Etihad Airways has announced wide ranging capacity changes for its IATA W15 season as the carrier rapidly phases out its entire A345/A346 fleet from active service in order to reduce operational costs associated with it.
The main highlights are as follows:
MAN - capacity increased with double daily flights all operated by a two class B773ER
KUL - frequencies reduced from double daily to 12 weekly exclusively operated by an A332
CTU - frequencies reduced from daily to 4 weekly nonstop using an A332
ICN - capacity reduced from daily A346 to daily A333
HKT - capacity increased from daily A332 to daily B773ER (2 class)
NRT - capacity increased from daily A345 to daily A346
BKK - all 4 daily flights to be exclusively operated by B773ERs
EDI - frequencies reduced from daily to 5 weekly nonstop using an A332
Emirates has officially announced that due to high demand for its Phuket bound flights, it shall be increasing frequencies on the DXB-HKT route effective 01DEC15. Current daily nonstop services will be upgraded to 11 weekly nonstop all operated by a two class 427 seater B777-300ER.
The new flight allows excellent connections in both directions via DXB to/from Europe which is the main market for HKT.
The schedule of the new 4 weekly services are as follows:
Days - 2/4/5/6
EK 396 Dep DXB 2255 Arr HKT 0800+1
EK 397 Dep HKT 0930 Arr DXB 1320
Air Asia X, the long haul subsidiary of the popular low cost airline has announced that due to below par financial performance of its wide bodied operations (more like overly optimistic expectations), the airline will be undertaking major restructuring which are as follows:
- 14 A333 CEOs on order with Airbus are to be cancelled
- Delivery of 2 new A333s in 2016 to be deferred
- Q2 2015 loss increased to US$ 35 million
- Order for 55 A339NEOs to remain as per status quo but this is likely to be reduced in due course to around 40 units maximum
- Passenger traffic on D7 has dropped 20% year over year
KLM (Royal Dutch Airlines) has officially announced that as part of an exchange deal with Boeing, it has placed an order for 6 of the largest B787 family member i.e. B787-10Xs.
KLM originally had ordered 10 B789s but exchanged 6 of these for the larger -10X variant with deliveries starting in 2021. The remaining 4 are still B789s but one should not be surprised if all 10 get switched to the larger model.
British Airways has officially announced that it will be significantly increasing capacity on its USA bound services during the next IATA S16 season. The main highlights are as follows:
LAS - frequencies increased from daily to 10 weekly nonstop flights all operated using a B744
SEA - frequencies increased to 12 weekly nonstop flights i.e. daily B773ER + 5 weekly B772ER
SJC - new daily nonstop flights to be launched effective 04MAY16 using a B789
Japan Airlines (JAL) has officially announced that it will be launching new 4 weekly nonstop flights to DFW-Dallas, Texas effective 30NOV15 in code share with its One World partner member American Airlines.
AA currently operates its own daily service on the DFW-NRT sector. JAL will use the B787-800 for this new service with the below mentioned schedule:
Days: 1/3/5/7
JL 12 Dep NRT 1055 Arr DFW 0720
JL 11 Dep DFW 1145 Arr NRT 1625+1
Saudia Airlines has officially released details of the cabin configuration + routes its upcoming Boeing 787-900s are going to be deployed on. The main highlights are as follows:
Cabin layout - 298 seats i.e. 24 business + 274 economy class
Initial routes include -
RUH-CAN
JED-CDG
JED-MAN
JED-CAN
