Last night’s Networking Evening at this year’s record-breaking Routes Europe forum in Krakow once again showed that Poland’s second largest city knows how to put on a party. Our host and its partners have made tremendous efforts to showcase the hospitality, history, and development of what is emerging to be one of Central Europe’s prominent business and leisure break destinations.
One of Europe's leading hub, Amsterdam Airport Schiphol was announced as the overall winner of the Routes Europe edition of the Routes 2016 Marketing Awards which were formally announced last night during the Networking Evening event which took place at ICE Kraków in Poland.
The Northern Irish city will take on hosting duties for Routes Europe 2017. Hosted by Invest NI and Discover Belfast, they will show what the city has to offer as not only host, but as a destination.
UK leisure carrier Jet2.com will introduce a second route to this year’s Routes Europe host city of Kraków this week after the success of its current Newcastle – Kraków service that has been in operation since March 2011. The airline took time away from its busy Routes Europe meeting schedule to join senior officials from Kraków Airport to help promote the event on the second day of the air service development forum.
In recent years, Cyprus has solidified its status as a tourist destination with passenger numbers rising steadily. In 2015, the number of tourist arrivals to the island hit a 14-year high at 2.65 million. The first quarter of 2016 has already seen a 32.4 percent increase compared to the same timeframe in 2015.
We are increasingly surrounded by data from all types of sources and channels. It’s impossible for us to manage all that data, so how do we pick the right data to look at, how do we interpret that data and how much of that data is fact, fiction or intuition? In a short 20 minute session OAG industry advisor John Grant discussed some of the issues and dilemmas we face each day in handling that data during Routes Europe.
The industry can expect far more freedom in the skies within the next 15 years under increasing liberalisation. Giving a talk at this year’s Routes Europe in Kraków, Poland, entitled 'Route Development in 2030: How Regulation Will Affect Your Deals', Watson Farley & Williams LLP partner, Jeremy Robinson, said he believes legislation will become increasingly liberal.
The airport, which has recently been named as one of Ryanair’s latest bases, have their sights set on serving the likes of Belfast, Florence and the Baltic regions.
Slovenian carrier Adria Airways will provide an important hub link into the Star Alliance network via Lufthansa’s Bavarian hub at Munich Airport, while Wizz Air will introduce a low-fare offering to London, introducing 27,000 seats to and from Olsztyn-Mazury in the current calendar year.
The London Stansted-based carrier is icontinuing a strategic fleet renewal process as it aims to introduce more modern, economical and environmentally friendly aircraft to the operation. The aim over the next five years is to gradually phase out older aircraft and modernise the operation by introducing further Airbus types, which may include the A318, A319, further A321s and even perhaps the A330.
Emirates Airline's service from Newcastle to Dubai has for a long-time been hailed as a game-changer for North East England, not just affording better access into markets across the Middle East and into Asia and the Pacific via Dubai International Airport, but also due to the more than 14,000 tonnes of cargo its Airbus A330-200s and Boeing 777-300ERs have carried since it launched the route in 2007.
In 2008, Avinor adopted a goal of reaching the 70 percent public transportation share in the ground transport service to Oslo Airport in 2020, but has now achieved this five years ahead of schedule, survey data from 2015 has shown. It remains on-track to to achieve a 75 percent public transportation share by 2030.
The expanded summer 2017 offer will see new weekly flights to Faro, Malta and Naples and expanded services to Arrecife, Bourgas, Fueteventura, Ibiza, Larnaca, Mahon, Paphos and Zante. This will follow the debut of new routes to Hurghada and Las Palmas and frequency growth to Arrecife, Banjul and Tenerife in the winter 2016/2017 schedule, the latter seeing growth from one to four weekly flights for the full season.
Although BA can take ownership of these scarce resources over time, it is obliged to make them available to competitors in specific domestic markets. Although Flybe remained tight-lipped about any plan, chief executive Saad Hamaad is understood to believe smaller aircraft could help a Heathrow operation to succeed.
Routes Europe kicked-off in style yesterday with an engaging and thought-provoking Strategy Summit that debated some of the key topics impacting the aviation business across the region. Here's a round up of day one's activities.
At this year’s Routes Europe in KrakówPoland the power of event networking this was highlighted better than ever when a new air link was tentatively agreed during the short coach journey from the EXPO Kraków International Exhibition and Convention Centre and last night’s Welcome Reception at the Stara Zajezdnia Kraków by DeSilva.
The forthcoming UK Brexit vote should be used by the European Union (EU) as an opportunity to have an entire rethink over the political bloc’s problems. Speaking at the Routes Europe 2016 Strategy Summit, in Kraków, Poland, LOT Polish Airlines CEO Rafal Milczarski said he believed the UK’s voters will decide to stay in the EU on June 23. However, even if the decision is made to keep things the same, he urged Brussels not to treat it as a vindication of the current set up.
When US manufacturer Boeing first introduced the Boeing 787 Dreamliner it was marketed as a hub-buster, an aircraft that would enable airlines to fly non-stop point-to-point services between non-hub airports. Now after almost five years of airline service, data does not seem to necessary back up the initial views with only one in four current Dreamliner routes classified as a new air service.
Regional airlines could face a five-year period of consolidation as they are out-muscled by bigger rivals. Speaking at the Route Europe 2016 Strategy Summit in Kraków, Poland, Iberia Regional/Air Nostrum network planning and scheduling director Miguel Oliver said in the last 20 years in Spain, the country has lost 20 carriers.
Speaking in a session on regional carrier trends in Europe, bmi regional's chief commercial officer, Jochen Schnadt, said that bmi regional is seeing the potential to grow capacity in some of its existing markets and opportunities for larger equipment for new route development.
Ryanair first introduced flights into Prague in November 2007 and currently offers at least daily flights from Brussels Charleroi, Dublin and London Stansted. The launch of the base will support the introduction of new daily flights to Bergamo and Rome in Italy and will boost annual capacity by around 100,000 to 625,000 seats.
The weekly flight from Toulouse to Oujda will operate every Monday for a three month period from late June until late September and will be scheduled around the daytime period an aircraft would otherwise be sat idle at the southern French airfield after fulfilling its morning Airbus staff shuttle commitment.
The airline launched the route on April 18, 2016 and is operating three flights a week between the two capitals using a 138-seat Airbus A319 aircraft in a dual business and economy class configuration. This summer a fourth weekly flight will also operate between June 22, 2016 and August 10, 2016.
The Asian-Budapest market last year experienced an impressive 20 percent increase, with the number of Korean visitors alone increasing by ten percent, having tripled over the last five years.
Any new company would retain the Virgin brand but be run at a lower cost as a different corporate entity with different employee contracts. It could operate with a small fleet of twin-engined widebody equipment transferred across from Delta’s mainline fleet to help lower its operating costs if the go-ahead is given.
