The French national carrier will introduce the A380 to Mexico City from January 2016 on an initial three times weekly basis, substituting a Boeing 747-400 that presently serves the route. From March 2016 the A380 will operate on a daily basis, significantly boosting available capacity with a four class product offering - La Première, Business, Premium Economy and Economy.
US Treasury and Commerce Department officials are moving quickly to tear down regulatory barriers to American citizens’ ability to travel, conduct financial dealings and export products to Cuba, ending a 54-year-old American trade embargo against Cuba.
Central Asian country, Kazakhstan has announced that it will expand its visa-free travel program to 19 countries across the world – allowing visitors to access the country for a period of 15 days without a visa.
From December 17, 2015, the airline will launch the weekly link to Rotterdam - Europe’s largest cargo port, operating every Thursday, with immediate connections to Sao Vicente, Praia and Boa Vista.
It is over 16 years since ANA last served the Australian market, but this will be the first time it has linked the country to Tokyo Haneda, where it has a significant network presence and will complement point-to-point demand with connection options to 42 domestic routes, as well as flights to North America, Europe and Asia.
Durban will be Turkish Airlines’ third destination in South Africa after Johannesburg and Cape Town. The airline first introduced flights into the country with a three times weekly joint operation to Johannesburg and onward to Cape Town from its Istanbul Ataturk International Airport hub in September 2007 but has grown to offer a daily service on the route, currently flown using an Airbus A330.
In its ruling the Commission had concerns that the merged entity would have faced insufficient competition on several routes. The Commission also found that the merged entity would have prevented Aer Lingus from continuing to provide traffic to the long-haul flights of competing airlines on several routes and has requested the parties to address the Commission’s concerns on this matter.
Despite being a high impact economic activity, a major job generator and key export sector, accounting for 6 percent of total world trade, tourism receives only 0.78 percent of the total Air for Trade disbursements and 0.097 percent of the total Official Development Assistance.
Emirates has been active in Iraq for over four years having first launched flights between Dubai and Basra in February 2011. It added launched services to Baghdad in November 2011 and then Erbil from August 2012. However, it closed the Baghdad and Erbil routes at the start of March this year due to security concerns as large parts of Iraq fell under the control of Da’esh. It had also temporarily suspended services to Erbil between August and November 2014 due to safety concerns with its flights.
The International Air Transport Association (IATA) has called for a comprehensive policy for aviation aligned with India’s government’s stated intention to make it easier to do business in India.
In an interview with the Chinese media following the arrival of the A330 in China, Xu Xin, chief executive officer, Beijing Capital Airlines said that over the next five years the carrier intends to purchase at least 30 widebody aircraft to open more international routes between Chinese cities and major overseas tourist destinations.
Australian airline, Qantas Airways has said it will resume flights between Sydney and San Francisco after Australian authorities gave approval for an expanded codeshare arrangement with American Airlines.
US major, American Airlines is to grow its network into Mexico, the Caribbean and Latin America later this year, further strengthening its position in these key regions. Alongside the new routes, American will also reinstate its link between New York's John F. Kennedy Airport and Simon Bolívar International Airport in Caracas, Venezuela, a service that was ended as the Venezuelan government withheld funds from airline ticket sales.
UK regional airline, Eastern Airways will increase services between Yorkshire-based airport, Leeds Bradford and Southampton with an additional mid-afternoon departure.
This year has already seen JetBlue introduce flights from Fort Lauderdale to Albany, Baltimore, Cleveland, Detroit, Mexico City, Nashville and Philadelphia. These have quickly followed the launch of services to Jacksonsville, Los Angeles and Pittsburgh late last year.
The move enables the carrier to maintain its network operations but without any Danish Collective Agreement, which would have restricted its operations from the Danish capital by making it difficult for the aircraft to refuel and arrangements to be made to handle aircraft, despite the airline’s pay and conditions for its pilots and cabin crew better than the standards set under the agreement.
Airline ancillary revenue has continued to grow for the eighth consecutive year, according to IdeaWorksCompany, who tracked 63 airlines and researched financial filings made by 130 airlines all over the world.
The network growth follows an increase in demand between the US and St Lucia, located in the eastern Caribbean Sea and part of the Lesser Antilles. According to arrivals data, visitors are travelling to St Lucia at a record pace with international arrivals from the US currently up nine per cent versus last year.
After the merger of Vilnius, Kaunas and Palanga Airports last year, the Lithuanian air gateways have witnessed a significant increase in passenger and flight volumes, sales and overall net profit over a year-long period.
British Airways has announced it will introduce its first Boeing 787-9 into its fleet in September 2015 and will initially deploy the larger Dreamliner variant on its route between London Heathrow and Indira Gandhi International Airport in Delhi, India from the start of the winter 2015/2016 schedule in late October.
Low-cost Russian airline, Pobeda has banned passengers from chewing gum on board because it is spending too much scraping it off its airplanes interiors.
Although the carrier has almost ten years experience in the cargo business, this will be its first growth into scheduled passenger operations. It intends to launch operations from September 2015 using a small fleet of three Boeing 737-500s that have already been acquired and are currently undergoing pre-service maintenance in Jordan.
Initially established in September 1994 under the AirZena brand, the carrier provided charter flights to the United Arab Emirates, Italy, China, Egypt, India, Syria and regular scheduled flights to Austria. It was granted national carrier status in November 1999 and latterly the Georgian Airways title has been added.
