New routes launched during the last week
(Saturday 14 June – Friday 20 June 2008)

New routes launched during the last week

Route of the week: Air Canada Toronto-Madrid

Air Canada’s arrival in Madrid from Toronto: The “Baptism”, the speeches, the ribbon-cutting and, yes, the T-shirts.

• This is our route of the week because we can’t believe it’s not operated  by any other airline. The new daily service by an Air Canada 767-300, offers onward connections throughout Spain provided by its Star Alliance partner Spanair. Also started this week was a new daily service from Calgary (YYC) to New York Newark (EWR) using an A319. This route was also started just two weeks ago by WestJet who will operate it on a seasonal basis. Air Canada already operates daily between Calgary and New York’s JFK airport.

Cake of the week: Blue Air’s Cologne/Bonn to Sibiu service

• Blue Air, Romania’s fast-growing low-cost airline, began serving Cologne/Bonn (CGN) from Sibiu (SBZ) this week. Initially flights will operate on Wednesdays but from 11 August there will be an additional flight on Mondays. The airline started flights from Sibiu (also known as Hermannstadt) to Stuttgart a fortnight ago.

• Expanding Flybaboo has added another new route from its Geneva (GVA) base. Sofia (SOF) will be served three times weekly (Monday, Wednesday and Friday) using one of the airline’s new Embraer 190s. No other carrier currently operates this route. However, Air Bulgaria and Swiss operate between Sofia and Zurich.

• Aer Lingus recently began operating two new routes from Dublin (DUB). Twice-weekly services were started to Bourgas (BOJ) in Bulgaria and Ibiza (IBZ) using an A320. Neither of these destinations is currently served by Ryanair. The Bourgas flight becomes the first scheduled service between the Republic of Ireland and Bulgaria and operated outbound with a 100% load factor. Wonder what the return load factor was like …

• Air Berlin (or should that be airberlin after the latest rebranding) have moved airports in Milan. Their twice daily Berlin Tegel (TXL) and Dűsseldorf (DUS) flights have been pulled out of Milan Bergamo and relocated to Milan Malpensa (MXP). Air One currently operates daily flights from Malpensa to Tegel, while Alitalia and Lufthansa both operate on the Malpensa to Dűsseldorf route.

• Lufthansa partner Air Dolomiti has started a weekly (Sunday) service between Trieste (TRS) and Alghero (AHO) in Sardinia. The two-hour flight is operated by one of the airline’s 64-seat ATR72s. Air Dolomiti’s only other service from Trieste is to Munich which it operates four times daily on behalf of Lufthansa.

• Air Baltic began serving the future Olympic city of Sochi (AER) from Riga (RIX) this week. Flights operate twice weekly on Wednesday and Saturday. Sochi, located on the Black Sea, will host the 2014 winter Olympics.

• bmibaby began two new routes from its Manchester (MAN) base this week. Madrid (MAD) will be served four times weekly and Lisbon (LIS) twice weekly. Somewhat surprisingly neither route is currently operated on a scheduled basis though Monarch operated scheduled flights to Madrid in 2005. These become bmibaby’s first new routes from Manchester since 2006 when they started Newquay and Perpignan services. The airline now operates 13 routes from Manchester.  The Manchester to Madrid service may be of particular interest to a certain Cristiano Ronaldo …

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• At last British Airways gets its own back on Air France for starting a Heathrow to Los Angeles service by starting its controversial OpenSkies subsidiary with a route from Paris Orly (ORY) to New York JFK (JFK). The airline will use a refurbished 757 equipped with just 82 seats (24 business class seats, 28 in premium economy and 30 in economy) and fuel-saving winglets. Flights will operate daily. French all-business class airline L’Avion, which operates 757s from Paris Orly to New York Newark, will be a code-share partner on the service.

• In moves which are far more significant than this sober group suggests, Croatia Airlines has begun two new ‘regional’ routes from Zagreb (ZAG). New thrice-weekly services to Pristina (PRN, pictured) in Kosovo and Podgorica (TGD) in Montenegro began this week. Pristina will be served by a Q400.

• easyJet added another route (its 24th) from its Milan Malpensa (MXP) base this week when it launched Palma de Mallorca (PMI) services. The route will be served four times weekly.

