The UK government will implement screening at Britain’s two main gateway airports—London Heathrow and Gatwick—for passengers traveling from Ebola-stricken Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea.
German aviation authorities (Luftfahrt-Bundesamt, or LBA) have denied the continuation of 34 codeshare routes between Etihad Airways and its strategic equity partner airberlin for the coming winter schedule, effective at the end of October.
Blackpool Airport has announced the facility will close Oct. 15, becoming the second UK regional airport to cease operations this year after no buyer stepped forward to rescue the struggling facility.
The outlook for regional Australian carriers is looking increasingly tough, following the recent news that Australia’s Regional Express (Rex) is to cut its network following a 75% drop in profits.
Russia’s Transaero will suspend services from Moscow Sheremetyevo Airport from the IATA winter schedule 2014/2015 due to the renovation of the airport’s northern part, which begins March 1, 2015.
The new link will provide the first regular link between East Africa and Dublin and will mark the return of flights between the Irish capital and Los Angeles, a market last served by Aer Lingus in November 2008. This will strengthen Ireland’s connectivity to the west coast of the United States, with California a major market for Irish tourism.
Having already secured a strong position in the domestic Mexican market, Volaris has been focussing on developing its international network. With the addition of its new service to Reno and previously announced link to Fort Lauderdale it will serve 17 international destinations with 38 routes by year-end. These are targeted at travellers wishing to visit friends and family on both sides of the border providing better travel options for the Hispanic communities in these regions.
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) have unveiled a plan to implement health screenings of airline passengers arriving at five US airports from Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.
Swiss International Air Lines will be adding 22 new European destinations to its Zurich network with the start of the 2015 summer schedule, by supplementing its hub concept with a new point-to-point system.
Thomson Airways are to increase their long-haul capacity and fly to new destinations, including the only direct flight from the UK to Costa Rica in November 2015.
Today, Emirates fleet investment in Africa tops $7 billion with operating costs of over $2 billion and it currently operates to 22 passenger and six dedicated freighter destinations in Africa perating over 160 flights across the continent each week, connecting African economies and markets with Dubai and beyond to a global network of over 140 major cities.
The charity is currently running an appeal in line with World Sight Day 2014 to help eliminate avoidable blindness in Ethiopia, which has one of the highest rates of vision loss in the world. One of the conditions the appeal will raise money to tackle is trachoma which was wiped out in the UK 60 years ago, but is still the leading global cause of infectious blindness. Ethiopia has one of the highest known rates of the disease in the world.
A large majority of passengers at the new London Heathrow Terminal 2 are already using the self-service kiosks to print boarding passes and baggage tags.
Air India plans to operate a four times weekly schedule from October 14, 2014 using an ATR 42 of its subsidiary Air India Regional, formerly Alliance Air. It says the new route will “provide quick and convenient connection to government officials, business travellers, students and tourists, among others”.
UK leisure carrier Jet2.com, the largest operator at Blackpool Airport, has already revealed it will move its entire operation to Manchester Airport from October 10, 2014, while Aer Lingus Regional and Citywing will maintain services to Dublin, Belfast City and the Isle of Man until the closure of the airport on October 15, 2014.
Norwegian Air Shuttle indicated it is prepared to wait as long as necessary to gain US Department of Transportation (DOT) approval for its Ireland-based long-haul subsidiary Norwegian Air International (NAI) to operate flights between Europe and the US.
Air Canada is adding considerable capacity between Eastern Canada and Europe as Calgary-based low-cost competitor WestJet is expected to expand into the trans-Atlantic market within the next two years.
A consortium—made up of Latvian airline airBaltic, Airbus ATM subsidiary Airbus ProSky and Latvia’s air navigation services provider Latvijas Gaisa Satiksme (LGS)—has completed the Arrival Modernization for Better Efficiency in Riga (AMBER) project aimed at establishing new and greener arrival procedures at Riga Airport.
Icelandic carrier WOW air is to launch a new year-round link between Reykjavik and Dublin from next summer. The three times weekly route will commence on June 2, 2015 and will be the first scheduled service between the two cities.
Customer engagement online is more important than you may think. Connecting and communicating with your customers plays a key part in customer service, and can make everyday processes run a lot smoother.
Etihad Airways will next year launch its first service from Scotland with the start of a non-stop daily flight from Edinburgh to its home base of Abu Dhabi, the UAE's capital city.
