Alitalia will increase summer capacity by 5.5% year-over-year and will operate some 2,500 weekly flights on 140 routes to 82 destinations on its summer schedule beginning March 28. Thrice-weekly Milan Malpensa-Miami service will launch June 3 and five-times-weekly Rome Fiumicino-Los Angeles flights begin June 5. AZ also will launch new service from FCO to Malaga (daily) and Vienna (twice-daily) on March 28 and will resume seasonal flights from FCO and Milan Linate to Lampedusa and Pantelleria as well as its four-times-weekly Venice-Cagliari service.
Etihad Airways has announced its first codeshare operation out of Pakistan with American Airlines, providing air travellers in Pakistan with greater access to the US market.
Oman has said that the extension of the country's main airport in Muscat will be delayed by two years and may cost the state up to an extra $500m after runway excavations hit seawater,
Shanghai Hongqiao International's new Terminal 2 became operational yesterday as the city prepares for Expo 2010 scheduled to run from May to October. Eleven carriers--China Eastern Airlines, Shanghai Airlines, Air China, China Southern Airlines, Xiamen Airlines, Shenzhen Airlines, Shandong Airlines, Hainan Airlines, Tianjin Airlines, Sichuan Airlines and Juneyao Airlines--have transferred to the new terminal. The old T1 will continue to house local LCC Spring Airlines and charter flights to Japan and South Korea.
Lufthansa regional subsidiary Eurowings, which plans to reduce its fleet from the current 34 aircraft to 15, will close all its bases except for Dusseldorf in order to reduce costs, a spokesperson told the Neue Ruhr/Neue Rhein Zeitung. Bases at Dortmund, Munster Osnabruck, Paderborn, Cologne, Nurnberg, Berlin Tegel, Hannover, Frankfurt, Stuttgart and Munich will close. No details were provided regarding a timetable or layoffs ( ATWOnline, Jan. 20).
Delta Air Lines will close one of its two concourses at Cincinnati on May 1, potentially leading to the layoff of 840 employees of DL's Regional Elite Airline Systems subsidiary, according to a memo cited by
Philippine Airlines took delivery of its first two 777-300ERs ( ATWOnline, June 7, 2007) and announced a resumption of service to Brisbane and Riyadh. PAL will serve Brisbane twice-weekly via Melbourne Tullamarine aboard an A330-300 beginning today, allowing its five-times-weekly Manila-Sydney service to be operated with a 777. Four-times-weekly MNL-RUH flights will begin March 28 aboard a 747-400. PAL's 777s seat 370 in two classes and currently serve Hong Kong, Tokyo Narita, SYD and MEL.
Sun Country Airlines will operate weekly flights between Minneapolis-St. Paul and London Stansted June 11-Aug. 15 aboard a two-class 737-800. STN will be the Minnesota-based leisure carrier's first destination outside the US, Mexico and the Caribbean since the mid-1990s, a Sun Country spokesperson told ATWOnline. The flight will refuel in Gander, the spokesperson said, adding that the airline currently has no plans for further international service "right now," although it will "see how [the new route] goes." It operates a fleet of nine 737-800s.
Bmi, which recently has been adding "British Midland International" to its name to emphasize its international route network, specifically in non-EU markets served by the former BMED, is launching four-times-daily London Heathrow-Berlin Tegel service on March 28 aboard a two-class A319. RwandAir launched daily Kigali-Kamembe service and said it plans to add flights to Kinshasa to its summer schedule.
