Like many UK airports, Liverpool John Lennon Airport has had a strong 2015 and recorded its seventh consecutive month of growth during August, with year-on-year passenger growth of 7.24 per cent. Total passengers for August exceeded 470,000 with increases in available seat capacity and strong load factor performance contributing to the impressive growth this year.
AirBridgeCargo’s new link to Singapore establishes the first dedicated freight link between Changi International Airport and the Russian capital and will further strengthen the Asian gateway’s connectivity to Russia and beyond. The airline is offering a twice weekly service on the Moscow – Singapore – Hong Kong – Moscow routing using a Boeing 747-8F.
The surprise announcement this week, driven by the country’s ongoing financial crisis, has been approved by the Russian Government and will continue the recent airline consolidation in the country which has already seen Aeroflot take over a number of its regional rivals.
The airline, which supports seat-only and package holiday demand between the UK and destinations across Europe, the Mediterranean and into North Africa, is believed to have secured significant discounts to take late production aircraft ahead of Boeing’s transition from ‘Next-Generation’ to ‘MAX’ series production.
Ryanair will initially position a single Boeing 737-800 at Milan Malpensa from December 1, 2015, its 15th base in Italy. The new resource will enable the carrier to introduce a twice daily link to London Stansted and daily operation to Comiso as well as a four times weekly service to Bucharest and three times weekly offering to Seville during the winter 2015/2016 schedule.
The type is debuting from this month on the Incheon – Frankfurt route with a three times weekly rotation on the KE905/906 flight from September 2, 2015, replacing a 777-300ER. This will increase to a daily deployment from October 1, 2015.
August has seen a number of start-up carriers taking shape across the world, including South African carrier, Fly Blue Crane, and Air Costa Rica which is set to launch later this year
Emirates currently operate three daily flights to the German city, two of which are currently operated by a Boeing 777-300ER while the other is serviced by the Airbus A380 jumbo jet.
Delta and Virgin Atlantic are showing that their anti-trust immune joint venture across the Atlantic is yielding new routes that previously may not have been viable.
In the first semester of 2015, passenger growth was up by a further 1.4 percent, while a number of new routes have also been added to the airport’s growing destination map.
This will be the airline’s fourth route from Liverpool, and will complement Flybe’s existing services to the Isle of Man, Belfast City and Amsterdam which commences on September 7, 2015.
The new route will be operated by the group’s Air Iceland subsidiary and will run four-times-weekly on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays, operated by Bombardier Q400 aircraft in two-class configuration.
The flag carrier and largest airline of Finland will commence services to Billund, Edinburgh, Svalbard and Pula next year for its summer 2016 schedule.
Eurowings, as part of the ongoing fragmentation and restructuring of Lufthansa’s long-haul offering, will introduce widebody Airbus A330 aircraft on 12 October 2015 from Cologne and Hamburg to Palma Mallorca.
Icelandair will launch new nonstop service between Keflavik International Airport in Reykjavik and Montreal’s Pierre Trudeau International Airport on 19 May, 2016.
The airline has recently completed a rebranding and now positions itself as a full service carrier, and with it has launched a total of five new international routes to Dusseldorf, Cologne, Bishkek, Amsterdam and Paris.
The airline will replace a Boeing 777-300ER on the carrier’s EK011/012 between Dubai International and London Gatwick with a three-class A380 from January 1, 2016 meaning all three of its rotations to Gatwick and five daily flights to Heathrow will be flown with the SuperJumbo from the start of 2016.
The new aircraft, which is set to arrive in March 2016, will support the new services between the Bulgarian capital and Alicante, Bristol, Hamburg Lubeck and Oslo Torp, which will be served with two weekly flights each.
The airline will initially offer two weekly flights to San Jose’s Santamaria International Airport from May 4, 2016, but already plans to add a third weekly rotation during the winter 2016/2017 schedules. This will be the second long-haul link between the UK and Costa Rica adding to the weekly Thomson Airways service between London Gatwick and Liberia, which will launch in November this year.
The US Patent and Trademark Office recently approved the application from Airbus for the new jet, which says it will travel at 4.5 times the speed of sound – more than 2,500mph according to the documents lodged.
The aviation industry is becoming increasingly reliant on technology, from electronic reservation systems, mobile boarding to aircraft improved ground –to-air communications. However, there is a growing concern surrounding hackers looking to exploit the industry. Mainframe networks are susceptible to attack which is obviously a huge threat to airports and airlines alike.
While Vancouver will be the first Canadian destination to be served by British Airways (BA) with the A380, it will be the fourth destination in North America linked to London by the SuperJumbo after Los Angeles, San Francisco, Washington, and from October this year, Miami. BA also use the type on flights to Hong Kong, Johannesburg and Singapore.
