In a major expansion of its network Nile Air is adding three new routes during the first week of June, including a new country market, neighbouring Sudan. The new link between Cairo and Port Sudan will launch on June 6, 2015 and will be operated on a twice weekly basis, Nile Air’s first international service in Africa. It will bring competition and enhanced connectivity to a route currently served on a weekly basis by Sudan Airways.
Al Qahtani Group (linked to Gulf Air) and Qatar Airways were both selected in late 2012 to bring new competition into the Saudi Arabian domestic market as part of a series of reforms. Both have been working with the local regulator to establish their respective businesses, Saudi Gulf Airlines and Al Maha Airways, but despite an initial suggestion these carriers would take-off by the end of 2013, we are still awaiting their arrival into the local skies.
Now, Kamaruddin Meranun, group chief executive officer of AirAsia X, Indonesia AirAsia X has confirmed that following the success of its initial two routes plans are under discussion to add links between Denpasar and Jeddah, Saudi Arabia and Sydney, Australia, although no launch dates or schedules have yet been confirmed.
The new venture will complement the existing operations into Jordan with the introduction of regular scheduled flights to Kuwait from May 18, 2015 with services to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia following from May 19, 2015; Erbil, Iraq from May 20, 2015 and Sharm el Sheikh, Egypt from May 21, 2015 and more destinations are due to be added later in 2015.
At Routesonline we've decided to take a look back at the news breaking the same week in previous years and revisit it one or two years later to see what’s happened since we released the news.
The total traffic for the four days is an increase of 36 per cent over the same period at the end of Eid Al Fitr in 2013, when 133,007 passengers took an Etihad Airways flight.
The closure of the Manchester operation will enable flynas to concentrate its activities at London Gatwick. It launched a twice weekly flight from Jeddah on April 8, 2014 and will launch a twice weekly service from Riyadh on July 27, 2014. The airline hopes to capitalise on the high-traffic Eid holiday period over the launch week of operations for the new route.
The airline says the decision to close flights to these two destinations from the end of September 2014 is due to the “sustained weak performance of both routes”.
The airline will launch flights on eight routes across six countries from Ras Al Khaimah International Airport from May 16, 2014 despite its own Sharjah International Airport hub being just 80km away.
flynas has inaugurated its new long-haul network as it adds a new dimension to its flight offering. The carrier, which describes itself as Low-Cost Carrier Plus, offering customers added value, has wet-leased Airbus A330-200s from ACMI provider HiFly.
