Air Canada provided an insight into its future thinking following the simultaneous unveiling of its new corporate livery at ceremonies in Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver on February 9, 2017 as the carrier prepares to enter its 80th anniversary year. The brand refresh continues a recent evolution at the Canadian flag carrier that has helped better position in the global market serving both business and leisure demands through its mainline and Air Canada rouge operations.
Last year Vantage's airports served more than 25 million passengers in 2016, travelling on 99 different airlines. Ahead of his address at Routes Americas 2017, we spoke to Jeremy Pennington, Director, Air Service Development at the group.
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.
The sudden but short-lived travel ban that President Donald Trump imposed on nationals from seven mainly Muslim countries entering the USA appears to be deterring travellers from other countries around the world too, according to analysis by intelligence provider ForwardKeys. The Valencia-based company’s analysis has discovered a 6.5 per cent negative variation in bookings compared with the equivalent eight-day period the year before.
The return of KLM into London City comes at a time that capacity on the Amsterdam route is at its highest level. Amsterdam continues to be a hugely popular route for the airport, last year seeing a six per cent of passenger growth and becoming the second busiest route in terms of passenger numbers.
Innovative moves by the likes of Lufthansa and Norwegian have given legacy carriers plenty to think about as aviation reaches the next stage of its evolution.
The privately-owned Serene Air commenced flights on January 29, 2017 between Karachi and Islamabad after securing its air operator certificate just a week earlier. The airline is also offering flights between Jinnah International Airport in Karachi and Faisalabad, Lahore, Peshawar and Quetta, with the latter also being served from Benazir Bhutto International Airport in Islamabad too.
After a record performance handling 24.7 million passengers in 2016, Swedavia has confirmed it will reduce airport charges at Sweden’s largest international air gateway by an average of one per cent as of April 1, 2017. As a result, the airlines’ charges at the Stockholm Arlanda hub will have been decreased by a total of 6.5 per cent over the past three years. Since 2005, Swedavia’s airport charges have been cut by more than 20 per cent.
The aircraft based in London and Spain will have the same customer offering and appearance as other airline operations at SAS and with corresponding requirements in terms of safety and standards. The airline says the aim is for the new operations to be up and running from winter 2017/2018, providing a smaller number of departures as a complement to SAS’s existing production.
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.
This latest growth from Ryanair for winter 2017/2018 and further connectivity gains will boost international capacity from Israel beyond ten million seats for the first time. This is a significant landmark as the five million figure was only surpassed less than ten years ago in 2008.
With a business model developed to appeal to hedge fund companies; the investment banking fraternity; senior executives; music, film and sport industries and others, Bliss Jet’s goal is to provide the closest offering to the halcyon days of Concorde - in terms of style and speed. It plans to launch flights between London Stansted and New York LaGuardia from the second quarter of 2017.
American Airlines had originally proposed a December 16, 2016 start date for its new daily Los Angeles - Beijing flight, but a late DOT decision meant it had until this quarter, 90 days since the DOT’s final order to commence services. It now reveals that on January 18, 2017, the CAAC rejected American’s request for slots at Beijing Capital International Airport, putting its plans into disarray.
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.
The announcement late last month by American Airlines that it is to significantly grow capacity into Evansville Regional Airport in Vanderburgh County, Indiana, highlights the successful (and essential) role that connectivity plays in supporting smaller airports across the United States of America and the world.
From May 2017, BA CityFlyer will begin summer-only direct flights from Manchester to the popular Spanish sunspots of Alicante, Malaga, Ibiza and Palma, the Greek island of Mykonos, Nice in the South of France and a weekly service to London City Airport, which will facilitate the transfer of the aircraft in and out of Manchester.
The Asian carrier is to cut more than 100 seats from eight of its A330-300s. Although a less dense configuration will result in capacity reductions on certain routes, it will vastly improve the passenger experience and customer satisfaction on board the airline’s flights and notably will enable Philippine Airlines to offer a premium product once again across all medium- and long-haul routes.
Eastern Airways adds three new routes from Rodez Aveyron Airport, in southwest France. The city is the capital of the Aveyron department, which is believed by many to be one of France’s best kept picturesque secrets, located in the north east of the Midi-Pyrenees region between the foothills of the Massif Central and the plains of the south west.
Spirit Airlines will introduce its low-fare offering into Hartford at the start of the second quarter with daily flights from Orlando and a summer seasonal four times weekly link from Myrtle Beach launching on April 27, 2017. A daily link to Fort Lauderdale will follow from June 15, 2017.
Growing from a fortified Viking settlement originally founded in the eighth century, to a small market town seven centuries later, Aarhus is now at the cultural and economic core of the region and the largest centre for trade, services and industry in mainland Denmark. The ‘Nordic Tiger’ is clearly roaring onto the international stage as European Capital of Culture and its airport hopes to gain from the destination's rise with improved international air connectivity.
The US DOT formally instituted a slot assignment proceeding earlier this month to allocate a total of 28 slot pairs at the two airports. These are being released in a two phase process for operations from summer 2017 and summer 2018 and will be provided exclusively to low-cost carriers, which it believes exert the greatest competitive impact when entering slot-constrained markets.
An airport dominated by domestic traffic, Las Vegas McCarran has made huge strides in recent years to open routes to the rest of the world. Ahead of the city hosting Routes Americas 2017, we spoke to Rosemary Vassiliadis to hear more.
The approval from the US Department of Transportation (DOT) allows AirAsia X to operate services to any destination within the US market and it will now formalise its development plans to serve the market to coincide with the future delivery of new widebodied equipment. The airline is known to have been considering flights to several US states including Hawaii as part of its route expansion plans.
The Iranian aviation industry is also undergoing significant change and earlier this month Iran Air took delivery of its first new Airbus A321. The airline has concluded deals with both Airbus and Boeing for more than 180 aircraft and is currently in the final stages of agreeing a deal with ATR for regional turboprops, albeit the first half dozen aircraft are already completed and ready for delivery.
The planned growth follows a formal request from the Greek Government and Athens International Airport to the UAE carrier to deliver an enhanced transatlantic offering for the Greek market. US carriers United Airlines and Delta Air Lines already serve the Newark – Athens and New York – Athens markets but only on a seasonal basis in the summer only.
