This week: Norwegian trims transatlantic services from the UK; KLM adds Vegas but cuts African routes; Ryanair's new French bases; Air France unveils new A330 economy cabins and more.
Chinese social media platform WeChat has one billion monthly active users. Find out what KLM, Scoot, Finnair and Air France are doing to maximise their presence to China’s outbound travellers.
SkyTeam partners Air France-KLM and Air Europa are hoping that a planned joint venture agreement on flights between Europe and Central and South America will help to unlock new routes and direct flights between the two continents.
Key figures from the international aviation industry are gathering in Accra, Ghana for the 11th Routes Africa. The event, which is the continent’s longest-standing aviation forum bringing together leading airlines, airports and tourism authorities, comes at a time when the market is growing rapidly.
Our top five stories on Routes Weekly: WOW's Indian expansion; China to relax international regulations; strong half for easyJet; UAE and US deal; Ethiopian adds Manchester and more.
A week after International Airlines Group bought a minority stake in long-haul low-cost carrier Norwegian, with a view to launching a full takeover of the Scandinavian carrier, Routesonline takes a look at the growth of transatlantic services from Europe to the US and Canada, and how lower fares have impacted this market.
KLM has opened reservations this week for a planned twice weekly Amsterdam - San Jose flight launching from October 31, 2017. This will be flown on Tuesdays and Fridays and operated by one of its new Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner aircraft. It previously served San Jose until March 1998.
The return of KLM into London City comes at a time that capacity on the Amsterdam route is at its highest level. Amsterdam continues to be a hugely popular route for the airport, last year seeing a six per cent of passenger growth and becoming the second busiest route in terms of passenger numbers.
This will be the first time Cartagena will be linked non-stop to Europe in around ten years since AirMadrid offered flights from to the Spanish cities of Barcelona and Madrid back in the mid-2000s. Cartagena also successfully attracted flights from Italy with Blue Panorama Airlines at the start of this decade but these were purely on a charter basis.
CEO Jean-Marc Janaillac has launched an initiative to tackle the airline's issues head-on, mainly cutting costs and growing long-haul operations. Air France-KLM returned to net profit for the first time in six financial years last year, turning a net loss of €225 million in 2014 to a positive net result of €118 million.
The Highlands and Islands make up half of Scotland’s land mass of 15,000 square miles and are home to a tenth of the country’s population. Regular, hassle-free access to the world from airports like Inverness is vitally important to the increasingly young and entrepreneurial population who live and work there. Half of inhabitants are under 44 and the region is home to 21,000 businesses, according to Highlands and Islands Enterprise.
The Dutch flag carrier is understood to have already held discussions with the Ministry of Roads and Urban Developments in Iran and is closely liaising with sister carrier Air France ahead of its own return to Tehran.
The introduction of flights to Amsterdam is a logical growth for Aeromexico. Alongside the strong trading relationship between Mexico and the Netherlands, the route will feed into the SkyTeam hub of KLM providing additional connections within Europe and complement its existing offer with fellow alliance partner Air France via Paris.
KLM will introduce a daily service to Valencia from its Amsterdam Schiphol hub, its first flights on the city pair since May 1993. These will initially operate on a twice weekly schedule from April 23, 2016 but will revert to a daily operation from May 16, 2016. The route will be flown using mainline Boeing 737-800 equipment.
Airline ancillary revenue has continued to grow for the eighth consecutive year, according to IdeaWorksCompany, who tracked 63 airlines and researched financial filings made by 130 airlines all over the world.
Dubbed the E175+, the variant KLM ordered has a different winglet to the baseline aircraft to increase fuel efficiency. Embraer revealed in March 2014 when the first aircraft was rolled out that the winglets and other streamlining for the mid-generation upgrade would help to keep the aircraft competitive until the next-generation ‘E2’ models enter service in 2018 and which will reduce fuel burn by 24 per cent versus the original aircraft.
The CEOs of Europe’s five largest airline groups hosted a press briefing in Brussels earlier today (June 17) to outline their shared vision for a new EU Aviation Strategy.
Qatar Airways’ CEO, Akbar Al Baker said that the airline would like to operate up to two passenger flights daily if there were no bilateral constraints, but the airline is thwarted by the Dutch government which refuses to give extra landing rights to the three major Gulf carriers.
Alitalia SAI has announced that it will not renew its partnership agreement and ancillary joint ventures agreements with Air France-KLM when they come up for renewal in 2017.
Air France began serving Havana in 1998, and has since become the leading airline between Cuba and Europe, supporting tourism development on the island.
