Oman Air has officially revealed further expansion plans of its medium haul route network for the Summer 2010 IATA season. The four new destinations are Lahore, Kuala Lumpur, Islamabad and Dar Es Salaam. The main highlights are as follows:
LHE - new 4 weekly nonstop flights to be launched using a B 738 effective May 10th.
ISB - new 3 weekly nonstop flights to be launched using a B 738 effective May 16th.
KUL - new 4 weekly nonstop flights to be launched using an A 332 effective May 1st.
DAR - new 4 weekly nonstop flights to be launched using a B 738 effective June 1st.
Comments:
Finally LHE and ISB have been launched by the carrier. Both routes shall prove to be high yielding for the airline due to the huge O&D + 6th freedom traffic that shall easily help fill up the flight in both directions on a year round basis. For those who dont know, DAR is another destination that may not make money but the state of Tanzania has a huge Omani population residing especially in Zanzibar.
Emirates has officially revealed major changes to its Summer and Winter 2010 schedule especially with regards to realigning capacity on various routes across its medium haul and long haul network. The main highlights are as follows:
PER - capacity increased to double daily nonstop flights using a B 772LR effective Nov 1st.
DXB / KUL / MEL - capacity increased from daily A 345 to daily B 773ER effective July 1st.
MUC - capacity reduced from daily B 773ER + daily A 332 to daily A 345 + daily A 332 effective July 1st.
CMN - in flight product upgraded from daily A 343 to daily A 345 effective Aug 1st.
MEL - capacity increased to triple daily flights all using a B 773ER instead of 2 daily B 773ERs + daily A 345 effective Aug 1st.
LOS - in flight product upgraded with the 2nd daily flight being flight being operated by an A 345 along side the B 773ER which operates the other daily flight.
Biman Bangladesh has officially taken delivery of its newly leased Boeing 777-200ERs which are ex Singapore Airlines air frames and will be utilizing these aircraft to replace the A 310-300s and DC 10-30s on its most popular routes in the following manner:
LHR - to be finally flown nonstop 4 times per week using a B 772ER hence eliminating the DXB stopover en-route.
RUH - capacity increased to 6 weekly nonstop flights using a B 772ER with 3 of those flights being extended to DMM.
SIN - out of 4 weekly flights, 3 will be flown using a B 772ER with the remaining one with a DC 10.
FCO - to be flown once a week nonstop rather than via DXB using a B 772ER.
Comments:
Excellent moves by BG. Hopefully this shall gradually lead to a massive turn around for this ailing carrier that has suffered massive amounts of bureaucratic mismanagement and corruption for over 30 years. By flying nonstop to London Heathrow from DAC, the market share of all the Arab carriers on the LON-DAC-LON route will definitely fall as a result of this move. With newer Boeing 777-300ERs on their way to be delivered directly from Boeing, things are looking up for the carrier. It will be nostalgic to see its DC 10s finally leave the fleet from a photographer's point of view but this aircraft has done its time and served the carrier to its fullest possible limit.
Continental Airlines has officially revealed that it will be becoming a major force at London Heathrow to contend with from March 2010 onwards with a huge increase in capacity and frequency which gets further increased in the IATA Winter 2010 schedule. CO will be adding a new 4th daily nonstop flight to LHR from its EWR hub from March 28th using a B 752ER and from Oct 31st, another 5th daily nonstop flight will be added using the same aircraft type. Four flights will be operated by a B 757-200ER where as one shall be flown using a B 772ER.
Thus from Oct 31st, its EWR-LHR-EWR schedule will look like this:
Dep EWR at 0900/1825/1915/2120/2210 /// Arr LHR at 0625/0725/0925/1015/2120
Dep LHR at 0840/1030/1115/1235/1800 /// Arr EWR at 1205/1330/1445/1605/2130
Air India has officially revealed that it will be increasing capacity to Riyadh in a major manner from Feb 1st 2010 onwards in the following manner:
BOM/RUH - capacity increased to 6 weekly nonstop flights using B 744s.
