Although the carrier has almost ten years experience in the cargo business, this will be its first growth into scheduled passenger operations. It intends to launch operations from September 2015 using a small fleet of three Boeing 737-500s that have already been acquired and are currently undergoing pre-service maintenance in Jordan.
Initially established in September 1994 under the AirZena brand, the carrier provided charter flights to the United Arab Emirates, Italy, China, Egypt, India, Syria and regular scheduled flights to Austria. It was granted national carrier status in November 1999 and latterly the Georgian Airways title has been added.
Madeira Airport in Portugal hopes to exceed the 2.5 million passenger per annum milestone this year after reaching a record high of 2.46 million passengers in 2014. The growth in demand has been supported by an increase in connectivity to the Portuguese archipelago.
The airline will operate three routes from Eilat Ovda Airport in the far south of the country, near the border with Jordan. Initially, flights will operate to and from Budapest in Hungary, Kaunas in Lithuania and Krakow in Poland.
The airline plans to introduce new services to London Luton, Berlin Schönefeld, Manchester, Amsterdam and Bristol – the latter of which will be a brand new destination for Vienna Airport.
The twice-weekly service will operate on Wednesdays and Sundays from May next year to the German city which is located in the centre of the Rhine-Ruhr region – Germany’s largest metropolitan area.
The airline industry is opening its eyes to Moldova as an international market and meetings at this year’s Routes Silk Road forum in Tbilisi, Georgia have helped establish at least one new air service and confirmed an increased capacity offering on an existing route.
Transaero announced plans to debut the Airbus A320 Family variant into its fleet from July 2015 in March last year when it confirmed a deal with ICBC Leasing, part of the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, to introduce six A321 aircraft on operating leases for delivery through March 2016. These are the first of up to 30 A321s that are due to enter the Russian carrier’s fleet within the next five years.
The resumption of direct flights between Georgia and the UK should be among the main route development targets for the United Airports of Georgia team, according to a senior executive at Adjara Group Hospitality, the fastest growing, privately held owner and management company in the Georgian hospitality industry. It has been over two years since there were direct flights between Georgia and the UK.
airBaltic has an order for 13 CS300s, the first of which is due to arrive in the third quarter of 2016 and is understood to be considering converting options for a further seven aircraft. It plans to use the aircraft for a mix of short- and medium-haul flying, including its Riga – Abu Dhabi route which it serves in partnership with Etihad Airways.
In a presentation at this year’s Routes Silk Road Strategy Summit, Guy Brazeau, Director, IATA Consulting revealed that airlines flying within Europe and to and from Europe were witnessing a significant decline in average passenger yields during the first half of this year, but far short of the decline being seen in the Russian domestic market where yields are alarmingly more than a third less than last year.
The troubled Asian national carrier Malaysia Airlines will be completely revamped as a business through the remainder of the year as its new boss takes drastic action to return the loss-making operator to profitability. Christoph Mueller, who joined as chief executive officer earlier this year from Aer Lingus has played important roles in the restructuring the Irish carrier and other European flag carriers.
The new flights are operating twice weekly on Fridays and Mondays, between July 3, 2015 and August 28, 2015 and will carry almost 4,000 Chinese tourists into the UK on package tours and will contribute a forecasted £19 million to the regional economy. The flights will be operated by a 223-seat Boeing 767-300 configured with 32 Business Class and 191 Economy seats.
Irish low-cost carrier Ryanair has announced Gothenburg in Sweden as its 74th base from September, where it will base a single aircraft to launch additional frequencies to London Stansted.
CityJet will offer 18 flights a week on the route with three rotations every weekday, one flight on Saturdays and two every Sunday from October 1, 2015. It will be the only link between Cork and the Docklands airport and will complement the flights of Aer Lingus to Heathrow and Ryanair to Gatwick and Stansted, in the UK capital.
Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport was actually easyJet's first destination outside of the UK back in 1996 but it has taken almost 20 years for the carrier to decide to establish a base operation having served the airport from its other European bases.
The tour operator who - as sister brand Corsican Places - has been working with Titan for six years, will begin cooperation with the carrier on the Banjul route for the first time in mid October. The direct flights from Gatwick will operate up to three times weekly through the winter 2015/2016 schedule until the end of April next year.
Although this will be the only non-stop flight between Japan and Belgium, more than 85,000 passengers a year are flying between the two countries, a figure that has been on the rise in each of the last four years. When you consider the ground leakage from Belgium to neighbouring countries already connected directly to Japan, the market becomes more sizeable.
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.
Routesonline provides an update on the current schedules of the Boeing 787 Dreamliner. We also reveal the network size of each operator and the top destinations served.
Every month Routesonline provides an update on the current schedules of five latest aircraft programmes, highlighting the routes the types are being deployed upon
Every month Routesonline provides an update on the current schedules of five latest aircraft programmes, highlighting the routes the types are being deployed upon.
Every month Routesonline provides an update on the current schedules of five latest aircraft programmes, highlighting the routes the types are being deployed upon.
Irish budget carrier Ryanair has acquired a single Boeing 737-700 and although this will be used mainly for crew training purposes, it will also be flown on scheduled services and act as a standby aircraft to cover for operational and technical delays.
June has seen a number of start-up carriers taking shape across the world, including New Zealand-based Originair and India’s Premier Airways. We've rounded up the latest in start-up carrier news for June.