This week: Air France returns to the Nairobi market; the first service by a Chinese carrier from Qingdao to Western Europe; and Interjet’s first Canadian services from the famous Mexican leisure destination Cancun.
The new Montreal – Tel Aviv route will operate twice weekly from June 22, 2017 to October 16, 2017 and flown with a 292-seat Airbus A330-300. It is part of Air Canada’s strategy to strengthen its hub at Montreal’s Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport and follows last month’s announcement by leisure carrier Air Transat of its own plans to serve the Montreal – Tel Aviv market.
Air Canada provided an insight into its future thinking following the simultaneous unveiling of its new corporate livery at ceremonies in Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver on February 9, 2017 as the carrier prepares to enter its 80th anniversary year. The brand refresh continues a recent evolution at the Canadian flag carrier that has helped better position in the global market serving both business and leisure demands through its mainline and Air Canada rouge operations.
Philippine Airlines will configure its A350-900s with a premium three class layout and plans to operate the aircraft on non-stop flights from Manila to the US west coast and New York, as well as on services to new destinations in Europe. The aircraft will enable the carrier to operate non-stop service on the 8,000 nautical mile Manila – New York route all year round with a full passenger load.
Star Alliance partners Brussels Airlines and United Airlines have moved quickly to partly fill the void left following Jet Airways’ decision to close its scissor hub at Brussels Airport from spring next year. The main gateway to the Belgian capital city is a key European gateway for the airline grouping and accounts for around 52 per cent of the departure capacity.
The revised Amsterdam operation and agreement with KLM will enable Jet Airways to increase its coverage of the European market, albeit on a codeshare basis. Alongside its existing Brussels services the carrier currently only serves two other European points: London Heathrow (daily from Delhi and twice daily from Mumbai) and Paris Charles De Gaulle (daily from Mumbai).
Air Canada continues to strategically grow its international network at Vancouver. This new seasonal route follows the recent announcement of several enhancements at the airline's Vancouver International Airport hub for 2016, including new Transborder services to Chicago, San Jose and San Diego, double daily flights to London Heathrow, and the only flights linking Canada to Brisbane, Australia.
Jet Airways currently offers a mini hub operation at Brussels Airport with daily flights from Delhi and Mumbai in India connecting in the Belgian capital to daily continuation flights to Newark, USA and Toronto, Canada, but changes to its business strategy after United Arab Emirates (UAE) national carrier, Etihad Airways became an equity partner mean this demand is not being more efficiently handled via Abu Dhabi International Airport.
The arrival of additional Dreamliner aircraft has enabled Air Canada to grow its long-haul network directly with the modern generation airliner, while also redeploying older aircraft assets into its Air Canada rouge leisure division to bring further new routes. The airline will have a fleet of 21 aircraft by 2016 (it has 37 on order) and is accelerating the conversion of existing routes to Dreamliner service from Toronto to Asia, Europe and South America.
WestJet will introduce a twice daily domestic service between London Metropolitan Area Airport and Lester B Pearson International Airport in Toronto from the end of March 2016. The link, operated by its regional division WestJet Encore using Bombardier Dash 8-Q400 NextGen turboprop equipment, will complement its existing service to Calgary and seasonal sun charters to the US and Caribbean from London.
Although not formally advertised by the airline as yet, the proposed four times weekly flights between Keflavik International Airport, serving the Icelandic capital Reykjavik, and both Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport in Montreal and Lester B Pearson International Airport in Toronto are displayed in its website booking engine. This displays four times weekly links on each route launching from May 12, 2016 for Montreal and May 20, 2016 for Toronto.
As revealed exclusively by our schedules blog, Airline Route, on the morning of September 14, 2015, WestJet plans to introduce flights to London Gatwick from Calgary, Edmonton, St John’s, Toronto, Vancouver and Winnipeg, the latter’s first regular transatlantic service to the UK since Zoom Airlines served the market in September 2008.
Air Canada will use its leisure airline, Air Canada rouge to add flights to Budapest, Glasgow and Warsaw and resume a link to Prague last served in the 1970s, while Air Transat will offer new flights from Canada to Glasgow, Nice, Pisa, Rome and Zagreb.
The state-run airline has proposed to fly three weekly flights each to San Francisco and Toronto from New Delhi with a Boeing 777-200LR aircraft, which is likely to be reconfigured to include more seating capacity, the airline has said.
Among the early customers for the 747, Air France was one of the largest operators of the type in the world flying four major variants of the aircraft and more than 70 aircraft over five decades of scheduled service. It has now reduced its fleet to just five 747-400s having replaced the type with more efficient 777 and larger A380 equipment.
Ethiopian Airlines is moving its European hub to Dublin Airport from next month which will see the airline transit 10 transatlantic flights per week through the airport to destinations in the US and Canada.
The new route demonstrates the continuing rise in passenger demand for travel to Atlantic City and the surrounding region and is also is a reflection of the major investments put in Atlantic City International Airport in recent years, making this regional airport an attractive opportunity for carriers internationally, as well as domestically.
The revised schedule will see the airline boost its inventory by more than ten per cent to offer up to ten daily flights in the spring, eleven during the peak travel months of July and August, and nine in the autumn.
Greek start-up, SkyGreece will launch services to Canada, with new routes between Athens, Thessaloniki, Zagreb and Budapest to Toronto, following approval from the Greek and Canadian authorities.
In its first summer season, Air Canada rouge offered an up to daily link between Toronto and Dublin using a Boeing 767-300ER, but reverted to a three times weekly offering through the current winter schedule. According to its schedules, frequencies will increase again from late April 2015, growing to ten times weekly in mid-June and up to eleven times weekly from the end of that month through to the end of August.
The new Toronto - Delhi link is an example of a route made possible thanks to the excellent operating economics that modern generation airliners now offer and certainly would not have been able to be served on a sustainable manner using older aircraft types.
