Tianjin Airlines will become the latest of the country’s airlines to launch long-haul flights when it takes delivery of at least three Airbus A330-200s from the European manufacturer in the coming months. These aircraft will be used to debut flights into Europe and North America and alongside London will see the introduction of flights to Moscow, Russia and Vancouver, Canada.
A new video released by the aircraft manufacturer shows the benefit of utilising their A380 model. These benefits are felt by two very different cities – Birmingham, England and Los Angeles, USA.
Delta and Virgin Atlantic’s joint venture is based around offering customers more options and a seamless experience between the US and the UK. The airlines are continuously evaluating their joint Transatlantic network to match the right aircraft to the right destinations and the summer 2017 network growth and route switches are a clear example of this.
Focusing on direct routes to popular destinations, SAS’s 2016/2017 Winter Programme will open up 470,000 more seats to travellers in Scandinavia than last year, and will see an increase in flight frequency on selected domestic and European routes.
European budget carrier Norwegian has revealed that it is considering launching transatlantic flights from Edinburgh as well as potentially introducing UK domestic services as part of its backing to the case for Gatwick Airport’s expansion.
The launch of flights to Chiang Mai comes at a time when Qatar Airways is rapidly expanding its network and will inaugurate 14 new destinations on its route map throughout 2016 and into early 2017, including a number of new markets in Africa.
Africa is set to be one of the fastest-growing aviation regions over the next 20 years, with annual expansion averaging nearly five percent. This opens up incredible economic opportunities for the continent’s 54 nations. By transporting some 70 million passengers annually, aviation already supports some 6.9 million jobs and $80 billion of economic activity on the African continent.
With effect from June 23, 2016, flynas will add a second daily service between Riyadh and Abu Dhabi, increasing its combined offer with Etihad to four daily services. At the same time it will enter the Jeddah – Abu Dhabi market with a daily flight which will complement Etihad’s existing thrice daily services.
The grouping brings together many of the smaller low-cost operators across the Asia Pacific region and the partnership will allow them to better compete with some of the largest budget carriers like IndiGo in India, AirAsia across multiple countries and Qantas subsidiary Jetstar Airways across both the Asia and Pacific markets.
BA previously served Santiago between 1993 and 2000 but as a tag on its flights into Buenos Aires. The new non-stop offering from London at 14 hours 40 minutes is nearly an hour longer than BA’s current longest flight of 13 hours 50 minutes to Buenos Aires and covers a distance of approximately 11,645km, versus the 11,085km for the London - Buenos Aires city pair.
The expanded offering will boost its available capacity by 19 percent to 450,000 annual seats and will include a new twice weekly link to the recent Routes Europe host city, Kraków, in Poland. It will also extend summer routes to Faro, Gran Canaria and Malta into the winter schedule, adding to its current flights to Alicante, Malaga and Tenerife.
There has been a steady increase year-on-year in the number of Hong Kong and China travellers visiting New Zealand. According to official figures from Statistics New Zealand, as of March 2016, the total number of visitors from Hong Kong and China were up 19.1 percent and 27.8 percent, respectively.
The UK has always been one of the key markets for Oman Air and is one of just five country markets it serves in Europe. The airline currently offers flights to Frankfurt and Munich in Germany; Milan in Italy; Paris in France, Zurich in Switzerland and London, with the airline describing the UK capital as a flagship route.
The link will be operated using a 180-seat Airbus A320 and is being launched to meet growing demand for holidays to the region. It marks the carrier’s return to a market it previously served between March 2006 and July 2008, according to schedules data from OAG.
The Routesonline content offer has been boosted this week by the completion of the integration of leading aviation blog, Airlineroute.net, into our digital channel. In just under ten years the site has grown to become an important source of breaking route announcements, latest schedule changes, and new aircraft deployment and has attracted a strong and loyal following.
Maximising Dublin’s connectivity potential is the focus for Ireland’s two largest carriers. Speaking at the Phocuswright Europe conference in the Irish capital this week, Ryanair’s chief marketing officer, Kenny Jacobs, has hinted that flight connections with Aer Lingus could be a reality within the next 12 months.
From the start of the forthcoming winter schedule, British Airways is to introduce new non-stop flights from London Heathrow to both Doha, Qatar and Muscat, Oman. Both destinations are already part of the airline’s network but are currently served with one-stop direct flight routings via Bahrain and Abu Dhabi.
