Dobrolet will operate a fleet of Next-Generation Boeing 737-800s in a single-class, all-Economy 189-seat arrangement, initially growing to eight aircraft at the end of its first year of service and growing at a rate of eight aircraft per year thereafter to 40 aircraft by 2018.
AirTran Airways, initially formed as ValuJet in 1993, will operate its last scheduled flight on December 28, 2014 with AirTran Flight 001 (marketed as Southwest ‘WN5001’) operating between Atlanta and Tampa Bay that evening, the same flight number and routing of ValuJet's inaugural flight on October 26, 1993.
Flybe has confirmed it will launch new daily links from Birmingham to Hamburg and Oslo from October 26, 2014 through to March 27, 2015, while its new summer 2014 flights to Bordeaux, Cologne, Florence, Oporto, Reykjavik and Toulouse will be extended through the winter season.
The initial tentative schedule shows the aircraft will operate twice daily on the Toronto - Halifax route from May 23, 2014 through to May 25, 2014 and then on various dates through to the end of June 2014. Alongside this domestic link, Air Canada also plans to use the aircraft on its flights from Toronto to Zurich (from May 25, 2014 to July 14, 2014) and London (from July 2, 2014 to July 13, 2014).
The flight will be operated using a four-class Boeing 777-300ER and will seek to take advantage of the strong business and leisure demand. Located right in the heart of Europe, Zurich is a top banking centre but is also the gateway to the scenic mountains and lakes of Switzerland.
These two new routes adds to the carrier’s existing service to Madagascar’s capital, Antananarivo, which has been operating since 2006 and further strengthen the airport's long-haul network and Marseille Provence’s position as the French airport with the most long-haul destinations away from Paris.
The airline says the decision to close flights to these two destinations from the end of September 2014 is due to the “sustained weak performance of both routes”.
Our own analysis of MIDT data shows that last year around two thirds of the passengers flying with the airline from or to Auckland actually ended their journeys at other locations than Guangzhou.
The Star Alliance member has eight Dreamliners on order, all to be leased from International Lease Finance Corporation (ILFC). This includes six 787-8s due from this year (four in 2014 and two in 2015) and two of larger 787-9s, which will follow in 2017.
The route announcement comes eight years after Ryanair pulled out of Cardiff Airport after it ended an at least daily service from its Dublin headquarters in May 2006.
Already serving both Washington Reagan National and Baltimore Washington International airports, the carrier will launch 68 weekly flights to 14 destinations from Dulles International Airport from August this year.
It is very early days for the Fly Blue Crane project and details of its planned operations are vague, although unlike most other start-ups the suggestion is it will avoid ‘The Golden Triangle’ domestic network linking Cape Town, Durban and Johannesburg and will instead focus on serving regional markets both with point-to-point flights and direct links to the major cities.
Emirates Airline began flights to Singapore in 1990 and it remains an important gateway in the Far East & Australasia region for the carrier, connecting passengers to Melbourne, Brisbane, Colombo and Dubai, and onward to destinations across Europe, the United States, Africa and the Middle East.
United will inaugurate the new route on October 26, 2014, subject to final government approval. Haneda Airport will be the tenth trans-Pacific destination that United serves nonstop from San Francisco, and the third new Asia-Pacific airport for the carrier this year.
There are currently no direct services between Ecuador and Fort Lauderdale, although American Airlines and LanEcuador offer flights to Miami from Quito. According to MIDT data, an estimated 422,000 bi-directional O&D passengers travelled between Ecuador and Florida in 2013.
The airline currently utilises a 136-seat Boeing 737-700 on its daily Toronto - Québec City route but will replace this with a 78-seat Dash 8-Q400NextGen when Encore takes over the operation of the route from March 15, 2015.
Our data analysis shows that bi-directional O&D demand between Nigeria and India has seen an average annual growth of 25.3 per cent over the past ten years as traffic has more than trebled from around 46,000 passengers in 2004 to just under 150,000 in 2013.
