Airbus has sealed a record $50bn order at the Dubai Air Show, one of the largest commercial plane deals in history, but Boeing has hit back with a $27bn agreement of its own.
The world’s busiest airport for international traffic will apply a new departure tax to bookings made from April 1, 2016 for travel from June 30, 2016 onwards. The service fee will cost 35 dirham – around $9.50.
Flights to Amman, Beirut, Chittagong, Doha, Kathmandu, Kuwait and Muscat will become available from DWC from October 25, 2015, while flights to these destinations from Dubai International will also remain available.
Low-cost carrier, flydubai has further strengthened its links to Russia, adding Novosibirsk and Nizhniy Novgorod to its comprehensive network in the region.
The budget carrier plans to links its Dubai International Airport base with Ahwaz, Hamadan, Isfahan, Shiraz and Tabriz from March 2015, adding to its existing flights to Tehran and Mashhad, which were only launched in August 2014.
Its latest growth for the first quarter of 2015 will see another three destinations added to its route map, further expanding the carrier’s footprint to 89 destinations in 46 countries. These comprise flights to Hargeisa (Somaliland), Chennai (India), and Nejran (Saudi Arabia).
The carrier’s entry into Tanzania is no real surprise as the country is a regional hub for tourism in East Africa and in 2013 the country welcomed over one million tourists. According to the Tanzania Tourism Board (TTB), this figure looks set with to double with two million tourists forecast by 2017.
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.
Building on the momentum from last year, when 17 new destinations where added to the network, the airline has further cemented its commitment to enhance connectivity between different cultures.
flydubai will offer a twice weekly service between Dubai and Kandahar from July 25, 2014 and a three times weekly offering between Dubai and Aden from August 1, 2014.
