21FEB edition

The Turkish Government has officially announced that the Indian DGCA has awarded Turkish Airlines the bilateral right to increase its services to the country by 100% by upgrading its current daily Mumbai and Delhi flights each respectively to a double daily service using A330s. Currently, both routes are flown daily using a 289 seater A330-300. TK has also shown great interest in serving HYD, BLR and MAA if given the authority to operate there.
TK too revealed that it will be increasing its services to KIX-Osaka, Japan from the on set of the IATA W13 season. Current 5 weekly nonstop flights shall be increased to daily using an A330-200.
Analysis:

Due to a current shortage of wide bodied aircraft in its fleet, one would forecast that the earliest time that TK would increase its DEL and BOM bound flights is effective IATA W13 season. This is also because the Winter season is the peak season for travel to/from India hence it would be far easier filling up the flights from the on set of W13 versus S13.

The new daily flights are expected to depart IST between 0030-0130 and would arrive back by 1700 therefore nicely feeding TK's 1900-2100 EU departure hub wave bank as well as its 1820 IST-JFK bound service. This would mean a 1200-1230pm departure timing from India which VFR pax would definitely prefer versus an ungodly 4-5am flight!

Double daily A330s DEL is easily do able and fill able with TK's vast USA and EU network. The market size from DEL to EU/USA is far larger than BOM. Plus remember TK also carries a lot of pax to North Africa from India especially to Libya, Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco etc. Double daily DEL may also result in 1-2 EU carriers suspending their own DEL services or forcing some to reduce which in turn will help TK and in the future EK too when they expand.

BOM too can survive with two A330 flights daily but it would struggle versus DEL unless TK gets ultra aggressive with its pricing strategy. Cargo though for both flights (DEL/BOM) would be FULL with double daily flights regardless! Now if TK wants to get a bit creative and really operate double daily BOM flights, I would suggest that their BOM flight be extended to KTM-Kathmandu as the KTM-EU market size is big, higher yielding than EU-India + no EU carrier operates to KTM. IST-BOM-KTM is suggested because KTM on its own cannot support a daily A330 service but if operated via India, it can! The flight schedule proposed for IST-BOM-KTM-BOM-IST would look like this:

Dep IST 0135 Arr BOM 1030+1...will connect 2200-2300 inbound arrival hub wave bank from Europe
Dep BOM 1200 Arr KTM 1450
Dep KTM 2155 Arr BOM 0020+1
Dep BOM 0145 Arr IST 0605

In this way KTM-BOM-IST is connected very well to both TK's 0730-0830 EU/North Africa departure hub wave bank + the all important 0725am IST-JFK service where as the current BOM-IST flight is connected very well to the 1200-1300 departure hub wave bank which is already an established service. TK's current BOM flights are witnessing high S/F so this will help relieve the burden a little bit as well as provide very useful feed to the A333/B77W operated JFK services.

Boeing has officially released details of its new 787 model i.e. the Boeing 787-1000X aircraft which will be the largest of the B787 family. The main characteristics of the B781 are as follows:

• Seats 323 passengers in a standard 3 class configuration
• To be sold as an A343 and B772 replacement aircraft
• Flying range will be 7800 miles nonstop or 12,500 KM

Etihad Airways has officially announced that it will be increasing its flights to LOS-Lagos, Nigeria effective March 31st 2013 as the carrier looks to capture more of the booming Nigeria-SE Asia/India traffic movement. Services currently operated 5 times per week nonstop will be increased to daily nonstop using an Airbus A 330-200. 


PIA has officially announced that it shall be reinstating its flights to ORD-Chicago, USA effective 05JUN 2013 as the carrier looks to once again try its luck in this market segment where it has suspended service a total of 4 times over the past decade. The routing will be as follows:

Days of service: WED/SAT
WED flight is routed KHI-LHE-BCN-ORD-BCN-ISB
SAT flight is routed ISB-KHI-BCN-ORD-BCN-LHE

Comments:
Once again PIA is biting off more than it can chew. The routing itself is mind boggling and they will not be able to compete effectively with QR launching ORD daily nonstop from April 2013 + having EY/TK already established there. Note that from ORD and BCN there is no connection to KHI on the return unless you clear customs/immigration in North Pakistan and change terminals from international to domestic. This is poor planning on behalf of PIA since KHI-ORD is the biggest market segment in terms of annual passenger demand! Expect the route to be once again suspended within 8 months of it being re-launched.

PIA's strategy in USA should solely be focused on JFK (the largest PAK-USA market segment) and then via JFK code sharing with either AA or DL to beyond points (preferably with AA). With JFK flights in S13 being routed via SNN which would allow PAK citizens to clear immigration/customs at SNN airport itself, this provides PIA a good opportunity to experiment with the following:

*All flights to operated with B777-200ER/LRs
3 weekly LHE-SNN-JFK
2 weekly KHI-SNN-JFK
2 weekly ISB-KHI-SNN-JFK
By operating in the above mentioned manner, they have the potential of really hurting EY/TK/QR/EK's PAK-NYC market share in both directions!


Emirates has officially announced that it shall be launching new nonstop flights to Manila's secondary airport i.e. Clark International which is located 80km north of the city. EK will be inaugurating the service from 01OCT13 onwards using a Boeing 777-300ER (434 seater) on a daily basis with flights departing DXB at 0400 and arriving back by 2300 DXB time. In other EK related news, it has officially filed with MXP airport authorities for slots to operate to New York's JFK airport via Milan on a daily basis using a Boeing 777-300ER effective October 2013. The flight schedule filed is as follows:

Days: Daily B77W
EK 205 Dep DXB 0910 Arr MXP 1350 /// Dep MXP 1600 Arr JFK 1810
EK 206 Dep JFK 2215 Arr MXP 1215+1 /// Dep MXP 1400 Arr DXB 2205


Egypt Air has officially announced few capacity changes for its medium haul network for the upcoming IATA S13 season of which the main highlights are as follows:
DOH - frequencies increased from 10 weekly to double daily nonstop i.e. 10 weekly B738s + 4 weekly B77Ws
BGW - frequencies increased from 3 to 4 weekly nonstop flights
BRU - frequencies increased from 6 weekly to daily
FRA - capacity increased from daily B738 to daily A332
TUN - capacity increased from daily A320 to daily A321


Lufthansa has officially announced that for the year ended 2012, it has posted a record net profit of US$ 1.32 billion driven largely by sales of its equity investments. As a result of this impressive performance, it has officially requested a tender to supply it with brand new 100 narrow bodied plus 8 wide bodied aircraft for delivery effective 2015 onwards. It is expected that the order will be split as 8 Boeing 747-800s + 100 Airbus A320NEO family aircraft.


Fly Dubai has officially announced that it has posted its first net profit since its launch in 2009 amounting to US$ 41 million as the carrier looks to consolidate its presence in the MENA region and continue to offer nonstop service to under served niche markets within a 6 hour flying radius of its Dubai hub. Alongside these impressive results, FZ too revealed that it will be launching new 4 weekly nonstop flights to Juba, South Sudan effective April 2013 using a 189 seater Boeing 737-800. Flights shall depart DXB at 10am and arrive back by 9pm DXB time and will be interlined with Emirates. As a result, it will offer convenient connections via DXB in both directions to India, SE Asia, JFK and Europe.