More Airlines Expanding Routes

There’s a new entrant in the U.S.-Hong Kong market; Delta will put a new aircraft on a China route and will beef up transpacifc code-sharing; Cathay Pacific will add another U.S. gateway next year.

United is eliminating first class on many routes and cuts back China service; a Lufthansa affiliate is adding a new business class; LATAM is coming to Las Vegas; San Jose gets more service to Mexico; Copa begins Denver service; an Italian airline plans new U.S. routes.

Alaska ends its relationship with two European partners; and Norwegian revamps its U.S. schedules next summer, adding frequencies from the West Coast.

Hong Kong Airlines, a Hong Kong-based sister company of China’s Hainan Airlines, started service to the U.S. for the first time.

The carrier is using a new Airbus A350-900 on the Los Angeles-Hong Kong route, configured with 33 lie-flat business class seats, 109 premium economy seats with 34-inch pitch, and 193 regular economy seats with 31-32 inch pitch.

The new LAX-Hong Kong flights operate four times a week (Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Sunday), with a 10:45 a.m. departure from LAX. Hong Kong Airlines plans to add San Francisco service in late March, and New York flights later next year.

So far, all of Delta’s Airbus A350-900s have been scheduled for routes out of Detroit or Atlanta, but now the airline is planning to operate one of the new planes out of Los Angeles.

Delta plans to start flying the new plane from LAX to Shanghai Pudong on July 2, alternating days with a 777-200LR until July 18, when the A350 went onto a daily schedule.

Delta’s A350s – which feature the airline’s new Delta One suites and new international premium economy section – are already used on flights from Detroit to Tokyo Narita and Seoul Incheon, and are slated to start Detroit-Beijing service January 17.

Detroit-Amsterdam and Atlanta-Seoul March 24; and Detroit-Shanghai April 19.

Meanwhile, Delta will expand code-sharing with its transpacific partner Korean Air on January 10, putting the DL code onto Korean’s flights to Seoul Incheon from Los Angeles and Las Vegas.

In other transpacific news, Cathay Pacific has unveiled plans to add another East Coast gateway in mid-September 2018, when it will start flying from Hong Kong to Washington Dulles.

The carrier already serves Boston, New York JFK and Newark. Cathay reportedly plans to fly the route – which will be the longest in its system – four days a week with a brand-new Airbus A350-1000.

A couple of months ago, we reported on United’s plans to reconfigure its international long-haul 777-200s, putting in new lie-flat Polaris business class seats, taking out first class, and going from nine-across to 10-across seating in economy.

The reconfigured 777s will be deployed, based on the elimination of first class from seating availability. It shows the elimination of 777 first class in late April from San Francisco to London, and from Washington Dulles to Brussels, Frankfurt and Tokyo Narita.

At the end of August from Chicago O’Hare to Beijing, Hong Kong, Tokyo Narita, Shanghai, Sao Paulo, Frankfurt and Munich.

Meanwhile, United’s seasonal summer route from San Francisco to Xi’An, China, which had previously been scheduled for three 787 flights a week from May 6 through September 4, has been eliminated for 2018.

Las Vegas is due to get its first non-stop service to South America next summer.

LATAM Airlines Brasil has filed plans to operate a 767 three times a week between Las Vegas and Sao Paulo from June 21 through August 31.

Lufthansa’s lower-cost leisure affiliate Eurowings plans to launch new transatlantic routes in 2018, including JFK-Dusseldorf starting April 28, Dusseldorf-Miami as of May 4, and Dusseldorf-Ft. Myers beginning May 3.

Now it appears that the airline will try to entice business travelers onto those flights by adding a new business class cabin.

The new Eurowings cabin, simply called Bizclass, will feature seats that recline fully and will include upgraded meals and other special amenities. Details of Eurowings’ new Bizclass were introduced in March at the big ITB Travel Fair in Berlin.

Mexican low-cost carrier Volaris, which already had service out of San Jose to Guadalajara, has now added two more routes.

Volaris has started twice-weekly flights from SJC to Morelia on Fridays and Sundays, as well as twice-weekly service from SJC to Zacatecas on Mondays and Thursdays. Next summer, Aeromexico is due to begin SJC-Mexico City flights.

Panama’s Copa Airlines, a member of United’s Star Alliance family, has added Denver as its 13th U.S. gateway.

The carrier has kicked off new non-stop service four days a week from Denver to Panama City, with Denver departures on Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday at 10:16 p.m. Copa offers onward connections in Panama to 55 Latin American destinations.

Italian carrier Meridiana plans to add two U.S. routes next summer. On June 1, it will begin daily service from Milan Malpensa to New York JFK, followed up on June 8 by four flights a week from Malpensa to Miami.

The airline will use a 247-passenger, two-class Airbus A330 on both routes.

