The flights from Aberdeen and Edinburgh to London Heathrow will be Flybe’s first ever scheduled flights into the UK’s largest airport and the world’s second largest international gateway, and will complement the carrier’s well-established London City flights from the two Scottish airports.
Having lived in the shadow of Icelandair’s effective European and North American network strategy since it launched services in 2012, WOW air has now exploded into the low-cost transatlantic market with a network that covers almost 30 destinations in Europe and North America. And having grown capacity by over 90 per cent in 2016, it expects to continue its rapid rise as the low-cost long-haul model continues to stimulate traffic across the Atlantic.
The airline has selected the Canadian-built airliner for its exclusive future short-haul fleet and will replace all its existing Boeing aircraft with 20 factory new CS300s by 2020. The aircraft will not just modernise the fleet and boost efficiency, but will also enhance the airline’s range of services, expanding into medium-haul markets from Riga such as Abu Dhabi, Almaty, Astana, Casablanca, Dubai, Marrakech and Tenerife thanks to its operating performance.
When British Airways first announced its plans to serve Leeds Bradford many observers so the decision as little more than as an avenue to protect the carrier’s pool of slots at the heavily-congested Heathrow Airport. However, the London Heathrow - Leeds Bradford route is currently among its best performing domestic markets with traffic up 18.4 per cent over the first ten months of 2016.
Melbourne was the original home for Qatar Airways in Australia, with the airline subsequently adding services to Perth, Sydney and Adelaide. With the growth from the original 777-200LR to the A380, the airline has actually doubled its daily capacity since the start of the route while retaining just the single flight rotation.
The airline, based in the French territory of Réunion in the Indian Ocean, is understood to be considering the launch of low-cost charter services via the European mainland into at least three US destinations. In its formal application the airline says these services will be operated using Boeing 777 and 787-8 equipment.
Around two million passengers a year fly between Australia and the UK (O&D demand for 12 months to October 2016) and the famous Kangaroo Route has been one of the most competitive air corridors in aviation history with tens of airlines competing for traffic via various points across Asia and more recently the Middle East.
Hainan Airlines' landmark Beijing - Las Vegas service has its roots in the US city hosting the World Routes air service development forum back in October 2013 and has been helped subsequently by regular meetings at Routes regional and world events. The Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority (LVCVA) estimates the flights will account for $33.5 million in annual economic impact.
The connecting passenger flows at either end of the route will be key to the success of this route. The local demand between Santiago and Melbourne is around 16,000 bi-directional O&D passengers per year, but when you expand to Chile to Australia that grows five-fold to around 100,000 passengers and up to 585,000 passengers when you consider the whole of Central and South America and the Pacific region.
This year’s summer schedule from Faro Airport was its largest ever with a massive 21.6 per cent increase in departure capacity versus summer 2015 and published schedules for next year already show a forecasted 2.9 per cent rise in departure seats on this year to over 3.5 million seats, with additional flights still expected to be added to airline flight inventories.
The budget airline has already established itself as the largest carrier in Italy and held a 22.8 per cent share of available capacity this past summer season, according to OAG schedule data. The airline’s arrival into the Naples market means that from the forthcoming summer season it will have a presence at all but one of the 14 largest Italian airports by capacity; its only exception being Linate Airport, the secondary international airport of Milan.
Expanding the number of international city-pairs to the US, encouraging innovative and affordable air service (such as long-haul, low-cost service), and tapping the potential of new Boeing and Airbus aircraft to better connect America with the rest of the world should be top priorities for the US government and for US airports and communities, says aviation consultant, John Byerly.
This will be the first time Cartagena will be linked non-stop to Europe in around ten years since AirMadrid offered flights from to the Spanish cities of Barcelona and Madrid back in the mid-2000s. Cartagena also successfully attracted flights from Italy with Blue Panorama Airlines at the start of this decade but these were purely on a charter basis.
European low-cost carrier Norwegian is set to open four new operational bases – two in the US and two in Europe – in 2017 to support the growth of its long-haul transatlantic network. The internal go-ahead for the expansion follows the final approval late last week by the US Department of Transportation for a foreign carrier permit for the airline’s Norwegian Air International business.
The ‘new’ Cyprus Airways is set to launch flights as early as this month with an initial fleet of two Airbus A319s. It plans to operate flights linking Larnaca and Paphos to destinations in Greece, Russia and the UK where it is understood to be seeking to fly to London Stansted, Manchester and Glasgow.
The landmark partnership continues a recent relaxation of rights between the two countries and is expected to lead to an immediate growth in flights between the two countries, including many new routes from China’s emerging second and third tier cities into Australia.
The new Belfast City route will commence from June 1, 2017 and will be operated using a 72-seat Bombardier Dash 8-Q400 turboprop. It will operate from Keflavik International Airport in Iceland, providing extensive connection options to the Transatlantic network of Icelandair from the mid-Atlantic island as well as support growing business and leisure flows into Iceland which is becoming an increasingly popular leisure destination.
The European Commission has found that public funding granted by Austria to Klagenfurt airport is in line with European Union (EU) state aid rules, but as ruled that certain airport services and marketing agreements concluded between the airport operator and airlines Ryanair, Hapag-Lloyd Express and TUIfly gave the latter “an undue advantage”, which cannot be justified under state aid rules.
The carrier, part of the HNA Group, will offer a daily flight between Hong Kong and Vancouver from June 30, 2017, initially using a 283-seat Airbus A330-200 but likely to be switched to the A350-900 once the first of its aircraft are delivered towards the end of next year.
With the south of England facing capacity constraints, Stephen Turner of Manchester Airport Group believes his airport is in pole position to secure more long-haul routes.
Data from air service development consultants, Airport Strategy & Marketing (ASM) suggests that British Airways is initially taking tentative steps into the New Orleans when it launches flights between London Heathrow and Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport next year. A demand forecast from the consultancy on the route shows expected demand outweighing available capacity from the day of launch.
The World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC) and the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) have joined forces and called on the UK government to lift the current ban on UK-based airlines flying to Sharm el Sheikh in Egypt. The move follows the successful reintroduction of regular flights to the Black Sea resort from other countries, including Germany and Russia.
The eight ‘new’ markets comprise Canberra, the airline’s fifth destination in Australia; Dublin, Ireland; Las Vegas, the airline’s eleventh destination in the United States; Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; Santiago, Chile; Medan’s Kualanamu International Airport, the airline’s third destination in Indonesia; and Tabuk and Yanbu, its ninth and tenth destinations in Saudi Arabia.
Ethiopian Airlines' new five times weekly link to Oslo from its Addis Ababa hub will operate via Stockholm’s Arlanda Airport from March 26, 2017 using a two-class, 270-seat Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner equipment.
