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.
