Qatar Airways is expanding its presence across Brazil following a code share agreement signed with one of the country's largest airlines, GOL Linhas Aereas Inteligentes.
Low cost carrier flydubai, has started the year as it ended the last, with the announcement of a new service to Bangladesh. Dhaka will become the airline's 32nd destination when flights to the Bangladeshi capital begin on Valentine's Day February 14.
Wizz Air will launch Vilnius-London Luton service April 17. Air Macau launched twice-weekly Macau-Singapore Changi service with an A321. AirBaltic will increase daily Fokker 50 service to Riga from Turku and Oulu to twice-daily on Jan. 31.
Lufthansa's board and the Munich Airport board last month gave the green light to Doha International opened its dedicated arrivals terminal Contracts and Services
Fast-growing Dubai International's passenger traffic surpassed the 4-million mark for the second consecutive month in November and the third time in 2010.
Bordeaux said it increased passenger throughput by 2.8% last year to more than 3.6 million despite multiple disruptions from volcanic ash, ATC strikes and adverse winter conditions. The new record includes a noteworthy 35% rise in international traffic,
Dublin Airports Authority in December announced a "Grow Incentive Scheme" for 2011 at Dublin, Cork and Shannon airports under which the authority will waive "all airport charges for passenger traffic" once a threshold of 23.5 million passengers is reached at the three airports it manages.
US FAA last month granted the City of Chicago an extension to July 31 to submit a plan to privatize Chicago Midway. The city filed the extension application after current Mayor Richard Daley, who will leave office in May, said his administration was "not going to move" on MDW privatization, preferring that his successor "make that decision." A $2.5 billion deal to privatize MDW collapsed in early 2009 amid the global financial crisis.
Frankfurt is maintaining its timeline for opening its fourth runway on Oct. 30 when the IATA 2011-12 winter schedule begins. A timer on operator Fraport's website shows the countdown for the first landing on the runway in days, hours, minutes and seconds. The 2,800-m.-long runway will allow for parallel takeoff and landing operations and raise FRA's capacity by 50% from 83 to 126 movements per hr.
Airports Council International said collective passenger numbers at the world's airports were expected to have risen 6% year-over-year for full-year 2010 while freight volumes were estimated to have increased more than 15% compared to 2009.
IATA last month outlined a new, significantly different airport security checkpoint paradigm that calls for pre-screening passengers prior to issuing a boarding pass to divide them into three levels of risk classification and aims to enable them eventually to "walk uninterrupted" through an airport.
Major airports on both sides of the Atlantic were walloped by severe winter weather over the holiday period and London Heathrow operator BAA came under particular scrutiny for its handling of the snow, which left thousands of passengers stranded for days. Images of passengers spending Christmas weekend sleeping on terminal floors at LHR and other European airports became ubiquitous on global television.
