Air India announces Washington DC-Delhi nonstop

Air India has officially announced that it shall be launching new nonstop flights between Delhi and Washington DC nonstop effective 07JUL17.

Services will be operated 3 times per week nonstop using a B777-200LR with the below mentioned timings:

Days - 3/5/7

AI 103 Dep DEL 0115 Arr IAD 0715

AI 104 Dep IAD 1100 Arr DEL 1030+1 

P2P demand between IAD and DEL in 2016 was 74,000 passengers and for other Indian cities it was as follows:

BOM - 49,000

MAA - 35,000

BLR - 29,000

HYD - 66,000

CCU - 7,000

AMD - 16,000

COK - 9,000

AI also previously announced that it is in the market looking to dry lease into its fleet 6 additional wide body aircraft i.e. either B77Ws or B789s. If B789s can be obtained and one aircraft dedicated to flying DEL-IAD nonstop, the total operational cost savings per round trip flight is approximately US$ 80,000 so on an annual basis is almost US$ 12.5 million !

Oman Air reduces Guangzhou flights

Due to lower than anticipated demand for its recently launched Guangzhou-Muscat daily service (since Dec 2017), Oman Air has officially confirmed that in order to stem losses, it shall be reducing frequencies on this sector effective 10APR17.

Its current daily service using an A330 will be cut to 4 weekly nonstop using a combination of A332s and A333s. Flights will operate on MON/WED/FRI/SUN only out of MCT.

Demand between CAN and the Middle East region in 2016 (round trip) was as follows:

DXB - 150,000
JED - 44,000
RUH - 40,000
CAI - 112,000
AMM - 28,000
BEY - 20,000
IKA - 60,000
IST - 55,000

DOH - 11,000MCT - 8,000
BAH - 5,000
DMM - 6,000

British Airways increases Los Angeles and Johannesburg capacity

British Airways has officially announced that it shall be significantly increasing its capacity offering on two popular routes from the on set of the IATA W17 season as the carrier looks to compete more aggressively against its closest rivals.

JNB - capacity increased from daily B744 + daily A380 to double daily A380

LAX - frequencies increased from double to triple daily nonstop i.e. daily B789 + daily A380 + daily B744 each respectively

MSY (New Orleans, USA) - frequencies increased from 4 to 5 weekly using a B787

Lahore capacity increased by Oman Air

Due to rising demand from Lahore to the Middle East region, Oman Air has announced that it shall be significantly increasing capacity on its MCT-LHE service effective 08MAY17.

On 05FEB17, WY expanded initially MCT-LHE from daily to 10 weekly flights using a B738 offering 1,620 seats per week. However effective 08MAY, both pax + cargo capacity shall be boosted with the sector seeing 4 weekly A332s + 2 weekly A333s + 4 B738s. This in turn results in a 41% increase in capacity offered per week i.e from 1,620 to 2,290.