UAE: Emirates Signs Code-share Agreement With Trenitalia

Emirates announced on Wednesday a code-share agreement with Trenitalia, Italy’s national railway company, allowing Emirates customers to visit new destinations across Italy.

Travellers can use one ticket to fly on Emirates and then reach other Italian cities by train.

Emirates currently flies to four Italian cities; Milan, Rome, Venice, and Bologna.

Customers can book their code-share trips through Emirates’ website and use their ticket to then travel by train.

First and Business class passengers will automatically be booked in First Class on Trenitalia’s trains.


Tourism Observer

UNITED KINGDOM: British Airways Grounds Flights Worldwide Due To Computer Problems

British Airways has cancelled all flights from Heathrow and Gatwick until 18:00 BST because of computer problems.

A "major IT system failure that is causing very severe disruption to our flight operations worldwide", the airline said.

It apologised for the global system outage and said it was working to resolve the the problem.

Heathrow Airport said it was "working closely" with BA to solve the issue.

There is no evidence at this stage to suggest the system failure was caused by a cyber attack, British Airways says.

All affected passengers will be offered the option of rescheduling or a refund.

In a statement, the airline asked passengers with flights before 18:00 BST on Saturday not to come to Gatwick or Heathrow airports, which it said had become extremely congested.

Other airlines flying in and out of Heathrow and Gatwick are unaffected.

The problems mean parts of British Airways's website are unavailable and some travellers claimed they could not check in on the mobile app.

BA aircraft landing at Heathrow are unable to park up as outbound aircraft cannot vacate the gates, which has resulted in passengers being stuck on aircraft.

A passenger said he had been sitting on a plane at Heathrow for 90 minutes. He said the captain told passengers the IT problems were very problematic and catastrophic.

BA staff in Heathrow's Terminal 5 were resorting to using white boards, according to passengers.

Delays have been reported in Rome, Prague, Milan, Stockholm and Malaga due to the system failure.

Passengers say they haven't been told very much just that there is a worldwide computer system failure.

They were told that we couldn't even get on other flights because they are unable to see what flights we can be moved to.

Not even flights from other countries can fly to the two airports.

British Airways staff are unable to say how long delays would take, but they say all flights are grounded around the world.

Passengers are being told their computer systems were down worldwide.

Some delayed passengers have been given vouchers for food and drink.

EU flight delay rights

- If your flight departed the European Union or was with a European airline, you might have rights under EU law to claim if the delay or cancellation was within the airline's control

- Short-haul flights: 250 euros for delays of more than three hours

- Medium-haul flights: 400 euros for delays of more than three hours

- Long-haul flights: 300 euros for delays of between three and four hours; and 600 euros for delays of more than four hours

- If your flight's delayed for two or more hours the airline must offer food and drink, access to phone calls and emails, and accommodation if you're delayed overnight - including transfers between the airport and the hotel.

I hope this is just not a cyber attack or

SOUTH AFRICA: Emirates To Make More International Flights To Cape Town

Emirates Airline has announced a third daily flight between Cape Town and Dubai, starting July 4.

Flight EK778 departs Dubai at 10h50 and arrives in Cape Town at 18h30.

Flight EK779 departs Cape Town at 20h05 and arrives in Dubai at 07h30.

The airline now has connections to New York, London, Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, Rome, Sydney, Athens, Mumbai, Shanghai, Milan, Beijing, Munich, Hong Kong, Phuket, Bangkok, Singapore, Medina, Deli, Male and more.

UAE: Emirates Starts Daily Direct Flights To Bologna

Emirates Airline on Tuesday launched direct, daily flights to Bologna, its fourth Italian city after Rome, Venice and Milan.

Airline looking to draw more leisure and business travellers from East and West

Water cannons received the Boeing 777-300 at the turmac of the city, which is rich in its art, culture, trade and known world-wide for its medieval historical centres.

Bologna has a “good customer base and we want to offer people the option of flying from here”, Thierry Antinori, Emirates Executive Vice-President and Chief Commercial officer Commercial Operations Worldwide, told Gulf News.

