Ahead of Routes Europe 2018 in Bilbao, Routesonline provides a snapshot of Spain’s leading international airlines and airports, as well as the most used aircraft types on international flights.
Low-cost carrier Ryanair is to further expand its capacity from Manchester Airport this summer with the launch of ten new routes. It comes as new research reveals the UK airports which have enjoyed the largest passenger growth over the past year, with Manchester among the front-runners.
A deal has been agreed for a 50 percent rise in the number of flights allowed between the UK and China, a move which is set to increase the number of routes from regional airports.
Take-off and landing slots at London Gatwick, Manchester and Birmingham that were previously controlled by collapsed carrier Monarch Airlines are set to be reallocated to other airlines after administrators lost a legal bid to retain them.
From May 2017, BA CityFlyer will begin summer-only direct flights from Manchester to the popular Spanish sunspots of Alicante, Malaga, Ibiza and Palma, the Greek island of Mykonos, Nice in the South of France and a weekly service to London City Airport, which will facilitate the transfer of the aircraft in and out of Manchester.
European low-cost carrier Norwegian is set to open four new operational bases – two in the US and two in Europe – in 2017 to support the growth of its long-haul transatlantic network. The internal go-ahead for the expansion follows the final approval late last week by the US Department of Transportation for a foreign carrier permit for the airline’s Norwegian Air International business.
With the south of England facing capacity constraints, Stephen Turner of Manchester Airport Group believes his airport is in pole position to secure more long-haul routes.
The airport serving the British Overseas Territory has experienced an influx of passengers during the summer months, mainly due to increased services from existing carriers. A new record was set in August, with 60,360 passengers handled.
Under the new Air Service Agreement passenger flights can now increase from the current maximum of 40 per week for each nation to up to 100. There will be no limit on the number of all-cargo services, creating new opportunities for trade and businesses. A restriction on the number of destinations that airlines can serve has also been lifted, meaning services can be operated between any point in the UK and any point in China. Up until now, airlines could only serve six destinations in each country.
Sun-Air will inaugurate an eleven-times weekly link between Bremen and Manchester and ten-times weekly operation to London City from October 31, 2016 and in the process will open a new operational base in Bremen to service the network.
Network growth across both its domestic and international markets has helped boost traffic at Detroit Metropolitan Airport during the first half of this year. Latest data from the airport operator shows an additional 817,000 passengers were handled over the first six months of the year versus the same period in 2015, a rise of 5.1 percent.
In a formal request to Airport Coordination Limited (ACL), the body responsible for slot allocation, schedules facilitation and schedule data collection at Manchester, Singapore Airlines has requested to double its operations at Manchester with two arriving and two departing flights each morning.
Delta and Virgin Atlantic’s joint venture is based around offering customers more options and a seamless experience between the US and the UK. The airlines are continuously evaluating their joint Transatlantic network to match the right aircraft to the right destinations and the summer 2017 network growth and route switches are a clear example of this.
The UK has always been one of the key markets for Oman Air and is one of just five country markets it serves in Europe. The airline currently offers flights to Frankfurt and Munich in Germany; Milan in Italy; Paris in France, Zurich in Switzerland and London, with the airline describing the UK capital as a flagship route.
UK leisure carrier Jet2.com will introduce a second route to this year’s Routes Europe host city of Kraków this week after the success of its current Newcastle – Kraków service that has been in operation since March 2011. The airline took time away from its busy Routes Europe meeting schedule to join senior officials from Kraków Airport to help promote the event on the second day of the air service development forum.
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.
Emirates Airline will add a fourth daily rotation between its Dubai International Airport hub and London’s Gatwick Airport from October 1, 2016. The additional flight will be operated by a three-class Boeing 777-300ER configured with 360-seats: eight private suites in First Class, 42 lie flat seats in Business Class and 310 seats in Economy.
Twenty years after it first launched flights from Manchester, Virgin Atlantic is making history by offering the northern city’s first direct service to San Francisco as part of an expanded summer 2017 schedule that will also deliver a regular link to Boston. The two new routes will cut journey times to both US cities by eliminating the need for connections.
This month easyJet will launch its first flights to Montenegro, its 32nd country in its network and an emerging destination with limited current international connectivity. The country was a well-known tourist spot in the 1980s and has both a picturesque coast and a mountainous northern region. Yet, the Yugoslav wars that were fought in neighbouring countries during the 1990s crippled the tourist industry and damaged the image of Montenegro for years.
