CONTINENTAL LAUNCHES NEW YORK – STUTTGART CONNECTION
Continental Airlines is to launch a daily service between its New York hub at Newark Liberty International Airport and the German city of Stuttgart from June 9, subject to Government approval. The flight will be operated by a Boeing 757-200 configured with 16 BusinessFirst and 159 Economy seats. Stuttgart will be the fifth German city to be served by the new United, formed last year by the merger of Continental and United Airlines. Continental already serves Berlin, Frankfurt, Hamburg and Munich from New York/Newark and Frankfurt from its Houston hub, while United serves Frankfurt from its Chicago, San Francisco and Washington, D.C. hubs and Munich from Chicago and Washington, D.C.
AIR EUROPA TO LAUNCH MADRID - MEXICO CITY
Air Europa will launch flights from Madrid to Mexico City from June 2 complementing the operations of its fellow SkyTeam alliance partner Aeromexico on the route. The Spanish carrier, which already offers a daily Madrid – Cancun service, will initially offer a four-times weekly schedule although capacity will be reduced to three flights per week from September 19. There is a strong demand for flights between Spain and Mexico, with around 562,000 O&D passengers travelling between the two countries in 2010, almost half of which travelling between Madrid and Mexico City, a route also served twice daily by Iberia. Air Europa holds a 58 per cent share of the 62,000 O&D passengers that travelled between Madrid and Cancun and is confident its success on this route, alongside European feed from its SkyTeam partners in Europe, will enable it to complete Aeromexico well on the new flight.
VOLARIS CONFIRMS NEW LINKS TO FRESNO AND LOS ANGELES
Mexican low-cost carrier Volaris has received approval from the US Department of Transportation to launch services on up to 23 new routes between Mexico and the US (click here to see original story). As such, it has confirmed plans to launch a four-times weekly Guadalajara – Fresno service and a three-times weekly Monterrey – Los Angeles connection from April 14. It will be the only operator on the two routes, its first link to Fresno and its fifth to Los Angeles, which its already serves from Guadalajara (24 flights per week), Morelia (four), Toluca (four) and Zacatecas (three). The airline, formed in March 2006, already holds a 15.9 per cent share of the domestic market but is now targeting the US for growth following the collapse of Mexicana last year. Alongside its services to Los Angeles, Volaris has flights to Chicago Midway, Oakland and San Jose from Guadalajara and is adding Las Vegas to its network this month.
COPA AIRLINES ADDS LINK TO BRASILIA
Panamanian carrier COPA Airlines is to launch a four-times weekly connection to Brasilia from its Tocumen International Airport base in Panama City. The new route will be introduced from June 18 and will be its fourth new destination this summer, after Porto Alegre, Toronto and Nassau. COPA will this summer serve six destinations in Brazil – Belo Horizonte Brasilia, Manaus, Porto Alegre, Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo – with a combined 45 weekly flights. It is currently the sole operator into Brazil from Tocumen International; an O&D market of over 66,000 passengers in 2010.
TAM AIRLINES TO SERVE RIO DE JANEIRO – FRANKFURT DAILY
Brazil’s TAM Airlines is to introduce a further two weekly rotations on the Rio de Janeiro – Frankfurt route from May 1, providing a daily schedule. The additional flights will operate from Rio on Monday and Thursday nights, returning from Germany the following evenings. However, they will operate at slightly different times from TAM’s existing service and thus have been allocated different flight numbers. TAM already offers a daily schedule to Frankfurt from Sao Paulo and is currently the largest operator between Brazil and Germany holding a 29 per cent stake of an estimated 441,000 O&D passenger market.
INSEL AIR BOOSTS CARIBBEAN ACTIVITIES
Further to our exclusive interview with Jurgen Lippinkhof, Chief Commercial Officer, Insel Air, at Routes Americas in Santo Domingo last month, we can now confirm more information about the first phase of the airline’s Caribbean expansion. It will add a weekly rotation on its Curacao – St. Maarten – San Juan route from April 5 and will inaugurate twice weekly flights between Curacao and Medellin from April 15. The additional flights will be operated with McDonnell Douglas MD-83s. Meanwhile, the airline is finalising negotiations to add three 50-seat turboprops to its fleet, believed to be Fokker 50s. These are expected to be used to introduce additional regional flights within the Caribbean from its Curacao base. Based on its current GDS display, Insel Air will this summer serve nine non-stop destinations from Curacao – Aruba, Kingston, Kralendijk, Medellin, Miami International, Paramaribo, St Maarten and the Venezuelan cities of Las Piedras and Valencia – and is the largest operator there by weekly frequency and capacity.
LANPERU TO LAND IN EASTER ISLAND AGAIN IN 2012
LAN Peru is expected to relaunch seasonal flights between Lima and Easter Island in January 2012 despite announcing that it will close its existing route in April this year. The carrier launched twice-weekly flights to the Polynesian island in the southeastern Pacific Ocean on January 5, but revealed later the same month that it would suspend the link from April 6. It has now said that it will once again serve the route from January next year using Boeing 767-300s on a twice weekly rotation, but declines to confirm if this will be for just a three month period, like this year, or a longer schedule. LAN Peru’s sister carrier LAN Chile is the only scheduled carrier operating year-round flights to the Island with a daily link to Santiago and a weekly flight to Papeete.
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