DEL/RUH - capacity increased to 2 weekly nonstop flights using B 744s.
CCJ/RUH - capacity increased to 2 weekly nonstop flights using a B 744.
Comments:
Excellent move by AI which shall definitely him put even more pressure on its main competitors i.e. 9W and SV on these sectors with the extra passenger and cargo capacity on offer.
Air Asia of Malaysia has announced its massive expansion plan for India from its Kuala Lumpur hub base which shall come into effect from May 2010. The main highlights are as follows:
BOM - new 4 weekly nonstop flights using an A 333.
DEL - new daily nonstop flights using an A 333.
MAA - new daily nonstop flights using an A 320.
BLR - new daily nonstop flights using an A 320.
HYD - new daily nonstop flights using an A 320.
China Airlines of Taiwan has officially revealed major changes for its long haul route network for the IATA Summer 2010 season. The main highlights are as follows:
DEL - additional 4th weekly nonstop terminator flight to be flown using an A 333. The remaining 3 weekly flights continue onwards to Rome.
KIX - capacity increased from daily A 333 to daily nonstop flights using a B 744.
JFK - additional 4th weekly flight to be flown from June 13th onwards via ANC.
SYD - frequencies reduced from daily to 5 weekly nonstop flights.
ICN - capacity increased from daily A 343 to daily A 333.
DPS - frequencies reduced from double daily to 11 weekly nonstop flights using an A 333 daily + 4 weekly B 738.
Vietnam Airlines has officially announced few changes on the GDS for its medium and long haul network for the IATA Summer 2010 season. The main highlights are as follows:
SYD - frequencies increased from 4 to 5 weekly nonstop flights but with using the A 332 rather than the B 772ER.
FRA - frequencies increased from 3 to 4 weekly nonstop flights using a B 772ER.
SIN - new second daily nonstop flight to be launched using an A 321. The current daily flight is also flown using the same aircraft type.
MEL - capacity reduced from 4 weekly B 772ERs to 4 weekly A 332s effective June 15th.
Cathay Pacific has officially announced that it will be increasing its flights to ICN-Seoul, South Korea from May 2nd from 4 to 5 daily flights. CX will operate a mixture of A 333s and B 777s on this new flight where as with regards to terminated BOM-DXB flight, it has decided to have a daily terminator flight to the Indian financial capital city with the following flight schedule:
CX684 Dep BOM 0240 Arr HKG 1110
CX685 Dep HKG 2150 Arr BOM 0130
Aircraft to be operated for the above mentioned flight schedule is an A 333.
ANA of Japan has officially announced that it will be launching new nonstop daily services to MUC-Munich, Germany from July 1st onwards. NH will be using a Boeing 777-300ER on this route from its Tokyo NRT hub which is likely to also be code shared with Lufthansa. The latter (LH) already fly this route on a daily basis nonstop using an A 346.
Air France has been cited by the French media that due to the recent downturn in cargo freight business worldwide, it is planning to sell 2 of its new Boeing 777-200LR Freighters to Fedex of USA. No time line has been given as to when the aircraft will get delivered to the U.S. cargo carrier though.
Philippine Airlines has officially announced that they will be launching new flights to RUH-Riyadh, Saudi Arabia from March 28th. PAL will be flying four times per week nonstop from its Manila hub base using a 433 seater Boeing 747-400. PAL's B 744s seat 50 in business class and 383 in economy class.
In Saudi Arabia, approximately 1.5 million Filipino workers reside there working in service industry related jobs all across the country. PAL's entry into the market will negatively effect the market share of SV, CX, GF, EK, QR, EY and KU who target the high volume of passengers flying from Saudi Arabia to Manila via their respective hubs. The flight schedule is as follows:
Days of operation: TUE/THU/SAT/SUN
PR 658 Dep MNL 1820 Arr RUH 2300
PR 659 Dep RUH 0030 Arr MNL 1500
Emirates will be shortly be announcing further details on its deployments for its ever growing Airbus A 380 fleet as more get delivered this year. The new routes scheduled to get A 380 service this year are as follows:
MAN - daily A 380 service on EK 17/18 effective Sept 1st.
