Air Canada has announced that it has increased capacity to Dubai which was only launched few months ago after experiencing high demand in all cabin classes across the board. Its current 3 weekly nonstop services are flown using a B787-9 however from the on set of the IATA W16 season, all flights shall be flown exclusively using the larger Boeing 777-300ER.
Other capacity changes for its long haul network for W16 are as follows:
YYZ/CDG - capacity increased from daily B788 to daily B789
YYZ/HND - capacity increased from daily B789 to daily B77W
YYZ/ZRH - capacity increased from daily B763ER to daily B788
YVR/PVG - capacity increased from daily B788 to daily B789
YVR/ICN - capacity increased from daily B788 to daily B789
YVR/BNE - capacity increased from daily B788 to daily B789
Qatar Airways has officially uploaded on sabre a big upgrade to its daily nonstop DOH-CAN service from a dual class B777-300ER effective 01JUL16.
Services are being upgraded to an A380 for all flights. Looks like QR
are foregoing the cargo revenue in anticipation of higher pax revenue
generation originating from Africa, UAE and KSA in particular.
FYI from Lagos, QR has the highest market share to CAN, even more than KQ/ET/EK !
Delta Airlines has officially announced placing a massive US$ 9 billion combined order at published prices with both Airbus and Bombardier for its small to medium capacity aircraft requirements going into the next decade.
DL confirmed placing an incremental order for 37 Airbus A321s on top of an earlier order for 45 of the same aircraft type made over a year ago. These shall be used to rapidly replace its aging Boeing 757 fleet on domestic and Central America/Caribbean services.
In addition the airline announced placing a blockbuster order for 125 C Series aircraft from Bombardier that is expected to replace its aging MD88 fleet. The breakdown of the order is 75 firm CS 100s + 50 options enabling to switch to the larger and more popular CS 300 whenever required.
Emirates has officially announced that it will be increasing its services into CPT-Cape Town, South Africa effective 04JUL16. Current double daily frequencies will be raised to triple daily nonstop using a B777-300ER exclusively.
The schedule of the 3rd daily flight is as follows:
EK 778 Dep DXB 1050 Arr CPT 1830
EK 779 Dep CPT 2005 Arr DXB 0730+1
In 2015 alone, the P2P market demand between DXB and CPT was 88,000 passengers.
KLM has officially announced major expansion of its long haul route network from the on set of the IATA W16 season of which the main highlights are as follows:
CMB - new twice weekly nonstop flights to be launched using a B789 effective 31OCT
MIA - new 3 weekly nonstop flights to be launched using an A332 effective 30OCT
HAV - frequencies increased to daily nonstop service using an A332
KUL - frequencies increased from daily to 10 weekly using a B772ER daily + 3 weekly B789
YVR - frequencies reduced from 5 to 4 weekly nonstop using an A332
Comments:
Colombo relaunch has caught everyone by surprise but its 2 weekly frequency means that it is primarily catering to tour operators who have witnessed a huge boom of outbound EU tourism into Sri Lanka since the end of the civil war in 2010.
The P2P demand between Scandinavia region to CMB-Colombo (round trip) in 2015 was as follows:
AMS - 26,000
ARN - 20,000
OSL - 19,000
CPH - 23,000
In addition, KLM will also get a lot of transfer traffic bound to UK, CDG, BRU, DUB, North America and Germany via AMS as the schedule is ideal for 2 way connections as seen below:
Days - MON/FRI
KL 873 Dep AMS 1330 Arr CMB 0350+1
KL 874 Dep CMB 0550 Arr AMS 1220
Emirates has officially announced that it will be increasing its flights to Bangkok, Thailand yet again effective 01JUL16 as the carrier looks to further poach away market share from its EU + GCC rivals.
The new 7th daily nonstop service will be operated by the B777-300ER (77W) which will make BKK see 3 daily B77Ws + 4 daily A380s. The schedule is as follows:
EK 350 Dep DXB 1950 Arr BKK 0520+1
EK 351 Dep BKK 0635 Arr DXB 0950
EK should seriously consider extending one of its BKK terminator flights to MFM-Macau if it can obtain 5th freedom traffic rights as there is a lot of demand from Europe to MFM especially out of LIS.
