Since launching flights on the Amritsar - Delhi - Birmingham route on a four times weekly schedule on August 1, 2013, the carrier has handled more than eighty thousand passengers onboard 210 return flights, providing better connectivity between the Midlands and India for business passengers, tourists and people visiting friends and relatives.
Qatar Airways will boost capacity on routes from Doha’s Hamad International Airport to Madrid and Perth through increased frequencies on the route to Europe and the permanent deployment of a larger capacity airliner on the Australian link.
As Airbus and Boeing go head-to-head in negotiations for Emirates Airline’s outstanding order of 70 extra-widebodied aircraft, aviation intelligence expert OAG has revealed the critical importance of Emirates’ choice and how it could impact up to 88 per cent of the carrier’s flights.
The new Seoul Incheon – Sihanoukville route was launched on July 29, 2014 and will continue until the end of August. It is being operated in combination with Skywings Asia’s existing links from the South Korean capital to Siem Reap in order to provide a full tourism package that includes the Kingdom’s two landmark destinations.
Despite ongoing political tensions in the country and a consequent fall in passenger numbers during the first half of 2014, the carrier’s management is confident the second half of the year will see an increase of demand as tourists return to Thailand.
The airline has experience of the market having previously served the Bandar Seri Begawan – Ho Chi Minh City route for a six year period. It introduced flights on the city pair in March 2006 and operated up to a daily service at its peak. However, after reducing frequency to just a weekly operation in late 2011, the route was finally closed in February 2012.
Air New Zealand and All Nippon Airways will both introduce flights with the Boeing 787-9 early next month, with Etihad Airways, Scoot, United Airlines and Virgin Atlantic Airways also due to the fly the new stretched variant of the Dreamliner before the end of the year.
The expanded Brisbane schedule will boost capacity on the route by 2,166 seats a week and will support the growing demand for connectivity to North America from Queensland. North America is actually Queensland’s third largest tourism market and the increase in services support the 4.2 per cent increase in passenger numbers experienced in 2013.
According to reports in China, China Eastern Airlines is considering launching a three times weekly link to Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport using an Airbus A330-300, significantly enhancing connectivity to Yunnan province in the far southwest of China.
flydubai will become the first carrier to operate direct flights from Dubai to both Sarajevo and Zagreb. It will introduce a twice weekly link to Sarajevo from December 8, 2014, while a three times weekly offering to Zagreb will follow from December 16, 2014. Both routes will be served by its dual-class 737-800s.
Latest data from The International Air Transport Association (IATA) for global air freight markets shows air cargo growth accelerated in May 2014, with 4.7 per cent growth compared to a year ago. This is up from the 3.8 per cent year-on-year growth recorded in April.
From the beginning of this month, the city’s primary international gateway has been able to increase the average 65 flights an hour to 74 but in the interests of safety, due to thunderous weather conditions experienced during the summer months, peak slot hours will be controlled at 70 flights.
UAE national carrier, Etihad Airways, has revealed plans to launch its first passenger flights to Algiers, Edinburgh, Entebbe, Hong Kong, Kolkata and Madrid in the first half of 2015, while Brisbane will get its first non-stop flights using the carrier's new Boeing 787-9 Dreamliners.
Since its debut, AirAsia X has carried over one million passengers to and from its Japan routes and Japan contributes over 12 per cent of the airline’s total revenue to date. The airline is committed to Japan and the additional flight frequency to Narita is in line with its expansion strategy for the region, says the carrier.
It is symbolic that the established Routes CIS event has transformed this year into Routes Silk Road to include a wider community that is very interlinked historically, culturally and commercially and that it is hosted in Tbilisi, Georgia, the Pearl of Caucuses, which lies on the crossroad between Asia and Europe.
Saudi Arabian low-cost carrier flynas has an ambitious long-haul expansion strategy, underpinned by new flights to the UK, writes Justin Burns for our sister magazine Routes News.
The new Air Asia X service to XiÁn’s Xianyang International Airport was launched on July 2, 2014 and represents its fifth link into China after Hangzhou, Chengdu, Beijing, and Shanghai. The low-cost carrier is offering four flights per week on the route, the only airline providing direct flights between the city and Kuala Lumpur.
The weekly service, operated by a two-class Boeing 767-300ER, represents the return of a link first served by Transaero in 2002 and served up until October 2004. This was originally flown from Domodedovo Airport in the Russian capital but is now being served every Wednesday from Vnukovo Airport.
