From the start of the Summer 2016 schedules on March 27, 2016, easyJet will introduce a new six times weekly domestic connection between Bordeaux and Marseille and a four times weekly link between Bordeaux and Berlin. A couple of weeks later a new four times weekly link from Bordeaux to Barcelona will be introduced from April 15, 2016, while a three times weekly service to Venice will follow on April 17, 2016.
The new flight will be operated by an Airbus A319 and its introduction follows a recent revision to the previously heavily restrictive bilateral between Austria and Iran following the official state visit of Austria’s President Heinz Fischer to Iran in September this year. A link to Shiraz is also understood to be under consideration by Austrian Airlines.
The low-fare carrier will introduce a three times weekly link between Bristol and its Keflavik International Airport hub from May 13, 2016 using an A320. This flight will connect via a short stopover in Reykjavik to the carrier’s long-haul flights to Baltimore, Boston and new routes starting in 2016 to Los Angeles and San Francisco in the United States and Montreal and Toronto in Canada.
Garuda’s plans to introduce non-stop flights to Europe have been restricted by limited runway capacity at Jakarta’s Soekarno-Hatta International Airport, with the pavement classification number (PCN) of the runways and apron at Soekarno-Hatta Airport not meeting the required level of strength that is typically needed for the operation of a full capacity, heavy duty commercial airliner such as the Boeing 777-300ER.
The new flight will bring additional capacity into a market now controlled by British Airways after Virgin Atlantic Airways ended its own non-stop flights earlier this year. Sabre data shows an annual O&D demand of over 375,000 two-way passengers between the UK and Cape Town (around 1,030 passengers per day).
The announcement marks the return of the Spanish flag carrier to Puerto Rico after a three-year hiatus following a restructuring of its long-haul operations to support its business transformation programme and return to profitability. The airline ended its previous flights between Madrid and San Juan in March 2013 but the void was quickly filled by Air Europa which introduced its own twice weekly operation on the route from January 2014.
The Supervisory Board of Austrian Airlines first approved the purchase of 17 Embraer aircraft in June 2015 with the first example being transferred across to Austrian Airlines in mid-August this year and redelivered to the carrier at the end of last month following modification work and repainting into the Austrian livery. The aircraft was originally delivered to Lufthansa CityLine in March 2011.
airBaltic holds firm orders for 13 CS300s and options for a further seven aircraft and sees the CSeries as not just an efficient replacement for its older Boeing 737s, but also providing the right capacity and range to support the wider development of the business.
Jet Airways currently offers a mini hub operation at Brussels Airport with daily flights from Delhi and Mumbai in India connecting in the Belgian capital to daily continuation flights to Newark, USA and Toronto, Canada, but changes to its business strategy after United Arab Emirates (UAE) national carrier, Etihad Airways became an equity partner mean this demand is not being more efficiently handled via Abu Dhabi International Airport.
The five times weekly Belgrade - New York JFK link will be operated using a leased two-class Airbus A330-200 and Air Serbia is currently considering lease options with Etihad Airways Partner airlines as well as with other external companies. The airline currently operates a fleet of 14 narrow-bodied and six turboprop aircraft.
Subject to regulatory approval, the new ‘SQ338’ will depart Singapore on Mondays, Thursdays and Saturdays at 23:30 (local time), with the return sector, operated as flight ‘SQ337’, departing Düsseldorf on Tuesdays, Fridays and Sundays at 11:30 (local time). Although launching with a three times weekly schedule, the carrier says it intends to increase frequency at a later date.
Emirates said it was attracted to the split operation in Istanbul and the added investment required by the carrier as it offers customers “a fresher travel experience, with shorter processing times”, but also “easier access” to the city’s new financial centre as well as to popular outlet malls and thermal spas in the vicinity.
At EU airports, the average passenger traffic growth was +6.3 per cent (+6.3 per cent also for Q3), while passenger traffic at Non-EU airports reported growth of +5.8 per cent (+6.4 per cent for Q3). Meanwhile, freight traffic at Europe’s airports was essentially flat in September at +0.2 per cent (+0.5 per cent for Q3). Finally, aircraft movements increased by +3.3 per cent (+2.9 per cent for Q3).
The new arrangement will initially debut in the final quarter and will enter service from December 1, 2015 on both the Dubai – Bangkok and Dubai – Copenhagen routes, and will also serve Dubai – Kuala Lumpur and Dubai – Manchester from January 1, 2016.
The airline will bring the return of flights between Munich and Brno, Czech Republic with a new six times weekly service from November 16, 2015, adding to its existing routes to Liege (Belgium), Rotterdam (The Netherlands), Bern (Switzerland) and Bristol (United Kingdom).
The UK-Nigeria market is currently served on a daily basis by Arik Air, British Airways and Virgin Atlantic Airways. There is an O&D demand of an estimated 2,500 passengers a day between the UK and Nigeria before you even start looking at connection options, and this has grown at an average annual rate of 9.2 per cent since 2010.
This milestone announcement, the biggest of its kind since the Yorkshire airport opened its doors in 2005, will boost traffic with an additional 500,000 seats on offer from the facility. Doncaster Sheffield is already among the fastest growing airports in the UK outside London and will now benefit from Flybe delivering up to 44 new flight departures per week, a 70 per cent increase in departures.
The airline became a pioneer of ultra-low-cost travel between Europe and North America when it debuted its flights into the US market earlier this year and will replicate this in Canada with its new flights to Montreal and Toronto from May 2016. This latest growth is described by the carrier’s chief executive officer, Skúli Mogensen as a “game changer for WOW air” as it seeks to cement itself as the “industry leader” in the ultra-low-cost long haul category.
The airline, part of the HNA Group, has requested rights to introduce weekly services from Beijing and the first direct link to the UK from the Hangzhou, the capital and largest city of Zhejiang Province in Eastern China.
The arrival of additional Dreamliner aircraft has enabled Air Canada to grow its long-haul network directly with the modern generation airliner, while also redeploying older aircraft assets into its Air Canada rouge leisure division to bring further new routes. The airline will have a fleet of 21 aircraft by 2016 (it has 37 on order) and is accelerating the conversion of existing routes to Dreamliner service from Toronto to Asia, Europe and South America.
The market from Europe to Puerto Rico is currently massively underserved, with a significant percentage of indirect passengers already flying between the two markets. In the past 12 months this market size was an estimated 150,000 passengers, with 87 per cent having to travel indirect due to the current limited direct offering across the Atlantic.
Irish budget carrier, Ryanair is to significantly grow its activities from Manchester, Birmingham and Newcastle airports in the UK next year, introducing a total of ten new routes from the three facilities as part of an expanded offering from the summer schedule.
A recent attack from the newly appointed Odessa governor and former President of Georgia, Mikheil Saakashvili on the State Aviation Service Administration of Ukraine blaming its chief for using his flight assignment powers to preserve a near-monopolistic grip on the market, while protecting interests of individual oligarchs has resulted in immediate action which could finally bring open skies to Ukraine.
Located around 20 kilometres south of Bergen city centre, the airport handles more than six million passengers each year, but existing facilities are operating above capacity and many of the airport’s subsystems are heavily congested during peak periods.
The eight times weekly link will be flown using a 254-seat Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner and will increase the Gulf carrier’s offering between Doha and the UK to 71 flights per week, further strengthening connections to Africa, Asia and beyond.