• Ethiopian Airlines has added a new Middle Eastern destination to its growing network. From Addis Ababa (ADD) the airline now serves Kuwait (KWI) thrice weekly. Ethiopian already serves Abu Dhabi, Bahrain, Beirut, Dubai, Jeddah and Sana’a in the region. Flights will be operated by a 737-700. Plans to serve Riyadh appear to have been shelved as the route does not appear in the airline’s latest timetable as posted on its website.

• Gulf Air has begun serving Shanghai (PVG) from its Bahrain (BAH) base. Flights will initially operate four times weekly increasing to daily for the winter season. Outbound flights will operate on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday using an A340-300. Regional rivals Emirates and Qatar Airways already serve Shanghai from their bases, though Etihad currently does not

The first passenger to travel on the Jet Airways new route from Mumbai to San Francisco via Shanghai was treated to a floral tribute at the flights inauguration on the 14th June. Members of the Consulate General of The Peoples Republic of China and the executive director and chief executive of Jet Airways joined in the celebration.

• Jet Airways is now serving a second US destination. Daily flights to San Francisco (SFO) from Mumbai (BOM) via Shanghai (PVG) began on 14 June using a 777-300ER. Domestically the airline also started two new routes from Hyderabad (HYD). An ATR72 will serve both Tirupati (TIR) and Rajahmundry (RJA) on a daily basis. Tirupati airport handled around 170,000 in the year ending 31 March 2008.

• Northwest began three new routes this week, two from its Memphis (MEM) base. CRJ200s operated by Pinnacle will operate daily to Hartford (BDL) in Connecticut until 31 October, while Colorado Springs (COS) will be served twice daily. Finally, a new double-daily service between Minneapolis/St. Paul (MSP) and Dubuque (DBQ) was started by Northwest partner Mesaba Airlines using Saab 340s.

In case you can’t tell this is an MD80 operated by FlyNordic (now part of Norwegian) arriving at Istanbul’s Sabiha Gokcen airport after its maiden flight from Stockholm Arlanda earlier this week.

• Norwegian launched six new routes this week. From Stockholm Arlanda (ARN) the airline began new routes to Belgrade (BEG) and Istanbul Sabiha Gokcen (SAW). Belgrade is served twice weekly and Istanbul thrice weekly with MD80s the airline has inherited from its acquisition of FlyNordic. From Oslo (OSL) two new routes have been added to Chania (CHQ) and Wroclaw (WRO). From Rygge (RYG) a new weekly service to Pristina (PRN) has been started while Stavanger (SVG) gets a new twice-weekly link to Wroclaw (WRO).

• Ryanair started another 10, yes 10, new routes this week. It belatedly re-started services from London Stansted (STN) to Rimini (RMI), just over 10 years since it first started the route. The other nine routes are all from its new Birmingham (BHX) base with the arrival of the airline’s first aircraft to be based there. Reus (REU) will be served four times weekly, Billund (BLL), Dinard (DNR), Oslo Torp (TRF) and Poitiers (PIS) will all be served thrice weekly while Forli (FRL), Oporto (OPO), Rzeszow (RZE) and Trieste (TRS) will all be served just twice weekly.

• SkyEurope has added seasonal inks from its Vienna (VIE) base to Bourgas (BOJ) and Catania (CTA). Flights operate twice weekly until 20 September. Between June and September SkyEurope also serves both destinations from its Bratislava and Prague bases. This brings to 25 the number of destinations served by SkyEurope from Vienna. This does not include the domestic route to Innsbruck which was dropped at the end of May.

Two revolutionaries: Wizz Air’s CEO, József Váradi, with Gdansk’s most famous son who now lends his name to Gdansk Lech Walesa Airport.

• Wizz Air added another route from its Gdansk (GDN) base this week with the commencement of weekly (Saturday) flights to Barcelona Girona (GRO). This brings to 14 the number of destinations the airline serves from Gdansk having recently dropped both Bournemouth and Coventry services.

• Zoom UK has begun non-stop services from London Gatwick (LGW) to San Diego (SAN). Flights operate twice weekly and are the only non-stop scheduled transatlantic services to San Diego this summer. Dolphin-lovers can snap up return fares starting from as little as £349 (including all fares and taxes). San Diego handled 18.3 million passengers in 2007 and is the third busiest airport in California after Los Angeles and San Francisco. Traffic at the airport has grown 5.4% during the first four months of 2008.