Lufthansa suspends Muscat flights

Lufthansa has officially confirmed that due to poor loads combined with yields, it will be suspending all of its current flights to MCT-Muscat, Oman effective 25OCT15. Currently, LH operates a daily service via Doha to Muscat using an A330-300. 

In 2014, 49,000 passengers flew FRA-MCT-FRA point to point along with MUC-MCT-MUC being 34,000! During the EU winter season there is a lot of group traffic from Germany to MCT which now will be taken up by WY, QR and EY primarily.

Emirates increases Munich flights

Emirates has officially announced that it shall be increasing its services to MUC-Munich, Germany effective 01FEB16 as the carrier looks to further expand its already large presence in the German marketplace despite objections raised by Lufthansa. The latest increase on MUC is a result of EK having liberal bilateral access to any 4 German cities it flies to which are FRA, DUS, MUC and HAM.

The new daily flight results in overall frequencies on DXB-MUC being increased from double to triple daily with the new flight being operated by a three class B777-300ER where as the other two are on an A380. The schedule of the new service is as follows:

EK 053 Dep DXB 0320 Arr MUC 0710
EK 054 Dep MUC 1010 Arr DXB 1910

FYI in 2014 alone, the O&D market size demand between DXB and MUC was 310,000 passengers!

Turkish granted 5 weekly flights to Mauritius

The Mauritius Government has signed a new bilateral accord with Turkey paving the way for Turkish Airlines to launch its much anticipated nonstop services into MRU airport from IATA S16 season onwards.

TK has been granted 5 weekly flights with fifth freedom rights beyond to Madagascar. It is expected that this new route will be launched using an A333 considering the flying time between IST and MRU is only 10 hours.

Source: http://www.govmu.org/English/News/Pages/Turkish-Airlines-to-operate-five-weekly-flights-on-Antananarivo-via-Mauritius.aspx

Comments:

TK will be obviously targeting the volumetric EU traffic bound to MRU which is a high yielding leisure destination versus BKK/DPS/MLE. In 2014, the demand between the top EU markets and MRU round trip were as follows:

CDG - 270,000
LHR - 179,000
FRA - 55,000
ZRH - 33,000
GVA - 29,000
MXP - 22,000
MUC - 20,000
MAN - 20,000
NCE - 14,000
FCO - 14,000
DUS - 12,000
MRS - 12,000

Qatar Airways announces Sydney

Qatar Airways has officially announced that as a result of the amended bilateral accord signed between Australia and Qatar last week, the carrier is now able to launch new nonstop services to Sydney, Australia. 

QR will henceforth start operating daily nonstop flights from DOH to SYD using a B777-300ER effective 01MAR16 with the below mentioned schedule:

QR 908 Dep DOH 2010 Arr SYD 1805+1
QR 909 Dep SYD 2220 Arr DOH 0505+1

Air India announces San Francisco-Delhi nonstop

Air India has officially announced that it will be launching new three weekly DEL-SFO nonstop flights effective 02DEC15 in response to heavy demand between Northern California and India especially from the I.T. sector. 

The schedule is as follows:

Days 3/5/7


AI 173 Dep DEL 0245 Arr SFO 0600
AI 174 Dep SFO 1000 Arr DEL 1535+1

All 3 weekly services shall be operated using a B777-200LR seating 8F + 35J + 195Y (total 238 seats). The O&D demand between India and SFO in 2014 round trip was as follows:

DEL 135,000
BOM 83,000
BLR 81,000
HYD 54,000
MAA 46,000
CCU 10,000
AMD 10,000
COK 10,000
TRV 4,000