On April 30, 2018, Alaska Airlines ended its Mileage Plan partnership with Air France-KLM – not really a surprise considering that the European duo has a joint venture partnership with Alaska’s arch-rival Delta.

Alaska and Delta ended their own mileage partnership last spring. The Alaskan carrier notes that it still has partnership agreements to Europe in place with British Airways, Finnair, Icelandair and Condor.

The latest schedule updates from Norwegian show the low-cost carrier plans to boost service on several U.S. routes in late March, increasing its weekly Barcelona frequencies from three to four out of Los Angeles, from three to five out of Oakland, and from four to six out of Newark.

The carrier will also boost LAX-Copenhagen service from three flights a week to four.

At Boston, Norwegian plans to increase London Gatwick service from four flights a week to seven starting June 12, but it will discontinue its seasonal Boston-Oslo and Boston-Copenhagen flights.


Tourism Observer

GERMANY: Lufthansa Wants To Acquire Planes From Air Berlin

Lufthansa has expressed interest in acquiring a number of planes from German carrier Air Berlin after it filed insolvency recently upon the withdrawal of funding from its main shareholder Etihad, media reports said.

Initial talks between Lufthansa and Air Berlin took place on Wednesday, focused on parts of the Air Berlin group.

Thomas Cook’s German leisure airline Condor is also interested in acquisitions. Condor is in the process of preparing a concrete offer, a source said, adding Condor was interested in mainly short-haul routes, and also some long-haul ones.

Interested parties are looking into parts of Air Berlin’s business, including aircraft and crews. A likely deal could see 80 planes going to Lufthansa, 24 to Condor and 40 to easyJet.

Air Berlin continues to fly after the German government stepped in providing a bridge loan of 150 million euros.



Tourism Observer

NAMIBIA: Air Namibia Sells US Tickets Via Codeshare Understanding

Air Namibia is planning on selling tickets to the United States (US) via codeshare agreements with partner airlines.

This comes after the airline won approval to carry passengers into and out of the US from the US Department of Transport in April.

Xavier Masule, General Manager of Commercial Services of Air Namibia, says that the airline doesn’t have any immediate plans to introduce a US route.

“Right now, we are simply looking at selling tickets into and out of the US via codeshare agreements with partner airlines like Condor,” says Xavier.

He adds that discussions with other partner airlines are still underway.

Air Namibia is pleased to announce that we will be increasing flight frequencies and capacity on some of our domestic routes.

Routes on which flight frequency and capacity increases will be offered are the following; ·

Ondangwa: We will launch an additional flight frequency on the Eros – Ondangwa route on Mondays, from the current two flights per day to three flight per day. We will also launch an additional flight frequency on Saturdays, from the current single flight per day to two flights. ·

Rundu/Katima Mulilo: Flights to Rundu and Katima Mulilo will be separated, meaning that flights to Rundu will no longer go via Katima Mulilo, and flights to Katima Mulilo will no longer go via Rundu.

We will introduce direct and non-stop flights between Eros and Rundu, three times per week to be operated on Sundays, Wednesdays and Fridays.

The new service of direct and non-stop flights between Eros and Katima Mulilo will remain on 4 flights per week, to be operated on Sundays, Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.

In addition to the frequency and capacity increases, we are happy to also announce that we have revised our fares and ticket prices on domestic routes downwards, by an aggregate of 20%.

This reduction in fares will ensure that all fares payable on domestic routes, including taxes, will be well below N$ 3,990.00 return.

The decision taken to increase flight frequencies and capacity on domestic routes is in line with our strategic objective of making air travel affordable, and this is just the beginning of it all, says Paul Nakawa, Corporate Communications Manager of Air Namibia.

As opportunities for fixed cost reduction from increased aircraft utilization are realized, the more the benefit in cost reduction will be passed onto the end user, our esteemed flying public, Nakawa said.

We are grateful to Namibia Airports Company, for the decision to allow us to increase flights into Eros Airport, which has made it possible for us to increase frequencies on specified routes, which ultimately reduces our fixed costs per seat.

It is our wish that this level of cooperation and alignment will continue going forward, which will help us create a situation whereby every Namibia will afford to fly, removing pressure from our roads, added Xavier Masule General Manager for Commercial Services at Air Namibia

Barely six months after introducing the Windhoek – Gaborone – Durban flights, Air Namibia is proud to announce that the route has been performing well and the national airliner plans to increase capacity on this route.

Effective 26 March 2017, Air Namibia will now service the Windhoek-Gaborone- Durban route with Airbus A319 which offers 112 seats, with 16 seats for business class and 96 seats for economy class.

Airbus A319 replaces Embraer ERJ 135 which only offered 37 economy seats on that route.

Mr Xavier Masule, Air Namibia’s General Manager for Commercial Services described this development as a strategic move in the right direction.

