The airline’s long-haul strategy has historically centered on Asia, but with a slow recovery on the horizon, the Nordic carrier is temporarily shifting its long-haul network focus to North America.
The new initiative will be led by senior executives from both carriers, who will meet regularly to coordinate new initiative rollouts, promote closer cultural integration between Air China and United, and prepare both companies for future joint opportunities, according to a joint statement.
The oneworld alliance member will introduce a three times weekly service between Madrid and Tokyo from October 18, 2016. The Madrid – Shanghai route, also expected to be flown three times weekly, will commence from a similar time, but Iberia is still awaiting final approval from Chinese authorities and slots at Pudong International Airport before opening reservations.
Etihad currently operates five 787-9s serving the markets of Brisbane, Washington, Singapore and Zurich from its Abu Dhabi International Airport hub. The type will become the UAE national carrier’s flagship long-haul aircraft in the coming years with a further 66 aircraft due to be delivered.
MIDT data from Sabre shows an estimated market of around 135,000 O&D passengers a year between Manchester and China, although the real market size will be notably higher when you include ground leakage to London for the existing non-stop flights to the Chinese cities of Beijing, Chengdu, Guangzhou and Shanghai. When you add the obvious stimulation a new direct flight can add then you could realistically see a market of around 200,000 passengers, which will grow year-on-year.
Subject to final approval and the green light from North Korean authorities, Spring Airlines will be one of only a handful of carriers to provide international flights into the North Korean market. This market has been mainly served by national carrier Air Koryo, although the likes of Air China, China Southern Airlines have offered scheduled programmes into the country with Air China currently linking Pyongyang to Beijing.
The growth brings Dragonair’s weekly schedule between Hong Kong and Shanghai Hongqiao to nine return flights and alongside its 13 times daily link between Hong Kong and Shanghai Pudong will mean it will offer 100 weekly flights between the two major Asian cities.
The return to Shanghai highlights the continued importance of the Chinese market to the leading European carriers and the high value attached to its outbound market in particular. The airline previously served the Chinese city between April 2004 and January 2007 but stopped the flight as part of the redimensioning of the airline’s long-haul fleet and the decommissioning of its Airbus A330 and A340 long-haul fleets.
The flight will open up new more efficient import and export opportunities for local, national and international companies moving products to and from Western Canada. Edmonton is Canada's fifth-largest municipality and the capital of the state of Alberta is a key hub for the country’s oil and natural gas industry, with the city is known as ‘the oil capital of Canada’.
The airline will add two weekly rotations to the five times weekly Copenhagen – Shanghai route and a single additional flight on the six times weekly Stockholm – Chicago link from the end of October this year boosting its winter flight schedule between Scandinavia and the USA to 108 weekly departures and between Scandinavia and Asia to 50 weekly departures.
The airline had originally planned to introduce the daily rotation from May 16, 2015 but is now seeking to delay the start of the new service until July 15, 2015.
Vancouver will be the first North American destination to be linked to Kunming, one of China’s premier tourism regions and the new long-haul connection follows the successful introduction last year from Yunnan Province to Europe, via China Eastern to Paris Charles De Gaulle Airport.
Finnair has yet to confirm its proposed operational plans for the aircraft but will use the aircraft on its busiest Asian routes from its Helsinki hub and will initially deploy the aircraft to Shanghai, before later deploying it to Bangkok and Beijing in 2015 and Hong Kong and Singapore from 2016.
In partnership with our Airline Route blog, Routesonline is launching a new weekly 'Historic Airline Schedule Snapshot' as part of our Throwback Thursday series, where we look back at the historic flight operations of a current or defunct airline.
In a recent interview, Garuda Indonesia's CEO, Arif Wibowo, outlined Chengdu, Chongqing, Harbin, Nanjing, Ningbo, Shenyang, Taiyuan, Wuhan, Xian and Zhengzhou as possible future markets for the carrier. The Indonesia – China market is highly competitive one with four other airlines – all Chinese operators - flying between the two countries alongside Garuda.
US major, United Airlines is to operate additional flights to Shanghai and Chengdu from the airline’s hub in San Francisco, during the peak summer travel season. The announcement comes in the same week as a report by OAG, which considers a China-US open skies agreement.
Air China will introduce a second daily rotation on its route between Beijing and London Heathrow from October 26, 2014, while China Eastern will boost its existing Shanghai route to the UK's largest international air gateway from October 29, 2014 with a sixth weekly flight.
Air New Zealand and All Nippon Airways will both introduce flights with the Boeing 787-9 early next month, with Etihad Airways, Scoot, United Airlines and Virgin Atlantic Airways also due to the fly the new stretched variant of the Dreamliner before the end of the year.
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.
Alongside targeting the large diasporas that left the country almost a decade ago and its strongest markets of Europe and North America, Zimbabwe’s growth strategy will be underpinned by forays into markets such as China and India.
The initial tentative schedule shows the aircraft will operate twice daily on the Toronto - Halifax route from May 23, 2014 through to May 25, 2014 and then on various dates through to the end of June 2014. Alongside this domestic link, Air Canada also plans to use the aircraft on its flights from Toronto to Zurich (from May 25, 2014 to July 14, 2014) and London (from July 2, 2014 to July 13, 2014).
