FINNAIR TO LAUNCH LYON LINK
Nordic carrier Finnair is to inaugurate a twice daily Helsinki – Lyon service from April 2, 2012. The link to France’s second-largest city, located at the convergence of the Rhône and Saône rivers, will be operated using an Embraer 190 with flights in the morning and evening for both business and leisure traffic. Finnair expects to secure a mix of point-to-point and transfer traffic, with a high proportion of the latter expected to connect on to its expanding Asian network. “For passengers travelling from Asia, Finnair offers very fast connections to a comprehensive European route network that will be further enhanced with the addition of Lyon,” said Ville Iho, Senior Vice President, Operations, Finnair. An estimated 14,000 O&D passengers travelled on the route in the past year, around half of these flying with Lufthansa via Frankfurt or Munich. Finnair already offers almost 40 flights per week between Helsinki and France with an up to five times daily link to Paris CDG and three flights per week to Nice. Finnair carried an estimated 159,000 passengers between the two countries in the past year, a 31.4 per cent share of the total traffic. Its closest rival was easyJet with a 17.8 per cent share although the low-cost carrier suspended its Helsinki – Paris CDG route earlier this year.
ESTONIAN AIR BOOSTS AMSTERDAM CAPACITY
Baltic carrier Estonian Air is to significantly increase capacity on the Tallinn – Amsterdam route from September 5 with the introduction of an additional four weekly flights between the two European capitals. The airline currently offers a daily morning service – five flights operated by Bombardier CRJ900s and two by Boeing 737-500s. However, this autumn it will introduce a new evening rotation on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays, flown by a CRJ900. This represents a 49 per cent increase in seat capacity. Estonian Air is currently the only operator on the route and operates a full codeshare with KLM Royal Dutch Airlines. An estimated 42,000 O&D passengers travelled between the two cities last year. However, the analysis needs to be broken down into two six month periods to get a better understanding of the data, as Estonian Air only inaugurated direct flights at the end of October 2010, although it did previously offer a through service via Vilnius. For the period from May 2010 to October 2010, an estimated 19,000 O&D passengers travelled on the route with 43 per cent using the Estonian Air indirect service. The majority of passengers used other airlines, the most notable travel flows being with Finnair via Hlesinki (16 per cent) and Czech Airlines (via Prague (eleven per cent). Since Estonian Air introduced its link at the end of October, the direct flight secured a 64 per cent share of the traffic between November 2010 and April 2011. An estimated 23,000 passengers flew between the cities during this six month period, but there remained a large level of leakage but this time via Riga with airBaltic (ten per cent).
TURKISH AIRLINES EXPANDS IN JAPANESE MARKET
Turkish Airlines (THY) is planning to introduce daily flights during the Northern Summer 2012 schedules to both Osaka Kansai and Tokyo Narita as it attempts to boost its share of the Europe – Japan market. As part of its ambitious plans to become one of the world’s largest network carriers, THY is working to boost its point-to-point and transfer traffic via its Istanbul Ataturk hub. It currently offers five flights per week to Osaka Kansai and six a week to Tokyo Narita but plans to have a daily schedule in place on each route from March 25, 2012. The Osaka Kansai route will be operated by an Airbus A330-200, while Tokyo Narita will be linked by a Boeing 777-300ER. THY currently carries an estimated 142,000 O&D passengers a year on these two routes – 43,000 between Istanbul and Osaska Kansai and 99,000 between Istanbul and Tokyo Narita – but a further 70,000 passengers use its flights to connect with other destinations in Turkey and Europe. Its three largest destinations outside of the country are Rome Fiumicino, Paris CDG and Athens International, each with strong passenger flows. Looking at traffic flows between Europe and Japan, THY accounted for 3.8 per cent of passengers ranking it in sixth place among European operators and eighth overall.
AIRBERLIN AND IBERIA BEGIN CODESHARE
German carrier airberlin has continued its network integration with its oneworld partners by introducing a codeshare partnership with Spanish airline Iberia last week. From July 8 the two airlines have been co-operating on flights from Madrid, with airberlin’s code appearing on Iberia’s links to Berlin Tegel, Düsseldorf, Frankfurt, Geneva, Munich and Zurich. Meanwhile, Iberia has been benefiting from the extensive domestic route network and the good connections to destinations in Scandinavia via airberlin’s hub in Berlin. The codeshare also applies to airberlin’s routes from Berlin, Düsseldorf, Hamburg and Stuttgart to Barcelona as well as from Düsseldorf to Bilbao and from Cologne/Bonn to Valencia. “The codeshare with Iberia is already airberlin‘s fifth co-operation agreement with a member of the airline alliance oneworld and is therefore a further important step in the alliance. As a result of the additional flights to and from Spain, we now offer our customers a wider choice and reinforce our presence in one of our traditional core markets,” said Joachim Hunold, Chief Executive Officer, airberlin. “We are very happy to strengthen our ties with airberlin, our soon-to-be partner in oneworld. This agreement will clearly benefit the customers of both airlines, as they will have access to better connections and more travel options, not only between Spain and Germany, but also to other cities in Northern and Central Europe where we both operate,” added Rafael Sánchez-Lozano, Chief Executive Officer, Iberia.
EASYJET BOOSTS CAPACITY FROM BRISTOL
UK low-cost carrier easyJet has revealed it has boosted capacity on 15 routes from its Bristol Airport base in the southwest of the country. The airline is increasing frequencies to Bodrum, Dalaman, Faro, Geneva, Heraklion, Ibiza, La Rochelle, Mahon, Murcia, Marseille, Olbia, Paphos, Palma, Pisa and Split following the arrival of an additional based aircraft, providing an extra 10,000 seats this summer. “Due to increased customer demand we are retaining an additional aircraft in Bristol throughout the summer to make some of our most popular destinations even more accessible to people in the South West,” said Ali Gayward, Commercial Manager, easyJet. The airline currently offers flights to 43 destinations from Bristol. It is the largest carrier at the airport offering over 38,000 seats per week, around 55 per cent of the total capacity. Its closest rival is fellow budget operator Ryanair which offers an estimated 21,000 seats per week, 30 per cent of the total capacity.
Related Content