“It is going to be a very popular destination,” he added.

Emirates airline is planning to connect tourists and businessmen from Asian countries to Bologna and to offer the tourists from Europe the option of flying to the East though Dubai.

In order to achieve the goal, the senior official announced during the press conference that Emirates airline will bring 12 media groups from the different far eastern countries to Bologna in the next two months.

Emirates wants “to show them the city, because it is not known as Venice or Rome, also because we want to be successful and, to be successful, part of the job is to do the job by yourself,” he said.

While Emriates airline has a total of 1,000 Italians working with it world-wide, the UAE has the biggest Italian community east of Europe.

Enrico Postacchini, Chairman of Bologna Airport, told Gulf News that the airport has a capacity of over seven million passengers a year. Plans for further investment to increase the capacity are under way, he added.

Bologna airport is among the top European airports in terms of connectivity, he added.

Europe’s Most Competitive Airport Pairs and city pairs in S15 revealed

Pobeda became the latest carrier on the highly competitive city pair between Moscow and Sochi when it commenced services between Moscow Vnukovo and Sochi/Adler on 6 February. Aeroflot’s in-house LCC now serves the route with six daily flights. This summer, the link between Moscow and Sochi is the most highly competed route in Europe with a total of 10 carriers operating services between the two cities.

We look at several aspects such as aircraft type operated, weekly frequency, sector length and which other carriers may already be operating on the route. Typically around half of all new airlines services are on airport pairs that are not served by anyone else. (Coincidentally, out of 25 new services launched this week, 12 are already served by other carriers.) However, that means that around half of all new services are airlines entering a market already served by at least one other carrier. These existing carriers are not likely to take kindly to having their position challenged.

This got us wondering as to which were the most competitive routes within Europe, during the peak summer season, on both an airport pair and city pair basis. At this point the anna.aero data elves let out a big sigh and got to work to see what they could uncover. For summer we used the first week of August in 2015. When attaching airports to cities we used the IATA recommended allocations for the following 16 cities: Belfast, Berlin, Brussels, Frankfurt, Glasgow, Istanbul, London, Milan, Moscow, Oslo, Paris, Rome, Stockholm, Tenerife, Venice and Warsaw.

German airports to Antalya dominate summer airport pairs ranking
For this summer the following table reveals the airport pairs served by the highest number of airlines. Routes to Antalya from German airports appear five times among the top eight, with Cologne Bonn and Düsseldorf to Antalya both offering flights on eight different airlines. Two more ‘summer sun’ routes also appear in the rankings; Düsseldorf to Heraklion and Manchester to Palma de Mallorca. The final route is the Italian domestic link between Rome Fiumicino and Milan Malpensa.

Moscow – Sochi/Adler most competitive city pair
If instead of considering airport pairs we examine city pairs within Europe, the most competitive markets now include a large number of markets from London. With six airports designated as serving the UK capital (Gatwick, Heathrow, London City, Luton, Southend and Stansted) it’s no surprise that London routes now feature prominently. However, only one city pair can beat the eight carriers between Cologne Bonn and Antalya, and Düsseldorf and Antalya as reported earlier in this analysis. And it does not involve London. Instead it is the Russian domestic route between Moscow and Sochi/Adler, which according to OAG Schedules Analyser data had a total of 10 different carriers serving the market this August.

Two other Moscow routes also appear with seven competing airlines. Moscow is served by three airports; Domodedovo, Sheremetyevo and Vnukovo. Seven city pairs involving London are served by seven carriers; four in Spain, two in Greece and one each in Cyprus and Italy.

SOUTH KOREA: Seoul Is Preferable Destination For Wealthy Travellers

THE BUSTLING metropolis of Seoul, South Korea has topped a new survey ranking the luxury travel destinations that attract – and retain – wealthy tourists the longest.

For the 2015 Luxury Travel Index, prepared by technology and booking company Switchfly, analysts looked at the average length of stay that affluent travelers spend at top destinations around the world.

