Air France KLM Group will trim winter ASKs by 2% year-over-year, comprising a 1.8% reduction in its long-haul network and a 2.9% cut in medium-haul flying. Air France and its subsidiaries will lower winter capacity by 1.7%, while KLM will cut by a more comprehensive 4%. The carriers insisted that connectivity at their Paris Charles de Gaulle and Amsterdam hubs will be maintained.
Baboo will launch service from Geneva to London City (11-times-weekly), Milan Malpensa (12-times-weekly) and Marseille (12-times-weekly) on Oct. 25 aboard E-190s or Q400s. Air France will codeshare on the LCY and MRS routes. Etihad Crystal Cargo launched twice-weekly Abu Dhabi-Baghdad service aboard an A300-600F. Brussels Airlines and bmi announced an expanded codeshare agreement under which bmi will add its code to SN's twice-daily Brussels-London Gatwick service and SN will place its code on bmi's seven-times-daily BRU-Heathrow flights.
TAP Portugal will launch flights from Lisbon to Valencia (twice-daily on Oct. 25) and Algiers (thrice-weekly from Nov. 25). Five-times-weekly LIS-Casablanca service will increase to 12 on Oct. 25. Blue1 will resume operating seasonal service from Helsinki Vantaa to Kuusamo (Nov. 29-April 11), Ivalo (Dec. 6-April 11), Kittila (Nov. 6-April 18) and Rovaniemi (Dec. 4-April 11) and from Kittila to Paris Charles de Gaulle (Dec. 16-April 3) and Dusseldorf (Dec. 17-March 11).
Spring Airlines plans to establish a base in Shenyang and signed an agreement with the municipal government detailing plans to build the city into an aviation hub for northeast Asia.
American Airlines parent AMR Corp. yesterday said it obtained $2.9 billion in additional liquidity and aircraft financing while announcing plans to further downsize operations at St. Louis and Raleigh/Durham and signing a letter of intent to firm options on 22 CRJ700s for American Eagle. Capacity taken from the aforementioned airports will be spread among AA's major hubs and focus cites: Dallas/Fort Worth, Chicago O'Hare, Miami, New York JFK, LaGuardia and Los Angeles. AA yesterday also said it chose GEnx-1B engines to power up to 100 787-9s it expects to order from Boeing.
American Airlines announced it will add 57 daily mainline and Eagle flights at Chicago O'Hare for the summer 2010 schedule versus the 2009-10 winter schedule, bringing daily departures at its second-largest hub to 487. New flying is made possible by the pulldowns at St. Louis and Raleigh/Durham (see story above). In addition to Beijing service set to start next spring, AA will introduce mainline flights to Honolulu, Anchorage and Vancouver while Eagle will start operating to Calgary, Allentown, Harrisburg, Wilkes-Barre/Scranton, Charleston, W.
SAS Scandinavian Airlines, the combined multinational airline of Denmark, Sweden and Norway, is ready to expand in the Middle East and to Asia by using Dubai as its regional hub said the newly appointed manager for the UAE, Albert Henschel.
Southwest Airlines yesterday moved to clarify its international future, stressing that it "does not have any plans to fly distant, long-haul international flights at this time or in the near future."
Brussels Airlines will launch 12-times-weekly Brussels-Milan Linate service Oct. 25 aboard an Avro RJ. Lufthansa will codeshare on the flight. SN and LH also announced an expansion of their codeshare arrangement covering more routes to Africa. LH will place its code on SN flights from Brussels to Abidjan, Banjul, Bujumbura, Nairobi, Monrovia, Douala and Yaounde. SN's code will be on LH services from Frankfurt to Accra, Khartoum, Johannesburg and Cape Town. Aegean Airlines will launch service from Athens to Madrid (daily on Dec. 1) and Vienna (five-times-weekly on Dec.
Royal Jordanian and Siberia airlines (S7) signed a free sale codeshare agreement, where S7 will place its code on RJ flights operated on Amman-Domodedovo route. The agreement was effective as of yesterday, September 15.
Niki plans on ramping up its expansion plans following the bankruptcy of SkyEurope Airlines and Austrian Airlines' network reduction, with President Niki Lauda telling ATWOnline, "We will increase our fleet from the current 12 to 16 aircraft next year." The LCC will add a third daily Vienna-Frankfurt frequency in November and a third daily frequency to Paris Charles de Gaulle by summer 2010. New daily flights from VIE to Bucharest Otopeni, Sofia and Belgrade will start next February and capacity on existing routes will be increased by adding larger aircraft.
Turkish Airlines will launch daily flights from Istanbul Sabiha Gokcen to Moscow Domodedovo, London Stansted, Amsterdam, Cologne, Stuttgart and Adana on Nov. 9. Four-times-weekly service to Berlin Schoenefeld and thrice-weekly flights to Hannover will start the same day, in addition to third daily flights to Ankara and Izmir and a second daily frequency to Antalya. Aeroflot Airlines increased its twice-daily Moscow Sheremetyevo-Kaliningrad service to five-times-daily.
Southwest Airlines sees a future for the long-haul, low-cost model and can envision someday operating intercontinental routes, Director-Network Strategic Planning Lee Lipton told ATWOnline at the World Route Development Forum in Beijing, while emphasizing that there is "no timetable" for such a move.
Ryanair will open bases at Bari and Brindisi early next year, its 35th and 36th, with a combined three aircraft and an investment of $210 million. The LCC will base two aircraft at Bari in January and launch flights on Jan. 14 to Brussels South Charleroi, Paris Beauvais (each four-times-weekly) Treviso (six-times-weekly), Genoa (thrice-weekly) and Karlsruhe/Baden (twice-weekly). In February it will begin serving Trapani (four-times-weekly), Dusseldorf Weeze, Valencia (each thrice-weekly) and Cagliari (twice-weekly). It will operate 16 routes in total from the airport.
Copenhagen Airport announced an agreement with airlines to freeze charges from Oct. 1 through March 2011 and to invest more than DKK2.6 billion ($509 million) in infrastructure expansion and improvements during the period. For the ensuing four years, charges will be subject to annual increases equivalent to the consumer price index plus 1%. CPH is cutting the takeoff charge by 25% but increasing the passenger fee by 18.6%. It also will impose a NOx-based emissions charge that has not been finalized.
US Senate staff said last week that determining how to pay for transitioning to the satellite-based NextGen ATC system is proving difficult, with Congress reluctant to set precedent by footing the bill for early ADS-B equipage on commercial aircraft.
