Royal Jordanian to Maintain Munich Route

Middle East carrier and oneworld alliance member Royal Jordanian has announced that it will continue to provide flights between Amman and Munich this summer despite earlier revealing that the German city would be removed from its international schedule as part of a cost saving network cull. The airline said only last month that it would end flights to five destinations – Al Ain, Brussels, Munich and two not yet announced Gulf cities from April 19, 2012, but in the case of the Bavarian city this decision has now been reversed.

At the time of the announcement Royal Jordanian said these destinations were selected based on a recent performance and economic feasibility study and confirmed that alongside the route closures, frequency cuts would take place on flights between Amman and Amsterdam, Colombo, Geneva, Khartoum, Rome, Vienna and Zurich.

According to Royal Jordanian’s Chief Executive Officer, Hussein Dabbas, the Munich route has been saved by linking it to its services to Frankfurt and due to the “assistance” provided by Munich Airport. The city will now be served on a twice weekly basis with a direct flight every Saturday and a weekly rotation via Frankfurt every Wednesday.

“The Arab spring and the political unrest that swept the Arab region last year is having a significant impact on Royal Jordanian,” the airline said in a statement and it is expecting visitor numbers to Jordan and the wider Middle East market to much reduced during the first quarter of this year. Further cuts may also be necessary and the company says it will cancel more flights during the year with the decision to be based on forward bookings over the coming months. It is also considering reducing the size of its fleet to take into account its reduced network scale.

Although the airline has not detailed the possible destinations concerned it does highlight that its flights to destinations including Aden, Aleppo, Alexandria, Bahrain, Cairo, Damascus, Sharm El Sheikh and Tunis have all seen notable declines in traffic during the past year, translating into the loss of hundreds of thousands of passengers. Similarly, there has been a decline in tourist arrivals from Europe that resulted in 1,300 flight cancellations last year and over 550 more in the first three months of this year. The airline has also seen rising costs with its fuel bill alone increasing 44 per cent last year.

In the past year an estimated 4.79 million O&D passengers travelled between Jordan and the rest of the world, with the largest traffic flows being to Dubai (United Arab Emirates), Beirut (Lebanon), Cairo (Egypt) and Jeddah (Saudi Arabia).