And while the list of 15 destinations is dominated by European cities and islands, the top spot goes to the South Korean capital, where wealthy travelers spend an average of 13 days shopping, eating and sightseeing – and dropping their money.

After Seoul, Dubai and Milan round out the top three spots.

The list, which is meant to serve as a snapshot into the traveling habits of tourists who fly first class and sleep in five-star hotels, also shows that interest in the Americas for deep-pocketed travelers is weak: The only two destinations to crack the list are Sao Paulo and Miami.

Here are the luxury destinations where wealthy travelers choose to spend the most time – and money – according to Switchfly, which powers booking and loyalty redemption programs for leading international hotel brands:-

1. Seoul, South Korea (13.0 days)
2. Dubai, UAE (12.7 days)
3. Milan, Italy (12.3 days)
4. Athens, Greece (11.5 days)
5. Singapore (11.1 days)
6. Frankfurt, Germany (11 days)
7. Sao Paulo, Brazil (tied 10.6 days)
7. Hong Kong, China (tied 10.6 days)
8. Bali, Indonesia (10 days)
9. Lisbon, Portugal (9.7 days)
10. Tokyo, Japan (9.6 days)
11. Crete, Greece (9.2 days)
12. Mykonos, Greece (8.7 days)
13. Rome, Italy (8.5 days)
14. Miami, Florida, USA (8.3 days)

SPAIN: Iberia Express Grows By 8.4% From Madrid Since Last Year;

Iberia Express launched its latest route to the UK from Madrid on the 8 September in the form of a thrice-weekly service to Manchester, a sector that will then operate twice-weekly from the end of October for the remainder of W15/16. The carrier, a subsidiary of Spain’s national carrier, Iberia, also serves Edinburgh and London Gatwick from the Spanish capital, with the airline also serving London Heathrow from other Spanish airports.

Iberia Express was set up on 6 October 2011 by IAG, and commenced its first flight operations on 25 March 2012. The main intention of the airline was to operate European routes that were unprofitable when flown by mainline Iberia, and to make them viable by the new carrier operating the sectors with lower running costs. In its short history, Iberia Express has become the fourth biggest airline to fly from Madrid, with over 6 million passengers having flown and 50,000 flights operated within the carrier’s first two years of operation. In 2013, a report by FlightStats confirmed that Iberia Express tops all other European airlines in terms of punctuality. The airline operates an all-A320 fleet, of which a majority have been passed to the company from mainline Iberia.

Iberia Express is Madrid’s #4 largest carrier
Iberia Express remains the fourth largest airline from Madrid (highlighted in Iberia Express colours in the table above) in S15, the same position it held last year. What is interesting to note however is that mainline Iberia (highlighted in Iberia colours), the number one carrier from the Spanish capital, has seen a greater growth in seat capacity in the past 12 months of 9.5% when compared with that of Iberia Express’ 8.3%. Overall, Iberia Express occupies 7.8% of seat capacity from Madrid, down only 0.1% from the 7.9% which it occupied last year, a result of Madrid seeing two additional carriers operating services from the facility according to OAG.

Tenerife North overtakes Santiago de Compostela
After reporting a growth in seat capacity over the past 12 months of 9.8%, the 1,770-kilometre sector to Tenerife North overtakes Santiago de Compostela to become the carrier’s number one route from its Madrid hub, although the latter is also reporting growth of 3.3% in seat capacity. Since last year, three new airports have entered the top 12 when compared to the same time period of 2014 (highlighted in light green), with Frankfurt (no longer served by Iberia Express), Malaga and Tenerife South no longer being in the top 12. London Gatwick goes straight into the top 12 at ninth spot, tied with Berlin Tegel, after the airline launched services to the airport from the Spanish capital on 28 March according to OAG, operating with an 11 times weekly frequency. Also joining the top 12 party from Madrid are Lanzarote and Fuerteventura, two routes which have both been operated by Iberia Express since the airline commenced service.

