The carrier will launch a twice daily operation between London City and Aberdeen from October 27, 2014 using a 78-seat Bombardier Dash 8-Q400 following British Airways’ recent announcement that it would be withdrawing from the route at the end of the summer season.
This is the first start-up aid scheme that the European Commission has assessed under its new guidelines on state aid to airports and airlines which came into force on April 4, 2014. The guidelines have simplified the rules on public support granted by Member States for the start-up of new air transport routes.
AZAL plans to launch a twice weekly service between Baku’s Heydar Aliyev International Airport and New York’s John F Kennedy International Airport using a 237-seat Airbus A340-500 but will likely deploy its Boeing 787 Dreamliners on the route; the first of two is due for delivery towards the end of this year.
WestJet Encore's move eastward is part of a strategic plan to “continue to liberate Canadians in smaller communities from the high cost of air travel,” continuing WestJet’s own pioneering developments in the larger Canadian markets through its 18-year history. The first step of this Eastern Encore expansion saw the introduction of flights to Ontario from June 27, 2014.
Amsterdam is already one of easyJet’s most successful network points with more than 3.5 million passengers flying annually to and from 21 destinations. It further strengthens the airline’s position at the airport, where it now holds a nine per cent market share having first introduced flights back in 1996.
According to reports in China, China Eastern Airlines is considering launching a three times weekly link to Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport using an Airbus A330-300, significantly enhancing connectivity to Yunnan province in the far southwest of China.
flydubai will become the first carrier to operate direct flights from Dubai to both Sarajevo and Zagreb. It will introduce a twice weekly link to Sarajevo from December 8, 2014, while a three times weekly offering to Zagreb will follow from December 16, 2014. Both routes will be served by its dual-class 737-800s.
Latest data from The International Air Transport Association (IATA) for global air freight markets shows air cargo growth accelerated in May 2014, with 4.7 per cent growth compared to a year ago. This is up from the 3.8 per cent year-on-year growth recorded in April.
From the beginning of this month, the city’s primary international gateway has been able to increase the average 65 flights an hour to 74 but in the interests of safety, due to thunderous weather conditions experienced during the summer months, peak slot hours will be controlled at 70 flights.
The airline will offer four return flights in June and July 2015 through its joint venture with transatlantic partner Delta Air Lines, operated on Thursdays from June 25, 2015 using a Boeing 747-400 configured with 14 Upper Class seats, 66 Premium Economy seats and 375 seats in Economy.
The airline first made its entry into Portugal in 1999 and launched flights from Porto in 2007. It currently offers regular flights from Porto to Basel, Geneva, London Gatwick, Lyon, Paris CDG and Toulouse and carried almost 800,000 passengers across this network in the year between July 2013 and the end of June 2014.
The new daily flight will launch from October 27, 2014 and will be operated using a 278-seat Airbus A330-200 complementing the existing Dubai low-cost offering of Wizz Air and providing an alternative global connection option to the current flights of Qatar Airways via its Doha hub.
LAN Airlines welcomed its first 787 in August 2012 and has a total of 22 787-8s on order and a further four larger 787-9s. It currently operates a fleet of six examples all configured in a two-class arrangement with 217 seats in Economy and 30 in Premium Business.
UAE national carrier, Etihad Airways, has revealed plans to launch its first passenger flights to Algiers, Edinburgh, Entebbe, Hong Kong, Kolkata and Madrid in the first half of 2015, while Brisbane will get its first non-stop flights using the carrier's new Boeing 787-9 Dreamliners.
We can reveal that key discussions to bring this European route to fruition took place at our Routes Europe forum in Marseille, France in April this year.
Initially, WestJet expects to operate four widebody aircraft with the first deployments on routes between Alberta and Hawaii during the winter season beginning in late 2015.
Since its debut, AirAsia X has carried over one million passengers to and from its Japan routes and Japan contributes over 12 per cent of the airline’s total revenue to date. The airline is committed to Japan and the additional flight frequency to Narita is in line with its expansion strategy for the region, says the carrier.
During the past couple of days we have been in conversation with many delegates during Routes Silk Road in Tbilisi, Georgia and here are some of the snippets of information we picked up from our discussions.
The start-up is expected to initially launch operations with two 737-300s. It has not yet formalised its network plans but highlights Almaty, Kazakhstan; Baku, Azerbaijan; Istanbul, Turkey; Kiev, Ukraine; Minsk, Belarus; Moscow, Russia; Prague, Czech Republic and Tehran, Iran as likely destinations.
