Saturday, February 18, 2017

Kuwait Airways announces major expansion


Kuwait Airways has officially announced its bigger ever network expansion as the carrier looks to regain market share away from its competitors especially on key point to point routes. For the IATA S17 season, the main highlights are as follows:

DAC - frequencies increased from daily to 12 weekly effective 15JUL using a B77W exclusively

CMB - frequencies increased from daily to 10 weekly nonstop flights using an A332

DEL - frequencies increased from 12 weekly to double daily

MAA - frequencies increased from 4 to 5 weekly flights using an A332

JFK - frequencies increased from 6 weekly to daily flights using a B77W

LHR - capacity increased with all ten weekly flights exclusively operated by the B77W

FRA - capacity increased from 4 weekly A332s to 4 weekly B77Ws

FCO - frequencies increased from 3 to 4 weekly nonstop flights using an A320

IST - frequencies increased from 9 to 12 weekly nonstop flights i.e. 2 weekly A332s + 10 weekly A320s

AMM - frequencies increased from 13 weekly to double daily

BEY - frequencies increased from daily to 12 weekly 

IKA - frequencies increased from 4 to 5 weekly flights 

MHD - frequencies increased from 2 to 3 weekly 

NJF - frequencies increased from 2 to 3 weekly

BAH - frequencies increased from 8 weekly to double daily

DXB - frequencies increased from 18 to 25 weekly

LHE - frequencies increased from 3 to 4 weekly

KHI - new 4 weekly nonstop flights to be launched with an A320

COK - capacity adjusted to daily A332 + 3 weekly A320s

MNL - capacity increased effective 15AUG from daily B772 to daily B77WB77W

BKK - capacity increased from daily A332 to daily 

In total, KU will be operating an additional 36 flights per week in S17 season versus W16.

The fleet by August 2017 will comprise of 10 B77Ws + 5 A332s + 10 A320s with all the wide body aircraft having flat beds in J and F class along with wifi access in every seat. Seven out of the ten A320s have wifi installed too. 

The configuration of KU's wide body fleet is as follows:

B77W (777-300ER) - 334 seats i.e. 8F/36J/290Y

A332 (330-200) - 212 seats i.e. 17F/30J/165Y