News From Around The EuroZone

Richard Maslen April 28, 2011

SAS EXPANDS IN THE BALEARICS

SAS Scandinavian Airlines is to add a twice weekly service to the Spanish Balearic island of Mallorca from its Copenhagen base. The flight to Palma will be inaugurated on September 3 and will be its second route to the city from Scandinavia. It already offers a weekly flight from Stockholm, holding a 15 per cent share of the 62,000 O&D passengers flying to/from Stockholm Arlanda. The Copenhagen – Palma route is dominated by Air Berlin which has a 44.9 per cent share of the estimated 112,000 O&D passengers that travelled on the route. The German carrier has five flights per week into a hub that it has developed on the island. Low-cost carriers Norwegian and Comber Sterling also offer three and two flights per week respectively, while Transavia Airlines’ Danish division has also flown the route in the past year.

LUFTHANSA RETURNS TO BURSA

German flag carrier and Star Alliance member Lufthansa is to resume flights between its Munich hub and the Turkish city of Bursa. The route will be flown three times weekly from May 1, initially with a Lufthansa CityLine Bombardier CRJ900 but will be switched to an Augsburg Airways Embraer 195 from July 1. The airline carried an estimated 4,500 O&D passengers on the route in the past year. Bursa is a city in northwestern Turkey and the seat of Bursa Province. It has an estimated population of 1.9 million people making it Turkey's fourth largest city and is one of the most industrialised metropolitan centers in the country. It is also the main home for the Turkish automotive industry with factories for the likes of FIAT and Renault, as well as automotive parts producers like Bosch and Mako being active in the city for decades. Lufthansa is the only overseas airline to currently serve Bursa Yenişehir Airport, a shared facility with the Turkish Air Force, although Anadolujet, the low-cost division of Turkish Airlines (THY), does offer a daily domestic connection to Ankara.

NEW CRUISE CONNECTION FROM LONDON STANSTED

Royal Caribbean International will launch their first direct cruise connection from London Stansted this summer, chartering aircraft from British Airways to provide flights to Venice from June to connect directly onto Voyager of the Seas, cruise ship for a seven night Adriatic sailing. The European cruise market continues to grow in popularity and Jo Rzymowska, Associate Vice President and General Manager, Royal Caribbean International, UK and Ireland confirmed the reasons behind this dedicated charter service from London. “Feedback from cruise travellers tells us that convenient flight connections are a factor when selecting their next cruise experience. Around 6.7 million people live in Stansted’s main catchment area, putting our cruise connections onto the doorstep of millions of potential customers,” she explained. According to the cruise operator, the Voyager of the Seas ship includes an ice skating rink, rock climbing wall and an indoor ‘street’ running through the centre of the ship featuring shops, restaurants and bars.

CZECH CONNECT ADDS PRAGUE – GENEVA SERVICE

Czech Connect Airlines is to launch flights from Prague to Geneva, its first scheduled route into Western Europe. The carrier, formerly a charter operator under the CCA Airways brand, inaugurated scheduled flights in March this year with services from Brno to Moscow Domodedovo and St Petersburg and from Karlovy Vary to Ekaterinburg. The new Prague – Geneva route will be flown four times weekly by a Boeing 737-300 from June 2 and will compete directly with a weekly rotation from Swiss European Air Lines using an Avro RJ100. An estimated 59,000 O&D passengers travelled between the two cities in the past year, each paying an average fare of $174 each way. This represents an 11.5 per cent decline on the previous 12 month period and also an 11 per cent decline in yields.

ALITALIA ADDS SUMMER LINKS TO SPAIN

Italian flag carrier Alitalia is to offer additional flights to some of its Spanish destinations from its Rome Leonardo da Vinci International (Fiumicino) hub during the peak summer months this year, according to the latest uploads to its GDS display. The airline will offer two flights per week to Ibiza in July, rising to five in August; three flights per week to Palma de Mallorca; links to Malaga will increase from daily to eleven rotations per week, while Valencia will be served nine times per week rather than daily, between July 1 and September 10. An estimated 10.23 million O&D passengers travelled between Italy and Spain in the past year with Alitalia holding just a 6.7 per cent share of a market dominated by low-cost carrier Ryanair. The Irish budget carrier accounted for almost half of the traffic between the two countries currently offering more than 200 routes between them.