AENA

The four times weekly Naples – Madrid route, flown by an Air Italy Boeing 737, has joined Bologna, Genoa and Geneva as new destinations to be served by Meridiana from Naples International Airport in the winter 2014/2015 schedule.

The SkyTeam alliance member will debut the aircraft on a weekly service to New York from April 12, 2015 and will also deploy the aircraft on a three times weekly route to Montevideo from April 13, 2015. The arrangement will enable the carrier to offer an enhanced service on both routes, while it will support the Polish carrier’s over capacity as it continues its business restructuring.

The airline has been offering a service on the Bogota – Barcelona route since June 2006. An estimated 76,000 passengers flew on the route in the first nine months of this year, up 10.1 per cent on the same period last year, with Avianca reporting average loads of more than 85 per cent.

Over the past ten years, Barcelona El Prat Airport has seen a substantial amount of growth in terms of its international market.

Ryanair has been serving MR Štefánik Airport for almost ten years and is now firmly established as the largest scheduled operator with a 79.1 per cent share of departures and 93.2 share of capacity this month.

Qatar Airways will boost capacity on routes from Doha’s Hamad International Airport to Madrid and Perth through increased frequencies on the route to Europe and the permanent deployment of a larger capacity airliner on the Australian link.

This is the first start-up aid scheme that the European Commission has assessed under its new guidelines on state aid to airports and airlines which came into force on April 4, 2014. The guidelines have simplified the rules on public support granted by Member States for the start-up of new air transport routes.

UAE national carrier, Etihad Airways, has revealed plans to launch its first passenger flights to Algiers, Edinburgh, Entebbe, Hong Kong, Kolkata and Madrid in the first half of 2015, while Brisbane will get its first non-stop flights using the carrier's new Boeing 787-9 Dreamliners.

The Spanish capital city will be linked to its Addis Ababa Bole International Airport hub through Rome using a Boeing 767-300ER and will increase Ethiopian’s international network to 83 destinations covering five continents.

The confirmation of the return of the route will now place the carrier in direct competition with its local rival Air Europa which inaugurated its own operations between Madrid and Montevideo in June 2013 just three months after Iberia ended its flights.

FROM THE LATEST ISSUE OF ROUTES NEWS: Our sister publication speaks to Air Europa’s head of network planning and distribution, Albert Muntané Casanova

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