LHR - additional daily A 380 service on EK 3/4 alongside EK 1/2 effective July 1st.
PEK - daily A 380 service on EK 306/307 effective Aug 1st.
JFK - daily A 380 service on EK 201/202 effective Oct 31st.
PVG - daily A 380 service on EK 302/303 effective January 1st 2011.
To MAN/PEK/PVG/JFK, second daily service will continue to be flown with B 77Ws and A 343s.
Qatar Airways has officially announced that it will be reducing capacity to JFK-New York City permanently from February 1st. From that date onwards, they will be using a 259 seater Boeing 777-200LR on the DOH-JFK sector rather than a 335 seater Boeing 777-300ER. This means a capacity reduction of 76 seats daily. QR's load factor to JFK over the previous year has not met up to their expectations and they feel that it would be wiser to instead a smaller aircraft to meet demand forecasts.
The good news for QR though is that they will be launching a 3rd daily flight to CMB-Colombo from March 28th which will conveniently connect via DOH to all of their USA flights in both directions with only a 2 hour transit. This will surely help increase loads to USA and give EK/EY/KU a tough time in gaining market share on the JFK-CMB sector. Lastly, QR has also officially confirmed that it will be increasing capacity to PVG-Shanghai from March 3rd onwards by deploying a larger Boeing 777-300ER on the route replacing the Airbus A 330-200 i.e. an increase of 430 seats per week approximately. QR flies to Shanghai five times per week nonstop from its Doha hub.
Alitalia has officially announced reduction in capacity to Miami and Tokyo from this summer season onwards in the following manner:
FCO / MIA - capacity to be reduced from 6 weekly B 772ERs to 6 weekly B 763ERs effective Sept 1st..
MXP / NRT - capacity to be reduced from 3 weekly B 772ERs to 3 weekly A 332s effective July 11th.
BMI (British Midland) has officially confirmed that it will be reducing capacity to CAI-Cairo, Egypt from March 28th onwards. BD currently operates a daily nonstop flight on this sector using an A 332 however from the on set of the IATA Summer 2010 schedule, this flight will see an A 321 being used for all daily flights.
Aeroflot has officially announced that it will be increasing capacity to Los Angeles and New York JFK from May 2010 onwards. All flights to LAX will see A 332s operating rather than B 763ERs. On the other hand, capacity to JFK shall be further increased with the daily SU 315/316 flight seeing a larger A 333 being used rather than an A 332.
The chairman of Sri Lankan Airlines has officially revealed in an interview to Airliner World magazine (January 2010 edition) that the airline is on the look out to lease 2 Airbus A 340-500s as it is seriously contemplating launching new long haul nonstop flights from Colombo to Melbourne and Sydney in Australia from Summer 2010 onwards. The carrier also wishes to possibly lease in more A 345s into its fleet to replace its 15 year old A 343s on long haul routes to Europe/UK.
China Eastern Airlines based out of Shanghai has officially revealed major changes to its long haul network schedule for the IATA Summer 2010 season. The main highlights are as follows:
JFK - frequencies increased from 4 weekly to daily nonstop flights using an A 346 effective June.
LHR - 4 weekly nonstop flights to be reinstated using an A 332.
SVO - 3 weekly nonstop flights to be reinstated using an A 333.
Lufthansa has officially released a press statement stating that it is planning to launch new flights to Iraq from the on set of the Summer 2010 peak season. It has planned to fly to Baghdad and Erbil from its Frankfurt and Munich hubs respectively. LH has said that it is keen on flying to Iraq due to heavy demand from USA and Western Europe from Iraqi immigrants, businessmen and government officials. LH is now in the process of getting the German government to engage in air bilateral discussions with the Iraqi government so that flights could be launched in time for the peak summer travel season.
Source: http://www.arabianbusiness.com/578727-lufthansa-eyes-iraq-as-mideast-passengers-rise
