The route to Spain’s third largest city will start on November 6 with four flights per week, which will increase to six per week for the summer 2016 season.
As well as a new route between Edmonton and Nanaimo, the Canadian carrier will increase frequencies on a number of routes including Regina, Grande Prairie, Kelowna and Saskatoon.
Gulf carrier, Qatar Airways, has once again been forced to deny it is interested in acquiring a stake in independent Indian carrier SpiceJet, just two and a half years after previous rumours had serviced that it was in talks to develop a marketing partnership.
The new link to New Chitose Airport, located to the southeast of Chitose and Tomakomai, and the largest facility on Hokkaido, Japan’s second largest island will be introduced from October 1, 2015 and is targeted to attract the mobile inbound Japanese tourist market and support their interest in exploring the wider Asian market via the airline’s own network and its short-haul AirAsia Group partners.
The Polish flag carrier will introduce two additional weekly frequencies to both Chicago and New York from late October 2016 as it aims to become the leading carrier in New Europe (Central and Eastern Europe).
In the first six months of 2015, Changi Airport handled 26.6 million passengers, an increase of 0.2 per cent compared to the corresponding period in 2014, while aircraft movements totalled 169,890, one per cent lower than a year before as larger aircraft such as the A380 are being deployed on more routes.
Allegiant Air’s low-cost business model has allowed it to grow from one aircraft and one route 16 years ago, to offering access to low-cost, non-stop travel over 100 communities nationwide, more than any other domestic low-cost carrier. The airline operation is complement by the Allegiant Travel proposition that offers holiday packages alongside the flight options.
Although the route is initially scheduled to be flown on a twice weekly basis, fastjet has already hinted that more capacity is expected to be added as demand increases. The airline has already opened reservations for the service with fares starting from $50 one-way, excluding airport and government taxes.
Aeromexico will launch a twice daily service between Queretaro International Airport, in the region of El Bajio, and Mexico City from October 1, 2015. This will be the only link between Queretaro and the Mexican capital, which are around 220km apart but around three-and-a-half hours by road.
The low-cost airline currently has a fleet of five older 737-400 models and will use the 737-800s to support growth in existing markets and to support future network expansion. The additional capacity of the 737-800 versus the 737-400 of around 20 seats mean a like-for-like aircraft deployment switch will boost capacity by around 12.5 per cent.
The West African market will be served alongside the airline’s existing route between Dubai and Dakar, in Senegal, which is operated using an Airbus A340-300 configured with offers 12 First Class, 42 Business Class and 213 Economy Class seats. Bamako will be linked directly from Dubai, but return flights will operate via Dakar.
Canada has concluded a number of new air transport agreements with Nigeria, Mali and Oman, which will allow Canadian airlines to better serve passengers travelling between Canada and these countries.
This is actually the third time that Star Alliance has welcomed a major Brazilian carrier into the grouping having previously had Varig alongside TAM Airlines as a former member and will once again open up Latin America’s largest country to the international flights of its member airlines with new connection opportunities via São Paulo’s Guarulhos International and Rio de Janeiro’s Galeão–Antonio Carlos Jobim International airports.
This week, Balkan Holidays, one of the leading tour operators to Bulgaria, Croatia, Montenegro and Slovenia, has announced a new route between Glasgow and Varna for its Summer 2016 programme. The new summer service is Glasgow’s first direct connection to Varna and will operate once a week on a Saturday starting in May 2016.
The conventional, full-service airline plans to inaugurate operations into neighbouring South Africa from August 26, 2015 and alongside serving OR Tambo International Airport in Johannesburg plans to add links to Cape Town. It also plans to begin domestic operations to the redeveloped Victoria Falls International Airport.
Austrian Airlines has been serving Dubai since 1996 but the arrival of Emirates Airline into the Vienna market has meant it has been under pressure for some time. Although the European carrier upped frequencies to a more than daily schedule in the late 2000s and early 2010s, it has recently cut back its activities to match capacity to seasonal point-to-point demand.
