Slovenian carrier Adria Airways will provide an important hub link into the Star Alliance network via Lufthansa’s Bavarian hub at Munich Airport, while Wizz Air will introduce a low-fare offering to London, introducing 27,000 seats to and from Olsztyn-Mazury in the current calendar year.
Although the Air France-KLM Group low-cost brand has previously served the UK market from the Netherlands, the new links from Paris Orly into England and Scotland’s capital cities by its Transavia France operation represent its first ever flights between France and the UK.
The new connection will be the only direct flight between London Gatwick and Bucharest and will grow Wizz Air’s daily flights between the two cities to four, complementing its existing three times daily link from London Luton, a route that was introduced almost ten years ago in January 2007.
Complementing its existing operations from London’s Gatwick and Stansted airports, Thomas Cook Airlines will introduce weekly flights from Luton Airport to Ibiza, Mahon and Palma in Spain and Corfu in Greece during the summer 2017 schedule. These flights will be operated using Airbus A321 equipment which will fly in and out of the airport on a ‘W’ pattern between Fridays and Mondays.
For business travellers, a growing segment of easyJet’s passenger count, the new bases will enable the carrier to better serve the demands of its premium passengers in Barcelona and Venice with new earlier morning departures affording a more flexible schedule for same day trip arrangements to Europe’s main economic centres.
Extra capacity has helped to grow passenger demand between Dublin and London by 9% over the last calendar year, with almost 4.5 million people flying between the two capital cities in 2015.
The arrival of Vueling at Luton, its third London airport, will see it grow its UK route map next year to 12 airports as part of a significant growth in the UK market over the past couple of years. In fact, Vueling will offer a total of 1,854,500 seats in the UK and Ireland in summer 2016, a 99 per cent increase from the past summer.
The additional aircraft will arrive ahead of a July 22, 2016 launch of the four new routes and will also facilitate frequency growth in some of its existing markets. Wizz Air will offer new twice weekly links between Cluj-Napoca and Alicante, Berlin Schoenefeld, Billund and Doncaster Sheffield, with the German capital become the newest destination in its network of 113 airports.
European low-cost carrier, Wizz Air has reported a record first quarter and has subsequently raised its profit forecast for the year by as much as €20 million.
The airline plans to introduce new services to London Luton, Berlin Schönefeld, Manchester, Amsterdam and Bristol – the latter of which will be a brand new destination for Vienna Airport.
The UK – Moldova market is dominated by Air Moldova which has offered continuous flights between London and Chisinau since March 2007. These were initially operated to Stansted Airport, before switching to Gatwick Airport from May 2009 and then returning back to Stansted from May 2013.
Central and Eastern European low-cost airline specialist, Wizz Air, will slightly modify its existing model by introducing a second aircraft type to its fleet later this year. While maintaining the one fleet family concept, the budget carrier has switched 26 of its outstanding orders for the A320, for the larger A321 variant and will place the first aircraft into service in the last quarter of this year.
Wizz Air first launched operations in Poland in 2004 and has subsequently built up a strong presence in the country over the subsequent eleven years. As a result of these latest network additions it will now offer a total of 113 Polish routes to 20 countries from seven Polish airports.
At Belfast in Northern Ireland, the airline’s winter schedule sees it increasing the number of seats for sale on routes to Gatwick, Luton and Stansted in London by more than 125,000, bringing the total number of seats to over 500,000 up to the end of February, 2016.
Europe’s largest low-cost airline for Central and Eastern Europe will commence flights between the two cities from June 15, 2015, operating twice weekly.
Air connectivity is hugely important to Waterford and the surrounding southeast region. This has been underlined time and again by inward investment and economic development agencies. These new services will be a key driver for incoming tourists from the UK, especially at a time when the Eurozone is particularly attractive to UK travellers.
Turkish airline, SunExpress has recently announced its plans for a total of 21 new routes for the summer 2015 season, with departures mainly from Antalya, Dalaman, Izmir and Konya.
Košice International Airport is among the fastest growing airports in Europe. It achieved a 50 per cent increase in passenger traffic in 2014 compared to the previous year, also recording its strongest charter season in its history, and a 13 per cent increase in aircraft movements for the year.
Ryanair initially announced it would fly from Copenhagen – Milan Bergamo and Warsaw Modlin daily, as well as from Copenhagen – London Luton twice daily; increasing to three times daily from October 25, 2015, but has since announced a further four routes for later this year, including Madrid, Rome, Brussels and Stockholm.
The service will be operated three-times weekly, increasing to a daily service by the end of the year, using a B757-200 aircraft with 74 lie-flat seats in a 2x2 configuration.
A communication last month from La Compagnie suggests that Luton Airport will host its new Transatlantic link between London and Newark, the airport's first regular flight to the United States since 2008. In a newsletter to subscribers confirming plans to open reservations this week, the carrier mentioned the use of the Bedfordshire airport.
Two of Britain’s biggest airports recorded the highest passenger numbers ever in 2014, alongside many other UK airports who have recorded an increase in passengers since 2013.
According to Ryanair, the first aircraft is due for delivery in March 2015 and will be used to introduce routes to London, Milan and Warsaw, with three more units due to arrive later in 2015. These will be used for an additional ten more new routes which will be announced in the New Year.
