Five For Friday

CHINA SOUTHERN GOES DAILY TO JEDDAH

SkyTeam member China Southern will increase to a daily service to Jeddah from Beijing for the Summer 2011 season. Effective March 27th the existing four-times weekly service which is an extension of its Beijing to Dubai service will be increased to daily. Cathay Pacific is currently the market leader in terms of passenger share between Beijing and Jeddah with its services via Hong Kong.


ROYAL JORDANIAN STEPS UP SRILANKAN ROUTE

Amman based Royal Jordanian has announced an increase in scheduled service from its Amman hub to the capital of Sri Lanka, Colombo. It will now increase the route from a thrice-weekly to a four-times weekly. Royal Jordanian currently has a 51% of the existing annual O+D market of over 35,000 passengers.


RAM ANNOUNCES NEW EUROPEAN ROUTES

Royal Air Maroc has announced new scheduled service from its Casablanca base to Porto and Valencia. The new routes will commence December 18th and will both be operated on a thrice-weekly basis, with regional ATR72 equipment.


SAX ADDS CAPE TOWN LINK

South African Express has announced new scheduled service from Durban to Cape Town which will be operated thrice-daily. The route will be effective January 10th, 2011 with CRJ200 aircraft deployed on the route. IATA BSP data shows that over 800,000 O+D passengers flew the route between September 2009 and 2010, with South African Airways having a 29% share.


FLYDUBAI ADDS SAUDI ARABIAN SERVICE

Low-cost operator FlyDubai has announced that it will begin scheduled services to Yanbu in 2011. Effective January 7th, the Emirates subsidiary will begin a six-times weekly service, its second destination to the Kingdom, following its existing operation to Abha. FlyDubai will hope to gain increased market share of the existing O+D market from Dubai to Saudi Arabia of over 853,000 annual passengers. Saudi Arabian Airlines currently has a 61% share of this traffic.

Richard Maslen

Richard Maslen has travelled across the globe to report on developments in the aviation sector as airlines and airports have continued to evolve and…