News From Around The EuroZone

Richard Maslen April 14, 2011

AIR FRANCE TO INTRODUCE A380 ON SAN FRANCISCO SCHEDULES

Air France has confirmed that it will use an Airbus A380 on a daily service between Paris CDG and San Francisco between June 6 and September 4. The airline offers ten flights per week during the summer period and the three additional rotations will be served by an Airbus A340-300, rather than a Boeing 747-400 as originally planned. The route will be operated with one of Air France’s existing A380s configured with a three-class, 538-seat layout with 9 seats in La Première, 80 in Business and 449 in Voyageur. Its newly delivered A380s will all include a Premium Voyageur section, with the new cabin being retrofitted on its earlier examples from the end of this year. The upgrade of the San Francisco route has been made possible by the removal of an A380 from the airline’s Paris CDG – Tokyo Narita route. Since last month’s earthquake Air France, like many other operators, has witnessed a fall in demand and is understood to have taken the decision to utilise smaller capacity aircraft on the Japanese link until the market rebounds. However, the fact that the A380 will only operate to San Francisco until September 4, would suggest that it could return to the Tokyo route before the end of this year. Air France will be the second airline to operate the Super Jumbo to San Francisco. Lufthansa has already outlined plans to introduce the type from May 10 on its daily flight from Frankfurt; the fifth destination it serving with the A380 after Beijing, Johannesburg, New York and Tokyo.

RYANAIR ADDS UK ROUTE TO CORFU

Irish budget carrier Ryanair is to introduce its first link to Corfu this summer. The airline will launch a twice weekly service from London Stansted on July 7, serving Ioannis Kapodistrias International Airport on the Mediterranean island. Ryanair already offers flights from London Stansted to Rhodes and Thessaloniki and from Liverpool John Lennon to Kos and is boosting its activities in the Greek market. Around 1.7 million O&D passengers travelled between the UK and Greece on scheduled flights in the past year, a market that Ryanair’s low-cost rival easyJet dominates with a 44 per cent share of the traffic. As of this month, Ryanair offers flights to eight destinations from Kos, 13 from Rhodes, five from Thessaloniki and four from Volos, with a total of 66 weekly departures. This figure will rise considerably during the summer months as additional flights are added during the peak season.

BRITISH AIRWAYS TO INCREASE RIO LINK

British Airways (BA) is set to double capacity on its flights from London Heathrow to Rio de Janeiro this winter. The airline currently offers three flights per week on the route, but from November 3 plans to add another three weekly rotations meaning that the flights will operate every day except Mondays. BA competes directly with TAM Airlines between the two cities, while a large amount of traffic from the UK also flies via other European capitals. Approximately 96,000 O&D passengers travelled between the two airports in the past year with BA accounting for 35 per cent and TAM Airlines 20 per cent of this traffic.

VUELING TO ADD AMSTERDAM – ZÜRICH

Vueling Airlines is to launch a connection to Zürich from its new Amsterdam base in September. The confirmation of the route follows just weeks after the low-cost carrier introduced flights to the Swiss city from Barcelona and Santiago. The Barcelona link was opened on March 27 and is being operated twice every weekday and once at weekends, while Santiago is being served three times per week, increasing to five rotations between July and mid-September. The Amsterdam route will be introduced from September 14 on a five times weekly basis and Vueling expects to attract a good mix of business and leisure traffic. Swiss International Air Lines and KLM Royal Dutch Airlines already serve the route, offering 70 weekly frequencies between them. In the past year around 161,000 O&D passengers travelled between the two cities, with Swiss accounting for 53 per cent of this traffic. KLM’s yield on the route is stronger, with average fares around 15 per cent higher than its rival, but Vueling’s introduction could impact this.

AERARANN TO DROP DOMESTIC IRISH LINKS

Irish regional carrier Aer Arann has confirmed that it will suspend three of its domestic routes from July after a state subsidy supporting these services is withdrawn. Operations on the Public Service Obligation (PSO) links from Dublin to Galway, Knock and Sligo will all end on July 21 with the airline deeming them to be no longer financial viable without the support. Aer Arann currently offers up to three flights a day between Dublin and Galway, two a day from the capital to Sligo and a daily connection to Knock and carried approximately 49,000, 26,000 and 12,000 O&D passengers on these three routes in the past year, respectively. The carrier will continue to offer services from Galway with links to Edinburgh, London Southend and Waterford, however, it will now no longer serve Knock or Sligo. Knock has a number of scheduled links with Aer Lingus, bmibaby and Ryanair but Sligo has no other commercial flights. The management of the airport is now working with the Department of Transport to secure some form of financial aid to establish new air services.

AIRBALTIC TO OFFER SEASONAL SERVICE TO BARI

Latvian national carrier airBaltic is to offer a weekly link between Riga and Bari for a four month period this summer. The flight will operate every Saturday between June 4 and October 1 and will be flown by a Boeing 737-500. The airline already offers links to three Italian destinations from the Latvian capital, comprising daily services to Milan Linate, Rome Leonardo da Vinci International and a three times a week rotation to Venice Marco Polo. In the past year approximately 70,000 O&D passengers have flown between Latvia and Italy. The new flight will be the first direct link from Bari and the Apulia region into the Baltic States and alongside point-to-point traffic it will open up faster connections to Scandinavia, Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS).

BA CITYFLYER BOOSTS CAPACITY FROM LONDON CITY

BA CityFlyer, the wholly-owned subsidiary of British Airways (BA) that operates the airline’s flights from London City Airport, will boost capacity on its routes to Scotland by almost a quarter from the start of next month. From May 2, the airline will introduce an additional daily service from London City to both Glasgow and Edinburgh, routes which will be flown using 98-seat Embraer 190s. These additional rotations will increase weekday links on the routes to five times daily to Glasgow and eight times daily to Edinburgh, a 23 per cent rise in capacity when the use of the larger aircraft is taken into account. Although London City has proved to be a popular business destination, BA CityFlyer is seeing a good mix of premium and leisure travellers on these domestic connections. “The airport’s location, at the heart of London’s financial district, obviously makes it ideal for commuting between the Docklands and Scotland’s two major cities, both of which have a strong financial services sector,” said Luke Hayhoe, Commercial Manager, BA CityFlyer. “However, leisure passengers are becoming increasingly aware of just how convenient London City Airport is for the centre of London for those wanting to take in the sights or West End show in the city’s Theatreland district.”

BE THE FIRST WITH THE NEWS…

To keep up to date on a daily basis with the latest new route announcements and changes to airline flight schedules please bookmark our Breaking News page or follow our @TheHUBRoutes twitter feed.