Asia

Confusion has been sparked over the translation of a Chinese character, which has left many in the western world asking what year it is.

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.

China Southern Airlines has announced it is to operate twice-daily flights between Auckland and Guangzhou from August 1, 2015.

Emirates is the most valuable airline brand in the world according to the 2015 Brand Finance Global 500 report.

In its application to US Department of Transportation for authority to conduct scheduled foreign air transportation to the US, China Eastern said it planned to introduce flights from Chengdu, via Nanjing to Los Angeles from June 30, 2015 using an Airbus A330-300.

London has overtaken Bangkok as the number one tourist destination in the world, according to a recent report by Skift.

Air travel is set to flourish over the next week in the Asia Pacific region, with Chinese New Year just around the corner.

The new four times weekly route was inaugurated on February 13, 2015 and is the only direct flight between the Malaysian capital and Jiangbei International Airport in Chongqing, one of the five national central cities in China. The city is a major manufacturing centre and transportation hub and serves as the economic centre of the upstream Yangtze basin.

Over a twelve-month period, preliminary data shows a growth rate of 5.1 percent year over year, with both international and domestic traffic posting strong growth rates of 5.8 percent and 4.5 percent respectively.

American has confirmed the type will initially will be deployed between its hubs at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport and Chicago O'Hare International Airport from May 7, 2015. The aircraft will substitute for other equipment on the domestic sector which is served more than 100 times a week, mainly using McDonnell Douglas MD-80 equipment

Here's our latest instalment of our regular series of industry trivia questions where we ask readers to vote on a particular aviation subject. This time, ahead of Routes Asia, we look at airports in China.

After the success of its first six direct return flights in January 2015 between Sydney and Vancouver, Qantas has made the decision to resume service for the busy summer and winter holidays. The direct service proved to be popular with both Australian and Canadian passengers and this upcoming schedule will offer greater flexibility with a switch from two to three flights per week.

The two existing daily flights to Singapore will also be operated with the airlines A350 XWB aircraft, commencing service in July and August 2015.

Beginning September 1, 2015 and subject to government approval, the service will operate four-times weekly to Dusseldorf - the international business and financial centre in Germany.

January has seen a number of start-up carriers taking shape across the world, including New Delhi-based, Vistara, Greenland's Aluu, and Egypt's Aviator to name a few. We've rounded up the latest in start-up carrier news for January.

American Airlines will introduce a daily flight on the route from May 7, 2015; its sixth daily flight to Asia from Dallas and its eleventh direct service between the US and Asia. According to MIDT data, an estimated 21,000 bi-directional O&D passengers a year fly between Dallas and Beijing, despite there being no direct flights between the two cities.

Under the revised air services agreement, both countries’ carriers will immediately be able to operate 26,500 seats a week between Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou to the major gateway cities of Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth – an increase of 18 percent on the routes.

The route to the vibrant South-Central Coast of Vietnam will commence from April 1, 2015 and will be operated on a three times weekly basis with flights on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. This will be the only low-cost link between Hong Kong and Đà Nẵng which is becoming increasingly popular as an alternate leisure destination for travellers.

At Routesonline we've decided to take a look back at the news breaking the same week in previous years and revisit it one or two years later to see what’s happened since we released the news.

The Tokyo Narita – Kuala Lumpur flight will return to the ANA network from September 1, 2015 and will be flown on a daily basis by a Boeing 787-8. It will compete directly with AirAsia X, Japan Airlines and Malaysia Airlines on the route, with indirect competition also coming from AirAsia X through its Tokyo Haneda – Kuala Lumpur link.

The Alitalia network will be one of the main pillars of the new strategy alongside Cooperation, Fleet, Guest Service and Brand with a new three-hub strategy in Italy being introduced.

Emirates first launched flights between Dubai and Kolkata in March 2006 as its seventh destination in India with a split schedule offering greater connectivity via its hub. A daily operation with this split schedule was introduced from early 2008, while a dedicated daily flight on the ‘EK570’ and ‘EK571’ departures came online from December 2009.

The confirmation of the landmark link ends over a year of speculation about the service after Gu Zhongqin, president of Xinjiang Airport Group, revealed in December 2013 that the airport authority was in discussions with the budget carrier to introduce the link, around a 4 hour and a half to five hour sector.

The launch is pending regulatory approval, and the airline will operate the route with its 291-seat Boeing 777-200LR wide-body jets, configured with 37 full flat-bed BusinessElite seats, 36 Economy Comfort seats and 218 standard Economy seats.

For the maximum permissible period of seven months from November 7, 2014, the extension of the contract will see Changi Airports International (CAI) continuing to work alongside GACA to strengthen the position of KFIA in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.