Destinations double since operations commenced
Iberia Express in 2012 served a total of 16 destinations from Madrid, this number has now risen to 31 destinations in 2015. From the destination split, the majority of routes served are Spanish domestic services. Of the international country markets served by Iberia Express from Madrid, the average amount of airports served is two. This shows the importance of the Spanish domestic market within Iberia Express’ operation, a market that faces strong competition from ULCC Ryanair. Soon Iberia Express will face strong competition from Norwegian, which is planning to start domestic services to Gran Canaria and Tenerife North during the start of W15/16 season from the Spanish capital. The latest route launched by Iberia Express from Madrid was to Manchester on 8 September.

Services operated alongside mainline Iberia
An analysis of OAG Schedules Analyser data for September 2015 reveals that only three routes of Iberia Express’ operation from Madrid are operated alongside mainline Iberia operations. The destinations are Athens, Düsseldorf and Gran Canaria.

Iberia Express currently has no new routes planned for S16 from its Madrid hub, and it is also worth noting that neither does mainline Iberia, making it interesting to think as to what cities will be the next destinations for the subsidiary. When looking at Iberia Express’ route map (as shown below), we can see that there is a very even geographical spread in relation to the location of western European airports served by the carrier, with key capital cities such as Amsterdam, Berlin, Dublin, London and Paris being served from Madrid. Of the international routes served from Madrid, eight are capital cities. In relation to the potential future routes for Iberia Express, the main focus will possibly be the transfer of services from mainline Iberia to Express which could potential include Brussels, Budapest (launched 2 June), Florence, Hamburg, Milan (Linate or Malpensa), and Rome Fiumicino.

In relation to new routes for the Iberia group that have the potential to be served under the Express brand, one could be Oslo Gardermoen, a European capital currently not served by mainline and is currently only served by Norwegian. With Iberia Express having oneworld alliance advantages opening up connections to Latin and South America, it would give them the edge over Norwegian on the sector. Another potential destination would be Helsinki, which is currently served by fellow oneworld member Finnair. It is worth noting though that LCC Norwegian also operates to the Finnish capital.

Within the domestic network, the key route most likely to be transferred from mainline is Barcelona. With this lucrative domestic route seeing strong declines in traffic since the development of high speed rail, the national carrier may want to reduce costs on the city pair by using the Express model to help increase profit margins, operating alongside Vueling. Other potential domestic routes that could be switched from mainline to Express include A Coruña, Asturias and Santander.

As of September 2015, Iberia Express’s destinations consist of 14 domestic and 18 international airports. All flights depart, arrive and connect in Madrid, except for the following routes: Vigo-Tenerife North, Asturias-Tenerife North, Tenerife North-London Heathrow, Tenerife North-Lyon and Gran Canaria-London Heathrow.

ITALY: Leonardo Hotels adds its first hotel in Milan

Leonardo Hotel Milan City Center lobby

The Leonardo hotel chain is taking over the 4-star, superior Leonardo Hotel Milan City Center, formerly the Hermitage****S, from mid-September in the city of culture and fashion, Milan. This is also the Group’s first hotel in Italy.

Offering 130 spacious and comfortably furnished deluxe and superior rooms and suites, the hotel features traditional Italian style and high-quality furnishings. It is ideal accommodation for business and private travellers, as well as visitors to the nearby congress centre MICO. The popular city sights can be reached in just a few minutes’ walk.

Guests seeking an extravagant ambiance will find an idyllic patio in the outdoor area. The hotel additionally boasts a capacious lobby, an underground carpark with plenty of parking spaces as well as free Wi-Fi access in all public areas and rooms. Those who require an exclusive and professional environment for meetings and events or a private setting for functions can also use the hotel’s four meeting rooms for up to 200 people – furnished with luxurious chandeliers, fine wallpaper and curtains that provide a special elegance.

Leonardo Hotel Milan City Center_meeting room

Leonardo Hotels is focused on expansion throughout Europe and is proud of its addition of Milan to its destination portfolio. Further expansion within Italy has already been planned. A hotel complex offering 300 rooms in a top location in the metropolis will be opened as early as March 2016 with the Leonardo Hotel Milano Centrale