While the sun was shining on Tbilisi this morning Routes Silk Road delegates were given the opportunity to enjoy an escorted walking tour around the Georgian capital to learn more about its history and recent development.
Wizz Air made its debut in the Romanian market in July 2006 when it introduced flights to Tirgu Mures from Budapest and now offers flights from seven Romanian destinations comprising, Bucharest Baneasa, Bucharest Henri Coanda, Cluj-Napoca, Craiova, Sibiu, Tirgu Mures and Timisoara covering 87 routes and offering 220,000 seats from the country this month.
It is symbolic that the established Routes CIS event has transformed this year into Routes Silk Road to include a wider community that is very interlinked historically, culturally and commercially and that it is hosted in Tbilisi, Georgia, the Pearl of Caucuses, which lies on the crossroad between Asia and Europe.
Delegates who arrived early in Tbilisi for Routes Silk Road were able to enjoy a complimentary tour to the ancient town of Mtskheta yesterday, a location of extraordinary importance to the Georgian nation, located about 20km out of the capital city.
Saudi Arabian low-cost carrier flynas has an ambitious long-haul expansion strategy, underpinned by new flights to the UK, writes Justin Burns for our sister magazine Routes News.
The hosting of Routes Silk Road is a clear endorsement of the ambitions of airport operator, United Airports of Georgia to attract new airlines into the country and improve connectivity across the Silk Road as well as into other markets.
This will be the first scheduled air link between Baku and Geneva and in fact the only non-stop flight offering between Azerbaijan and Switzerland. According to MIDT data there is a small but growing demand between the two cities.
Georgia is an ancient gateway between Asia and Europe. United Airports of Georgia’s CEO, Ketevan Aleksidze, spoke with Jonny Williamson of our sister publication, Routes News, about the growth taking place in the country’s aviation sector.
The new Air Asia X service to XiÁn’s Xianyang International Airport was launched on July 2, 2014 and represents its fifth link into China after Hangzhou, Chengdu, Beijing, and Shanghai. The low-cost carrier is offering four flights per week on the route, the only airline providing direct flights between the city and Kuala Lumpur.
The carrier is planning to widen its European network with the addition of regular flights to Paris from autumn 2014 and to Prague in spring 2015, complementing established European routes from Frankfurt to Astana (daily) and Atyrau to Amsterdam, six times per week.
El Al has responded to the opening of the skies between Israel and the European Union with newly launched low-cost brand UP, reports Martin Rivers for our sister magazine, Routes News.
The weekly service, operated by a two-class Boeing 767-300ER, represents the return of a link first served by Transaero in 2002 and served up until October 2004. This was originally flown from Domodedovo Airport in the Russian capital but is now being served every Wednesday from Vnukovo Airport.
If you attended this year's Routes Africa look out and see if you can see yourself on our event highlights video, if you didn’t then sit back and watch as three days of meetings and networking are condensed into just three minutes.
VIDEO: You find out more about the challenges of operating in the Democratic Republic of Congo in our video interview with Christophe Allard, CEO of Korongo Airlines, in which he also highlights the carrier’s strategy to develop more regional partnerships across Africa.
South African carrier Comair has been operating for over 70 years and has shown over the past two decades that you can successfully operate both a full service and budget operation in Africa, albeit under two very separate brands.
The independent Swiss regional carrier says the move to the "customer friendly” Southend Airport from October 26, 2014 at the start of the winter season will enable it to modify its schedule and provide better flight times for corporate travellers.
On the domestic front the carrier will introduce twice daily flights to San Antonio from October 2, 2014 and a daily link to Tampa from November 6, 2014, while a daily international service to Edmonton and twice daily offering to Vancouver, both in Canada, will also start on October 2, 2014.
KwaZulu-Natal is home to South Africa's second largest economy and, situated on the strategically important east coast, the Province boasts two of Africa's major seaports. The host region is an area that fully understands the important role aviation plays in economic development and how an airport can become a driver for growth through enhanced air connectivity.
