The hub for fast-expanding network carrier, Emirates Airline and base for growing low-cost operator, flydubai, witnessed a 10.7 per cent surge in international passenger numbers for 2015, helping it to remain the top spot, which it secured from London Heathrow earlier this decade.
For business travellers, a growing segment of easyJet’s passenger count, the new bases will enable the carrier to better serve the demands of its premium passengers in Barcelona and Venice with new earlier morning departures affording a more flexible schedule for same day trip arrangements to Europe’s main economic centres.
Delta plans to use the type to replace older less-efficient domestic Boeing 757 aircraft that are being retired from Delta's fleet and, according to its flight schedule inventory will configure them in a two-class arrangement with 20 First Class seats and 169 Economy seats, including extra-legroom seats in its Economy Comfort cabin.
Industry leaders from Boeing, Amadeus Philippines and Digital Jungle will explore how tourism can benefit from Asia Pacific’s growing aviation industry during a high profile event at Routes Asia 2016.
Hainan Airlines filed an application with the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) in November last year for rights to introduce the first regular flight between China and Alberta. There are already direct links between Beijing and Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver; Guangzhou and Vancouver; Shanghai and Toronto and Vancouver and Shenyang and Vancouver.
The modern generation airliner will substitute for older 767-300ER equipment for a five month period this summer in the Chicago - Manchester market, but could become a permanent addition in this market.
Copa already has more than 20 years of experience in the Cuban market and now offers seven daily flights between Panama City and Havana and since 2014 also a four times weekly link to Santa Clara. According to schedule data, the airline has grown its annual capacity into Cuba by 77.1 per cent since the start of the decade, an average annual rise of 15.4 per cent.
The route will increase capacity by adding another daily flight from the airline’s hub in Abu Dhabi. Founded in 2004, the route has now carried over two million passengers.
bmi regional will offer a twice daily weekday operation and single daily weekend offer between Southampton and Munich from April 15, 2016 using Embraer ERJ-145 regional jet equipment. The schedule will support both point-to-point business travellers, leisure demand and will provide connection options via Munich.
The current longest route in the world is the Qantas operation between Sydney and Dallas Fort Worth. For a long time, Singapore Airlines had held the position of operating the world's longest scheduled flight, however, the closure of its non-stop links from Singapore to Los Angeles and New York after its retirement of its Airbus A340-500 fleet earlier this decade, has meant the Pacific connection of Qantas Airways between Sydney and Dallas, a 16 hour 55 minute, 8,500+ mile journey, took over as the longest commercial passenger route.
The airline’s current three times weekly Jakarta – London Gatwick operation, which acts as a continuation of flights from the Indonesian capital to Amsterdam, will grow to a five times weekly schedule when the move to Heathrow takes place from March 31, 2016 as it draws on SkyTeam alliance transfer flows via the hub airport to bring additional passenger flows onto the city pair.
Since Dragonair became a wholly owned subsidiary of Cathay Pacific in 2006, it has added 23 new destinations and the number of passengers travelling across both carriers has grown five times to more than seven million in 2015. The combined annual passenger number of the two airlines grew from 22 million to more than 34 million last year.
Asian carrier, Korean Air will operate three return services between Glasgow and the South Korean capital, Seoul during August 2016. This charter contract will be a gateway to over 1,000 South Korean tourists visiting Scotland and could provide a platform for a longer series of flights next year.
Ryanair will launch flights from the city from November 1, 2016 with a twice daily link to the Spanish capital, Madrid, a daily service to Brussels Charleroi and London Stansted, a four times weekly link to Berlin and twice weekly flights to Fez, Malta and Warsaw Modlin.
Extra capacity has helped to grow passenger demand between Dublin and London by 9% over the last calendar year, with almost 4.5 million people flying between the two capital cities in 2015.
Krakow’s John Paul II International Airport is an excellent example of the changes that have occurred in the Polish aviation market over the last couple of decades. These have provided network connectivity today that is unrecognisable to when the country joined the European Union in 2004 as point-to-point connectivity has helped put the country’s developing regional cities on the network map.
The new routes will support the growing demand for travel between Japan and Manila, a popular year-round destination with a wide selection of shopping, leisure activities as well as vibrant arts, entertainment and gaming. The flights are also expected to meet demand from Japanese travellers, and Filipino expatriates residing in Japan as well as Filipino holiday-makers or those visiting family members.
This latest growth adds to a significant focus on its international activities in 2015. Daily services from Narita and Haneda airports to Houston, Kuala Lumpur, Brussels and Sydney were launched within the last 12 months, in order to meet the growing demand at Narita for international transfers between North America and Asia, and at Haneda for international-domestic connections.
The new non-stop link between Doha and Yerevan will commence from May 15, 2016 with a four times weekly service being flown using an Airbus A320 configured in a two-class arrangement with 12 seats in Business Class and 132 in Economy Class. The new route is understood have been facilitated by Qatar Airways’ network expansion across the US, a market which has strong links back into Armenia, but with limited current connectivity.
