US ultra low-fare carrier, Spirit Airlines, has announced it will expand its domestic to offering into Kansas City with the launch of five new routes this summer with daily flights to Chicago, Dallas, Detroit, Houston and Las Vegas from August 2014.
The majority of the eleven widebodies will be sourced from International Lease Finance Coporation (ILFC) and will enable earlier delivery slots than if they had been acquired directly from the manufacturer. The lessor will supply three A330-200s from 2014 and the five A350-900s in 2017.
The start-up carrier now plans offer up to ten daily flights between Johannesburg and Cape Town using two Boeing 737-400s from the final quarter of this year, with a formal start date, schedule information due to be confirmed in the coming months as reservations are opened.
The number of Northern Ireland residents using Dublin Airport increased by eleven per cent to more than 570,000 last year, growing about twice as fast as average passenger numbers at the airport.
As first revealed by The HUB at the end of last month, UK low-fare carrier Flybe is to inaugurate five new routes from London City Airport from the start of the winter schedules in late October 2014.
Emirates initially introduced flights between Dubai International Airport and Kuwait International Airport on July 16, 1989 but now serves the route five times daily with a combination of Boeing and Airbus aircraft.
With this expansion Wizz Air will grow its Polish fleet to 16 Airbus A320 aircraft in the summer peak of 2014: five based aircraft in Gdansk and Katowice, four in Warsaw Chopin Airport and one aircraft in Poznan and Wroclaw.
European regional carrier Etihad Regional has launched a twice-weekly service linking Geneva in Switzerland, and Toulouse in southwestern France, its first year-round route to France from its Swiss base. The inaugural service, operated using a 50-seat Saab 2000 touched down at Toulouse’s Blagnac Airport at 4:40pm on April 17, 2014.
Irish budget carrier Ryanair has announced a new link between Paris Beauvais and Figari Corsica operating from June 2, 2014 to October 24, 2014, initially operating four times weekly, increasing to six times weekly in August.
The new links to Ibiza, Palma and Reykjavik will depart Birmingham late at night and return in the early hours of the morning, supporting the carrier’s plans to enhance fleet utilisation.
Qatar Airways is to introduce a non-stop link to the popular Indonesian leisure destination of Bali this summer. The direct link to Denpasar will reduce journey times to a destination that has seen growing demand from across the Qatar Airways network over the past couple of years.
The airline will launch flights on eight routes across six countries from Ras Al Khaimah International Airport from May 16, 2014 despite its own Sharjah International Airport hub being just 80km away.
The resumed Gulf Air service between Athens and Bahrain will offer passengers improved connections between Greece and Bahrain. When the route was previously flown by the carrier up to 11,000 annual bi-directional O&D passengers flew between the two countries.
Every year almost two million passengers fly between Kazakhstan and Europe, a market that the airline sees a good potential for further growth in the years ahead having grown 51.3 per cent in the past five years.
The new Pittsburgh – Fort Lauderdale route will increase the flight options in and out of Florida for those in Allegheny County and will bring competition to the existing at least daily Southwest Airlines offering on the route.
As part of a commercial cooperation agreement between Cargolux and HNCA, the freight carrier intends to develop a dual-hub strategy centered on Luxembourg’s Findel airport in Europe and on Zhengzhou’s Xinzheng International Airport in Asia.
