Ryanair’s domestic expansion in Sweden, Swoop adding a fourth destination in Mexico, and Austrian Airlines returning to Montreal are among the latest new route announcements and service resumptions.
Fiji Airways, Fiji’s National Airline, has announced plans to commence seasonal twice-weekly direct services from Nadi to San Francisco starting June 2016. The flights, operating in June, July, August, December 2016 and January 2017, will depart from Nadi International Airport to San Francisco International Airport on Thursdays and Sundays.
The new flight will be the first direct offering between Singapore and the South Pacific Islands and will be operated using a 273-seat Airbus A330 configured with a two-class arrangement. The flight time of ten hours will save travellers at least three hours compared to current flight options which require a transfer stop in Australia or New Zealand.
The new service will build on the national carrier’s existing weekly Honiara - Nadi service which operates via Port Vila, Vanuatu, on Saturdays and returns to Honiara, again via Port Vila, on Sundays and continues a recent growth of Solomon Airlines’ international network in recent months, which saw a direct Sydney-Honiara service introduced in June.
The aircraft will be introduced on the Auckland - Nadi route between November 2015 and March 2016. The 787-9 will initially operate two new services per week building to five during the peak mid-December to late January period. In addition to this, there will also be an extra weekly A320 service added to the summer schedule to meet passenger demand.
Virgin Australia operates up to 22 flights per week between Nadi, Fiji and Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane. An estimated 780,000 passengers flew between Australia and Fiji in 2014, up 2.6 per cent on the previous year.
The two governments resolved the air row between both countries, lifting the suspension of air services between the two, and allowing the designated airlines to resume air services from this month.
