Gulf carrier Emirates Airline is cutting back on its schedules to the United States of America, blaming policies introduced by President Trump's administration for hurting bookings. Daily flights from Dubai to Fort Lauderdale and Orlando will be cut to five a week. Flights to Seattle, Boston and Los Angeles will now be once a day, instead of twice.
The oneworld alliance member has an agreement with GE Capital Aviation Services (GECAS) to lease 17 Embraer E170 pre-owned jets, a contract that has enabled the manufacturer to fast-track deliveries without impacting its order backlog. The first of these aircraft, former Republic Airways examples, are starting to appear from airport paintshops in the airline’s instantly recognisable green livery and all 17 units are due to arrive before the end of this year.
KLM has opened reservations this week for a planned twice weekly Amsterdam - San Jose flight launching from October 31, 2017. This will be flown on Tuesdays and Fridays and operated by one of its new Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner aircraft. It previously served San Jose until March 1998.
In one of the most significant brand expansion in the history of luxury travel and hospitality, Crystal Cruises is not only introducing new ships to its fleet effectively establishing three brand new classes of cruising, but also inducting two commercial airliners to launch Crystal Luxury Air in 2017.
Emirates has announced that it will introduce a second daily service to the island of Bali in Indonesia from July 2, 2017. The new service will be added to meet the growing demand for travel to and from Bali, offering travellers more convenience and connectivity options.
February international passenger demand rose 5.8 per cent compared to February 2016, which was down compared to the 9.1 per cent yearly increase recorded in January. Adjusting for the leap year, however, growth actually accelerated slightly compared to January. Total capacity climbed 3.4 per cent, and load factor rose 1.8 percentage points to 78.4 per cent.
The 'ACI Europe Airport Traffic Report includes 235 airports in total representing more than 88 per cent of European air passenger traffic. It is viewed by analysts as a good barometer of the industry’s health as it is the only industry analysis to include all types of airline passenger flights to, from and within Europe: full service, low cost, charter and others.
Norwegian will launch flights from both Denver International Airport and Seattle-Tacoma International Airport to London’s Gatwick Airport this September. With these additions, Norwegian now offers nine non-stop routes from across the United States to London, serving more city pair markets than any US airline.
In the international market IndiGo is currently ranked as India’s sixth largest carrier behind local operators Jet Airways, Air India, low-cost carrier Air India Express and Gulf giants Emirates Airline and Etihad Airways. It will this year hold a 4.1 per cent share of international capacity from India, based on published schedules, up from 3.2 per cent in 2016.
JetBlue first introduced the Airbus A321 into its network in late 2013, but started introducing its premium Mint configured aircraft into its fleet in the middle of 2014 for operation on Transcontinental routes from New York and latterly also from Boston. These aircraft are configured with 16 lie-flat seats, four of which are private suites, and 143 core JetBlue Experience seats (Economy and ‘Even More Space’ seats).
TAP is adding 23 new weekly frequencies into Spain during 2017, its largest international country network by capacity. This summer the Spanish market accounts for 11.2 per cent of its available seats out of Lisbon Airport.
Wizz Air will inaugurate twice weekly flights between Warsaw and Agadir from June 30, 2017, its first scheduled flights into the continent since it served Hurghada in Egypt back in 2014 and 2015.
The formal confirmation of the closure of the route from American Airlines follows an exclusive story on Routesonline on April 3, 2017 about the changes to the airline’s booking inventory. The report from our Airlineroute channel had revealed the cancellation of the twice daily link from August 22, 2017.
