Cathay Pacific will offer a four times weekly service between its Hong Kong International Airport hub and Barcelona from July 2, 2017, subject to final government approval, continuing through the peak travel months until October 27, 2017. This will be the first ever non-stop offering between Hong Kong and Barcelona.
Dubbed the new ‘Silicon Valley’ owing to its reputation for being an incubator for tech start-ups thanks to a growing population of highly-educated young professionals, Zagreb is central to industry in this region of Europe. In addition to new technology and telecoms, many of the largest Croatian and Central European companies and conglomerates have their headquarters or regional offices in the city centre.
Not content with a 40+ per cent growth in passenger traffic in 2016, one week into the New Year Cornwall Airport Newquay has already confirmed the launch of a new summer link to the Republic of Ireland from Stobart Air and the return of Flybe services to London Stansted as part of an expanded summer 2017 programme that will also see increased frequencies on five existing domestic routes.
14 years after the final flight of the iconic Concorde, Boom is working to bring supersonic travel back to commercial networks. We spoke to founder and CEO Blake Scholl to hear what impact he believes his business’ aircraft can have on global route development.
For a consecutive year, more than a third of airline industry profits in 2016 are expected to come from the carriers of North America, says ICAO. Last year the
In the latest update of its 2017 flight inventory, Korean Air will introduce the 787-9 on its Seoul Gimpo – Jeju route between March 7, 2017 and March 25, 2017. The aircraft will serve the domestic link on a three times daily basis to ensure crew can secure required flight hours on the airframe ahead of its international debut.
In our regular Routes News series we take a look at the people that attend Routes events and find out more about them, their jobs and the current industry issues impacting them.
UK leisure carrier Jet2.com and its tour operator business Jet2holidays are to boost their activities out of their new at London Stansted Airport from summer 2017. Even before a flight has departed “phenomenal customer demand” has influenced the addition of a seventh Boeing 737-800 to its base fleet, an eight per cent capacity growth and the addition of four additional destinations to its inventory.
Barcelona seemingly has a good mix of the ingredients needed for IAG to make this new long haul low cost business work. It is a growing market in terms of demand and passenger flows are dominated by IAG airlines Vueling and Iberia providing a strong connecting feed into the long-haul operation to complement local traffic.
The new Singapore - Moscow - Stockholm flight will commence from May 30, 2017, subject to regulatory approval, and will be operated with a five times weekly frequency using Airbus A350-900 equipment.
Airbus launched the A380 a decade ago with high hopes for the rise of the super jumbo, but demand is dwindling. So what now for the future of the ultra-size market?
The new routes will connect the countries directly, boost bi-directional tourism and establish an important link for trade and business between Hungary, Macedonia, Montenegro, Albania, Kosovo and Bosnia and Herzegovina. In compliance with the public service obligation rules, all five markets will be served on a twice weekly basis with flights commencing the first week of April 2017.
An announcement last month that LOT Polish Airlines will return its direct long-haul service between Kraków and Chicago from July 2017 after a seven year absence provides a fitting end to what will certainly be remembered as one of the most successful years in the airport’s history.
Having lived in the shadow of Icelandair’s effective European and North American network strategy since it launched services in 2012, WOW air has now exploded into the low-cost transatlantic market with a network that covers almost 30 destinations in Europe and North America. And having grown capacity by over 90 per cent in 2016, it expects to continue its rapid rise as the low-cost long-haul model continues to stimulate traffic across the Atlantic.
The airline has selected the Canadian-built airliner for its exclusive future short-haul fleet and will replace all its existing Boeing aircraft with 20 factory new CS300s by 2020. The aircraft will not just modernise the fleet and boost efficiency, but will also enhance the airline’s range of services, expanding into medium-haul markets from Riga such as Abu Dhabi, Almaty, Astana, Casablanca, Dubai, Marrakech and Tenerife thanks to its operating performance.
When British Airways first announced its plans to serve Leeds Bradford many observers so the decision as little more than as an avenue to protect the carrier’s pool of slots at the heavily-congested Heathrow Airport. However, the London Heathrow - Leeds Bradford route is currently among its best performing domestic markets with traffic up 18.4 per cent over the first ten months of 2016.
Melbourne was the original home for Qatar Airways in Australia, with the airline subsequently adding services to Perth, Sydney and Adelaide. With the growth from the original 777-200LR to the A380, the airline has actually doubled its daily capacity since the start of the route while retaining just the single flight rotation.
The airline, based in the French territory of Réunion in the Indian Ocean, is understood to be considering the launch of low-cost charter services via the European mainland into at least three US destinations. In its formal application the airline says these services will be operated using Boeing 777 and 787-8 equipment.
Around two million passengers a year fly between Australia and the UK (O&D demand for 12 months to October 2016) and the famous Kangaroo Route has been one of the most competitive air corridors in aviation history with tens of airlines competing for traffic via various points across Asia and more recently the Middle East.
This year’s summer schedule from Faro Airport was its largest ever with a massive 21.6 per cent increase in departure capacity versus summer 2015 and published schedules for next year already show a forecasted 2.9 per cent rise in departure seats on this year to over 3.5 million seats, with additional flights still expected to be added to airline flight inventories.
The budget airline has already established itself as the largest carrier in Italy and held a 22.8 per cent share of available capacity this past summer season, according to OAG schedule data. The airline’s arrival into the Naples market means that from the forthcoming summer season it will have a presence at all but one of the 14 largest Italian airports by capacity; its only exception being Linate Airport, the secondary international airport of Milan.
