British Airways Expands Leisure Network from London City
British Airways CityFlyer, the UK national carrier’s London City-based division, is to expand its summer sun routes from the Docklands’ airport this year with new connections to the popular leisure destination of Mahon in Spain and Angers and Quimper in France. The new routes will expand its network from London City to 21 destinations across the UK, Europe and of course its single transatlantic link to New York in USA. The flights will commence in May and the three times weekly service to Mahon in Menorca, which will open from May 25, will complete the airline’s existing flights to the fellow Balearic Islands of Ibiza and Mallorca, which were launched last year. The three times weekly flight to Angers in the Loire Valley will start from May 29 and the twice weekly route to Quimper in Brittany will begin on May 30. “We are very excited about the new routes which are completely new destinations for London City Airport. and offer our customers even more holiday choices ,” said Luke Hayhoe, General Manager Commercial, British Airways CityFlyer. “We’re sure that these new routes coupled with British Airways’ all inclusive fares and London City’s unique 20 minute check-in will be a hit this summer.” There are currently no direct flights to Angers Loire Airport or Quimper – Cornouaille Airport from the UK but there is a lot of competition to Mahon, a destination that is mainly flown on a seasonal basis by seven UK carriers from 18 different airports. An estimated 252,000 O&D passengers travelled between Mahon and the UK on scheduled services in the past year, with around 81.1 per cent of these passengers beginning or ending their journeys at one of the London airports. We are pleased to confirm that UBM Aviation Routes played a role in facilitating these new services as discussions between the airline and representatives of the two groups that manage the destination airports in France and Spain took place during last year’s Routes Europe event in Cagliari, Italy and the World Routes forum in Berlin, Germany.
Iberia Offers New African Options
Spanish national carrier Iberia is to expand its network in Africa this summer with new links from Madrid to Nouakchott, the capital and largest city in Mauritania and the Ghanaian capital Accra. Both flights will be operated twice weekly using Airbus A320 Family equipment with the Nouakchott flight routing via Las Palmas in the Canary Islands. Iberia currently serves 12 destinations in Africa, including flights that are operated by its partner carrier Air Nostrum. Only two of its routes are served by widebodied equipment – Johannesburg and Luanda – the rest using A320 Family models, or in the case of some North African destination. The new Madrid – Nouakchott route will commence from April 26, 2012 and Iberia will become only the second European carrier to offer regular flights to the Mauritanian capital alongside Air France, which offers a three times weekly A330-200 link from Paris CDG. Iberia will become the seventh European carrier to offer flights to Accra when it begins that route from June 1, 2012. British Airways, KLM Royal Dutch Airlines and Lufthansa all offer daily connections from London, Amsterdam and Frankfurt, while Brussels Airlines (from Brussels), TAP Portugal (from Lisbon) and Virgin Atlantic (from Lisbon) also serve the city.
Estonian Air Switches to E-Jet Family
Estonian Air will this month take delivery of its first Embraer regional jet models after selecting the Brazilian manufacturer’s E-Jet family to form the backbone of its fleet. The airline is expected to operate a mix of variants from the aircraft family, offering options of between 76 and 112 seats, a capacity that will better fit the airline’s new network strategy, according to company executives. The airline has already agreed to acquire four E170s on lease from Finnair and these will be delivered over the course of the next few weeks. These will be joined by an additional eight aircraft, comprising a mix of E175 and E190 variants, and the carrier is currently negotiating with the manufacturer and lessors on the delivery schedules and conditions for these aircraft. According to the carrier it is looking to induct these examples in the 2013 to 2015 timeframe. According to Tero Taskila, President of Estonian Air, the Embraer regional jets are well suited to the national carrier’s new business strategy due to their capacity and flight range. The new aircraft will be used to increase frequencies on existing routes to ensure at least double daily offerings to the main international markets from the Baltic capital, Tallinn as well as to open additional routes which previously would not have been sustainable with larger equipment. “Smaller airlines, such as Estonian Air have to be flexible,” explained Tero Taskila. “The Embraer E-Jet family offers range of sizes which allow us to also to offer aircraft similar size to existing smaller Boeing aircraft, but at the same time keep single fleet type efficiency and regional aircraft operating cost levels. Having a smaller and larger version of the same type of aircraft means significant economic efficiency for Estonian Air. We can change the aircraft size based on demand on routes, thus reducing the need to reducing the need to change amount of flight frequencies based on seasonality.”
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