. Málaga Airport is expected to be the most affected, with a possible 34 flights disrupted. Other Spanish airports should not be affected.