The creators of the bestselling video game Minecraft are to start an airline, according to Swedish media reports. Markus Persson and Jakob Porser have registered a new company with the purpose of leasing aircraft.
United currently has 22 787s in its fleet and will receive three more before the end of this year. These include a mix of 787-8 and larger 787-9 variants which allow the carrier to fit the right-sized aircraft to its existing and new markets. The aircraft is being used at San Francisco International Airport to support the growth of United hub operation from where it provides nearly 280 daily flights to more than 90 destinations in North America, Latin America, Europe and Asia/Pacific.
Delta Air Lines is buying six slot pairs at slot-constrained London Heathrow Airport from joint-venture partner Air France-KLM, the Atlanta-based airline’s executives said on Oct. 14.
The Ukrainian State Aviation Administration announced a total ban of all Russian airlines from flying into Ukraine as of Oct. 25, in a back-and-forth political move.
If the speculation is true, Aer Lingus will be the only airline offering a direct flight between Europe and Hartford Bradley International Airport, branded as the ‘Gateway to New England’. In fact the airline will be the sole carrier to serve the facility from outside North America with existing links limited to just domestic services in the US and flights into Canada.
Flight schedules for a new five times weekly link from Frankfurt have already been loaded into the GDS for launch in late April 2016, just a week before British Airways launches its new London - San José operation.
China Southern announced in August that it would commence a three times weekly link between Guangzhou and Christchurch from December 15, 2015 operated using a Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner. This was originally displaying just for the winter schedule, but last month reservations were opened for the route to continue through the summer 2016 schedule.
Optimised for non-stop flights to the US, the aircraft, designated A350-900ULR (Ultra-Long Range), will include a modified fuel system to increase the fuel carrying capacity, an increase in Maximum Take-Off Weight, plus aerodynamic improvements, enabling service to the US West Coast, as well as to New York.
The new Adelaide route will be flown using Qatar Airways’ new Airbus A350-900 and will boost its Australian capacity to 28 flights a week. The airline’s Gulf rival, Emirates Airline already serves Adelaide from Dubai International Airport with flights since November 2012; now operating daily using a Boeing 777-300ER.
The new air link will be introduced from December 18, 2015 and will be operated on a twice weekly basis using a mix of Boeing 737 and Embraer 190 equipment. The flights will operate from Kharkiv on Tuesdays and Fridays and from Kutaisi on Wednesdays and Saturdays.
One of the biggest airport operators in Indonesia, Angkasa Pura II (AP II), has committed to invest IDR2 trillion ($150 million) for the construction of a new third runway at Jakarta’s Soekarno-Hatta International Airport.
The Gulf carrier received its first aircraft from the US manufacturer on October 7, 2015 and the aircraft entered service in the early hours of October 11, 2015 on the WY901 rotation between Muscat and Salalah. It operated three return flights on the route that day and is scheduled to repeat that schedule today (October 12, 2015) and through to the end of the month.
