News from Asia 亚洲新闻

AIR CHINA RAMPS UP DELHI

Air China will increase its scheduled flights from Beijing to Delhi in 2011. Effective August 29th the existing three-times weekly frequency will become a four-times weekly flight. The only other carrier operating this route is Ethiopian Airlines with fifth freedom rights serving it daily. IATA BSP data shows that over 58,000 O+D passengers flew this sector between September 2009 and September 2010.


STRATEGICAL MOVE INTO PHUKET

Australian operator Strategic Air will begin services into Phuket, Thailand from Febraury 2011. Effective February 22nd it will launch a twice-weekly service from Melbourne and from the 24th February , a twice-weekly service from Brisbane. Both routes will be operated with A330-200 equipment. Strategic will compete on both sectors with V Australia which operates a six-times weekly from Melbourne and a thrice-weekly from Brisbane.


KINGFISHER EXPANDS DELHI FLIGHTS

Kingfisher Airlines, set to become a member of oneworld, has announced additional capacity on trunk routes out of Delhi. On December 15th, it commenced an additional service from Delhi to Chennai where it competes with Air India, Spicejet, Indigo,Jetlite and Jet Airways. Kingfisher currently has a 9% share of the O+D market which consisted of nearly 2 million O+D passengers between September 2009 and 2010. In the same day it commenced an additional two daily flights to Hyderabad, a market over 1.1 million O+D passengers where Kingfisher has an existing 11% market share.


AIRASIA ADDS NEW INDONESIAN ROUTE

AirAsia has announced new scheduled service from its base in Kuala Lumpur with a thrice-weekly service to Balikpapan. The route will begin January 12th 2011 and AirAsia will be the only carrier operating the route non-stop.


AIR BUSAN TO SERVE TAIPEI

Air Busan, the subsidiary of Asiana has announced that it will begin scheduled flights from Pusan to Taipei (TPE). The route will begin January 27th 2011 and will be operated on a daily basis with A321 aircraft. It will compete on the route with Transasia Airways which operates the route thrice-weekly with A320 equipment. IATA BSP data shows that over 45,000 O+D passengers travelled between the city pairs from September 2009 and September 2010.


AIR ARABIA TO SERVE SOHAG

Low-cost operator, Air Arabia has announced that it will commence new scheduled services from its Sharjah base to Sohag, Egypt. Fellow low-cost Middle East operator, Jazeera Airways also announced plans to serve Sohag earlier this month from Kuwait. Air Arabia is well established in the Egypt market through its subsidiary carrier Air Arabia Egypt.

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…