We are proud of this development because it reflects growth and sustainability.

The increment in capacity for the two destinations will meet the growing demand of passengers flying with Air Namibia, while setting new standards for comfort on single-aisle jetliners, he proudly said.

Air Namibia will continue to service the destination to Gaborone and Durban four times per week, on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays, using the Airbus A319.

Apart from offering more seats and business class, the Airbus A319 also provides a fresh new look, more space in the overhead compartments, more leg room and cargo.

Due to the bigger capacity, baggage allowance has increased from one piece (1 of 23kg) to two pieces of 23 kg in economy class and two pieces of 32kg for business class passengers.

As part of welcoming the Airbus A319 to the Windhoek – Gaborone – Durban route, Air Namibia will have return promo fare specials for our passengers travelling on that route.

A return ticket from Windhoek to Durban via Gaborone will start from N$ 3,600 in economy class and N$ 5,900 in business class. The same fare structure applies to the Windhoek – Gaborone – Windhoek route.

MOROCCO: Agadir Airport Passenger Traffic Down 4.4%, Casablanca Still #1 Route

Miss France 2015, Camille Cerf, was on hand at Lille Airport on 25 April when XL Airways France commenced services to Agadir, along with another seven destinations. For October 2015, Lille is the 13th most popular route in terms of seat capacity. However, according to OAG, it has witnessed a decrease in seat capacity of nearly 11% as a result of Thomas Cook Airlines Belgium no longer serving the route.


Agadir is Morocco’s premier destination for sun, sand, pubs and pizza according to Lonely Plant. The resort’s main type of foreign visitor is the package-tour holidaymaker, with the destination having less of an appeal to independent travellers with an interest in Moroccan culture.

This comes as no surprise as an analysis of Agadir Airport shows that six of the top 12 airlines have or have had a majority of their flight programmes made up of charter flights in the not too distant past, focusing on package holidays. Nonetheless, Agadir is most certainly not a seasonal airport with no fluctuations between winter and summer as its SVID score demonstrates further below.

Passenger traffic down 4.4%
An analysis of passenger traffic at Agadir confirms that for the first six months of 2015, it is down 4.4% when compared to the same time period of the year previous. Of the six months, the worst performing was June, which was down nearly 12%.

It is interesting to note however that during this period, May reported its best performance over the past four years with a growth of 3.3%. Nonetheless, if the downward trend of 4.4% continues for the remainder of the summer months and into the winter season, Agadir Airport should expect to see passenger levels remain just above 1.4 million for 2015.

SVID score says ‘Excellent’ for Agadir
Entering Agadir’s monthly passenger data for 2014 into anna.aero’s Seasonal Variation in Demand (SVID) calculator, the airport performs well, generating a score of 1.31 ‒ an ‘excellent’ rating. The airport’s seasonality performance has improved marginally when compared to the result achieved in 2013, when it attained a score of 1.79. Evaluating Agadir alongside the most significant competing Moroccan airports, our data elves also ran SVID calculations on Marrakech (1.63 – ‘excellent’) and Casablanca (2.64 – ‘good’).

Casablanca remains #1 route
After witnessing an increase in seat capacity of 8.4% when compared to the same time period of last year, the domestic link with Casablanca remains the number one route from Agadir. Agadir has a net increase in destinations served of two in October 2015 when compared with October 2014. This means that the Moroccan facility is now connected to 32 destinations.

Along with increases in seat capacity to destinations such as Düsseldorf (72%), Marseille (15%) and Dublin (20%, 23rd most popular route), Agadir is reporting an increase in seat capacity of 13%.

This is despite the airport witnessing a decrease in passengers for the first half of this year. In the top 12, the number one route in terms of performance growth is Toulouse, which has leapfrogged from being the 25th most popular route in 2014 to 12th in 2015, helped by an increase in seat capacity of 85%.

Condor records the biggest capacity growth
With seat capacity growth of nearly 40% when compared to the same time period of last year, Condor is the fastest growing airline from Agadir, resulting in the carrier overtaking Thomson Airways and Transavia.com France to become the fifth largest airline from the Moroccan facility. Coincidentally Transavia.com France is reporting growth when compared to October 2014 of 1.2%, helped by the launch of services to Lille in April.

However, Thomson Airways is reporting a decline in capacity of nearly 28%. The British carrier however may reverse its decreasing seat availability when it introduces services to Birmingham. Ryanair and easyJet have both increased capacity from Agadir, with the Irish airline reporting a growth in seats of 30%, while the Orange LCC is showing a rise of 29%. Outside of the top 12, the number one carrier for growth is Aer Lingus, which has seen its services to Dublin grow by 20%.

Royal Air Maroc remains the number one airline from Agadir, with the Moroccan national carrier reporting a 5.0% growth in seats when compared to last year.