This winter, fastjet will add additional capacity on routes to Johannesburg, South Africa; Harare, Zimbabwe and its recently launched service to Lilongwe, Malawi this winter, as well as increasing its domestic offering to Kilimanjaro and Mwanza.
The airline has recently completed a rebranding and now positions itself as a full service carrier, and with it has launched a total of five new international routes to Dusseldorf, Cologne, Bishkek, Amsterdam and Paris.
As part of its growth into international markets following the introduction of the Boeing 787 Dreamliner into its fleet, Xiamen Airlines will introduce direct flights to Sydney from two new mainland markets. A three times weekly link from Fuzhou will commence from November 30, 2015, while a twice weekly service from Xiamen will follow from December 6, 2015, both subject to final government approval.
Expanded concession areas, a new security hall, an extended pedestrian bridge and 1,400 additional premium parking spaces are all part of the ambitious $248 million expansion plan – the most money invested into the airport in nearly a decade.
With last week’s announcement from Emirates Airline on the further deployment of its expanding Airbus A380 fleet, including its new more densely configured two-class arrangement; Routesonline has investigated what are the main destinations in the airline’s global network, based on estimated passenger demand.
While a growing number of Emirates Airline passengers are beginning or ending their journeys in Dubai, a significant proportion of Emirates traffic simply uses Dubai as a transit point between two other points.
The airline will replace a Boeing 777-300ER on the carrier’s EK011/012 between Dubai International and London Gatwick with a three-class A380 from January 1, 2016 meaning all three of its rotations to Gatwick and five daily flights to Heathrow will be flown with the SuperJumbo from the start of 2016.
The Dubai – Orlando route will be flown on a daily basis using a Boeing 777-200LR, although Emirates will deploy its flagship Airbus A380-800 on the inaugural rotation on September 1, 2015; the first time the Super Jumbo will operate a scheduled passenger service into Orlando International Airport.
Flights were initially intended to commence operation in February, but this was delayed, and now the airline is planning to launch on September 2, 2015 from the Namibian capital.
The new aircraft, which is set to arrive in March 2016, will support the new services between the Bulgarian capital and Alicante, Bristol, Hamburg Lubeck and Oslo Torp, which will be served with two weekly flights each.
The airline will initially offer two weekly flights to San Jose’s Santamaria International Airport from May 4, 2016, but already plans to add a third weekly rotation during the winter 2016/2017 schedules. This will be the second long-haul link between the UK and Costa Rica adding to the weekly Thomson Airways service between London Gatwick and Liberia, which will launch in November this year.
The Y18 billion ($145 million) plan will see current shareholder Integral Corporation hold a 50.1 per cent stake in the low-cost carrier, with UDS Airlines Investment – a joint venture between SMBC and Development Bank of Japan –holding a 33.4 per cent shareholding and ANA a 16.5 per cent stake.
The US Patent and Trademark Office recently approved the application from Airbus for the new jet, which says it will travel at 4.5 times the speed of sound – more than 2,500mph according to the documents lodged.
Frontier Airlines is one of a number of budget operators across the glove to introduce the variant, the largest member of the Airbus A320 Family, into its fleet this year.
The aviation industry is becoming increasingly reliant on technology, from electronic reservation systems, mobile boarding to aircraft improved ground –to-air communications. However, there is a growing concern surrounding hackers looking to exploit the industry. Mainframe networks are susceptible to attack which is obviously a huge threat to airports and airlines alike.
Flights to Amman, Beirut, Chittagong, Doha, Kathmandu, Kuwait and Muscat will become available from DWC from October 25, 2015, while flights to these destinations from Dubai International will also remain available.
While Vancouver will be the first Canadian destination to be served by British Airways (BA) with the A380, it will be the fourth destination in North America linked to London by the SuperJumbo after Los Angeles, San Francisco, Washington, and from October this year, Miami. BA also use the type on flights to Hong Kong, Johannesburg and Singapore.
Originally launched in May 2005 by Continental Airlines, United Airlines took over the link between Newark and Belfast International in April 2012 following the merger of the US majors and initially operated a full year-round offering. However, last winter it cut back capacity and suspended flights from early January and mid March this year. It had planned a similar capacity cut for the forthcoming winter season, but has now reversed this decision.
The new twice weekly link between Panama City and Belize City will be introduced from December 8, 2015 and will be operated using 94-seat Embraer 190 equipment configured with 10 seats in business class and 84 in the main cabin. Following its addition to the Copa Airlines route map, the carrier’s network now covers 75 cities in 31 countries in North, Central and South America and the Caribbean.
The airline, which is a subsidiary of China’s HNA Group, will commence flights to both Cairns and the Gold Coast on January 8, 2016 on a triangular route which will operate from Hong Kong to the Gold Coast, continuing onto Cairns.
The investigations concern in particular marketing fees paid to Wizz Air by Cluj-Napoca International Airport and low airport charges offered by Târgu Mureş Transilvania Airport to airlines operating there. Furthermore, the Commission will also investigate subsidies by local authorities to the airports themselves.
