AirBaltic transported 340,586 passengers in July, a 24% increase year-over-year. Load factor dipped 1 point to 76%. Air Canada and Jazz flew 5.38 billion RPMs in July, a 10.8% increase year-over-year, while capacity rose 9.1% to 6.33 billion ASMs. Load factor rose 1.3 points to 84.9%.
Southwest Airlines announced "a shuffling of frequencies" for its January/February 2011 flight schedule, including the elimination of Kansas City-Seattle flights from Jan. 9. Writing on SWA's blog, available on its website, Schedule Planning Department Lead Planner Bill Owen said Long Island Islip-Ft. Myers service will be resumed from Feb. 13 while Nashville-Ft. Myers flights will also be launched that day. He said the MCI-SEA service "in all likelihood...will return" by the 2011 summer. No new cities were announced.
Air Canada will launch daily Vancouver-Tokyo Haneda service Jan. 29 aboard a 767-300ER. Moldavian Airlines will launch twice-weekly Chisinau-Istanbul Sabiha Gokcen service Sept. 15 aboard a Fokker 100. Ryanair will launch four new routesfrom London Gatwickto Bologna, Faro, Milan Bergamo and Porto Oct. 31 andincrease the frequency of its LGW-Oslo Rygge route from seven to 10 flights per week.
The Virgin Blue Group has announced a major revamp of its network including withdrawing from New Zealand domestic flying to cut losses. It will increase services to Southeast Asia and the Pacific Islands using 737s and its long-haul focus will be on the US and South Africa, which it plans to serve with 777-300ERs. It will additionally increase Australian domestic capacity by 490,000 seats.
