Five For Friday

Richard Maslen September 09, 2010

AIR ARABIA MAROC TO SERVE ALEXANDRIA

The Moroccan subsidiary of Sharjah based Air Arabia, will launch a thrice-weekly service from its Casablanca base to its Egyptian base of Alexandria effective October 4^th. From October 31^st, the thrice weekly rotation will then become a four-times weekly service.

ESTONIAN AIR ADDS NEW LITHUANIAN SERVICE

Estonian Air has announced a second scheduled route from the Lithuanian capital of Vilnius. It currently operates a six-times weekly service to Amsterdam, however will now operate the same frequency to Stockholm Arlanda. There is currently no service between the city pairs. IATA BSP data shows that over 36,000 O+D passengers travelled the route between June 2009 and June 2010. Since the demise of Lithuanian flag carrier FlyLAL there has been a battle for capacity in Vilnius with AirBaltic offering a number of services and Star1 Airlines which recently announced a number of new services.

FLYBE TAKES ADVANTAGE AT BELFAST CITY

As predicted in last weeks HUB, Flybe has announced that it will add new services in Belfast City (BHD) after the Ryanair decision to pull its base of a single B737-800.

The Exeter headquarted carrier will open new services to Bristol, Liverpool and East Midlands effective October 31. It will launch a twice-daily to Bristol and East Midlands and a four-times daily service Liverpool.

SMARTWINGS ADDS BUCHAREST AND AMSTERDAM

Prague based carrier Smartwings, the low-cost subsidiary of Travel Service Airlines has announced new scheduled services to Amsterdam and Bucharest. Smartwings operates mainly charter services but has started to develop a more substantial scheduled network. Its services to Bucharest and Amsterdam will begin November 1st.

On the Prague- Amsterdam sector it will compete with KLM which operates 14 weekly flights, CSA Czech Airlines 21 weekly and low-cost operator easyJet which operates seven weekly rotations.

SkyTeam member CSA Czech Airlines operates 13 weekly flights to Bucharest's Henri Coanda which is where SmartWings will fly.

FINNAIR EXPANDS ASIAN PRESENCE

Oneworld member Finnair plans to increase its capacity into Asia for this coming winter season. According to September Flightbase data Finnair currently operates 60 weekly flights to Asia from its Helsinki hub, with services to Shanghai, Beijing, Tokyo Narita, Nagoya, Osaka Kansai, Seoul Incheon, Hong Kong, Delhi and Bangkok. For this coming winter season it will increase frequencies on the following routes;