The number of Northern Ireland residents using Dublin Airport increased by eleven per cent to more than 570,000 last year, growing about twice as fast as average passenger numbers at the airport.
As first revealed by The HUB at the end of last month, UK low-fare carrier Flybe is to inaugurate five new routes from London City Airport from the start of the winter schedules in late October 2014.
Emirates initially introduced flights between Dubai International Airport and Kuwait International Airport on July 16, 1989 but now serves the route five times daily with a combination of Boeing and Airbus aircraft.
With this expansion Wizz Air will grow its Polish fleet to 16 Airbus A320 aircraft in the summer peak of 2014: five based aircraft in Gdansk and Katowice, four in Warsaw Chopin Airport and one aircraft in Poznan and Wroclaw.
European regional carrier Etihad Regional has launched a twice-weekly service linking Geneva in Switzerland, and Toulouse in southwestern France, its first year-round route to France from its Swiss base. The inaugural service, operated using a 50-seat Saab 2000 touched down at Toulouse’s Blagnac Airport at 4:40pm on April 17, 2014.
Irish budget carrier Ryanair has announced a new link between Paris Beauvais and Figari Corsica operating from June 2, 2014 to October 24, 2014, initially operating four times weekly, increasing to six times weekly in August.
The new links to Ibiza, Palma and Reykjavik will depart Birmingham late at night and return in the early hours of the morning, supporting the carrier’s plans to enhance fleet utilisation.
Qatar Airways is to introduce a non-stop link to the popular Indonesian leisure destination of Bali this summer. The direct link to Denpasar will reduce journey times to a destination that has seen growing demand from across the Qatar Airways network over the past couple of years.
The airline will launch flights on eight routes across six countries from Ras Al Khaimah International Airport from May 16, 2014 despite its own Sharjah International Airport hub being just 80km away.
The resumed Gulf Air service between Athens and Bahrain will offer passengers improved connections between Greece and Bahrain. When the route was previously flown by the carrier up to 11,000 annual bi-directional O&D passengers flew between the two countries.
Every year almost two million passengers fly between Kazakhstan and Europe, a market that the airline sees a good potential for further growth in the years ahead having grown 51.3 per cent in the past five years.
The new Pittsburgh – Fort Lauderdale route will increase the flight options in and out of Florida for those in Allegheny County and will bring competition to the existing at least daily Southwest Airlines offering on the route.
As part of a commercial cooperation agreement between Cargolux and HNCA, the freight carrier intends to develop a dual-hub strategy centered on Luxembourg’s Findel airport in Europe and on Zhengzhou’s Xinzheng International Airport in Asia.
Alaska Airlines introduced service to Mexico in 1988 and operates more non-stop flights between the US West Coast and Mexico than any other carrier, flying an average of 1.5 million passengers a year.
During the 2014/2015 winter schedule from October 26, 2014 until March 28, 2015, Air France will deploy the A380 on three weekly rotations between its Paris hub and Abdijan.
Since commencing operations at Glasgow Airport on April 10, 2004, Emirates has carried over 2.4 million passengers across its global network, which now covers 141 destinations. Emirates currently offers over 43,000 passenger seats per month to and from Glasgow, following the upgrade of its second daily service to a Boeing 777 in 2012.
The new service will place SilkAir in head-to-head competition with Jetstar Asia Airways which launched its own operations between Singapore and Hangzhou in March 2011.
