Routesonline's latest analysis of the European aviation industry, examining the top routes, airlines, airports and aircraft that are leading the market.
As the chief executives of both Etihad Airways and Lufthansa spelled out this week, there are clear development plans to broaden the commercial partnership as they explore further cooperation in a number of areas, including freight operations, procurement and passenger services to improve their competitive offering globally and in the European market.
As Airbus celebrates the milestone inaugural test flight of the new A350-1000, the largest variant of the A350XWB family, Routesonline looks at approaching two years of commercial operations with the smaller A350-900.
Lufthansa has confirmed it will base its first ten A350-900s at Munich and will enter commercial operation on the Munich – Delhi route from February 10, 2017. Alongside the Delhi route the type will also initially be used on flights from the Bavarian hub to Boston, USA.
One of Ireland’s three primary airports, Shannon Airport, will see a new Lufthansa service that will give passengers a whole heap of connecting options. The German carrier will serve Shannon once a week next summer.
Air Berlin’s loss is the Irish carrier’s gain as their expansion in Germany reaches the business hub of Frankfurt. This follows Ryanair opening a base at Hamburg, stationing two aircraft at the airport.
Germany’s second biggest airline, Air Berlin, will downsize their current fleet by 40 aircraft. Eurowings will receive 35 aircraft, whereas Austrian Airlines will receive five.
The Dutch flag carrier is understood to have already held discussions with the Ministry of Roads and Urban Developments in Iran and is closely liaising with sister carrier Air France ahead of its own return to Tehran.
The air service development team at Dublin Airport have identified a number of unserved markets in Asia that can sustain regular scheduled flights to the Republic of Ireland’s capital city and are attending Routes Asia in Manila, Philippines to fill these network gaps. It particularly sees a notable role for Asia’s Star Alliance members at Dublin Airport having grown the number of airline members using the airport from this summer.
The German flag carrier has acquired the modern generation airliner to replace its older, less-efficient, four-engined A340-600s on scheduled routes from its Frankfurt and Munich hubs. It has ordered a total of 25 A350-900s and continues to plan the deployment of the remaining 15 aircraft.
The Gulf carrier is both the world’s strongest and most valuable brand, with an increase of 17 percent from 2015. Emirates brand value is weighted at $7,743 million.
This will be the first regular flight between Munich and Debrecen since former German carrier OLT Ostfriesische Lufttransport ended its up to four times weekly operation at the end of the 2005 summer schedules. According to schedules provider, OAG, Debrecen is also linked on a weekly seasonal basis to the German cities of Dresden, Erfurt and Leipzig by Germania.
The new flight will be operated by an Airbus A319 and its introduction follows a recent revision to the previously heavily restrictive bilateral between Austria and Iran following the official state visit of Austria’s President Heinz Fischer to Iran in September this year. A link to Shiraz is also understood to be under consideration by Austrian Airlines.
The airline will bring the return of flights between Munich and Brno, Czech Republic with a new six times weekly service from November 16, 2015, adding to its existing routes to Liege (Belgium), Rotterdam (The Netherlands), Bern (Switzerland) and Bristol (United Kingdom).
The hosting of this year’s Routes Americas forum helped support Denver International Airport in securing the return of the German carrier’s Munich link. It was the first time that the German carrier had attended the regional event with delegates Daniel Pauli, Manager Network Planning Hub Munich and Stephan Vinson, Hub Development Frankfurt providing representation for its growth strategy at its two hub airports.
Lufthansa is to launch a new three times weekly link between its Munich hub and Tehran from April 14, 2016 using an Airbus A330-300, while also boosting capacity on its existing Frankfurt – Tehran service by switching from an A340-600 to a Boeing 747-400. Meanwhile, Austrian Airlines is to introduce a second daily rotation on its Vienna – Tehran route from March 11, 2016 with a new day flight complementing its existing night operation.
Flight schedules for a new five times weekly link from Frankfurt have already been loaded into the GDS for launch in late April 2016, just a week before British Airways launches its new London - San José operation.
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.
The proposed Eurowings link to Fort Lauderdale will be the first service from Cologne to Hollywood International Airport and only the second direct scheduled link from Germany alongside the seasonal offering of Condor from Frankfurt. Norwegian also links Fort Lauderdale to Europe with flights from Copenhagen, London, Oslo and Stockholm.
Every month Routesonline provides an update on the current schedules of five latest aircraft programmes, highlighting the routes the types are being deployed upon.
The move is a major expansion for the route, which went year-round for the first time last winter and should bring a further boost to German visitor numbers to Ireland. Germany is now the third largest market for overseas visitors to Ireland, with visitor numbers increasing by 32 per cent to 560,000 between 2011 and 2014.
