New routes launched during the last week
(Saturday 6 December – Friday 12 December):

Route of the week: Heathrow to Hyderabad

The inaugural flight from Hyderabad International Airport to Heathrow was symbolised with a rangoli design, created by artist Vijaya Mohan in the shape of North America – illustrating how the Hyderabad service connects with 22 destinations in North America. BA is the only carrier offering direct flights between Heathrow and Hyderabad, with connections to 22 destinations in North America.

• British Airways began serving its sixth destination in India this week when non-stop flights from London Heathrow (LHR) to Hyderabad (HYD) got under way. The route will be served five times weekly with a 777. BA already serves Bangalore (daily), Chennai (five weekly flights), Delhi (twice-daily), Kolkata (thrice weekly) and Mumbai (twice daily). London becomes the third European city to be connected directly to Hyderabad after Amsterdam (with KLM) and Frankfurt (with Lufthansa). Between April and September Hyderabad’s domestic traffic has fallen by just under 8% but international traffic during the period has increased by almost 10%.

Cake of the week:
Aer Lingus celebrates first birthday at Belfast

There were no contenders for cake of the week, leaving us baffled. This is not standard practice for anna.aero, but we have let Belfast airport’s Deborah Matchett off on a technicality and generously awarded the prestigious title to Aer Lingus, who celebrated their first birthday at Belfast International on Wednesday. This winter the airline serves 10 destinations from the airport, five of them in direct competition with easyJet.

• easyJet launched four new routes this week including two from its fledgling base in Manchester (MAN) which it acquired when it took over GB Airways. Geneva (GVA) will be served daily while Sofia (SOF) will have three weekly flights. easyJet already serves Sofia from London Gatwick, Madrid and Milan Malpensa. This winter easyJet will operate seven routes from Manchester, the others being Alicante, Malaga, Malta, Paphos and Tenerife. A new daily service between London Gatwick (LGW) and Istanbul Sabiha Gokcen (SAW) also started this week. This is easyJet’s third route to Turkey’s biggest city. Since 2006 it has served London Luton and Basel from Istanbul’s second airport. Finally, Lyon (LYS) gets a new twice-weekly (Monday, Friday) connection to Bastia (BIA) in Corsica.

• Fresh from its corporate makeover Mexicana is launching another new route this week from Mexico City (MEX), this time to Sao Paulo (GRU). The route will be operated five times weekly with a 767 and will compete directly with AeroMexico who already serve the route with a daily flight. Last week Mexicana began serving Orlando for the first time and in January London Gatwick will be added to the network, followed by Madrid in February. In the first seven months of 2008 traffic at Mexico City airport was up just 1% on 2007 to 15.17 million. This has been achieved despite an almost 2% reduction in aircraft movements. International passenger numbers were up 5.4% while domestic passengers (who account for 60% of the airport’s passengers) were down 1.4%. In May, June and July domestic flights were down by more than 5%. In three of the last four months overall passenger numbers were down suggesting that the airport will struggle to beat the 25.88 million passengers that it handled in 2007.

Copenhagen Airport’s CEO Brian Petersen and Transavia’s Commercial Director, Villem Hondius officially opening the new service from Copenhagen to Las Palmas. Source (CPH / Arne V. Petersen)

• Transavia.com becomes the second airline after Norwegian to respond to the vacuum left by the collapse of Sterling at Copenhagen (CPH) by starting a raft of new routes from the airport with two based aircraft. A total of eight new routes to Alicante (ALC), Barcelona (BCN), Faro (FAO), Las Palmas (LPA), Malaga (AGP), Nice (NCE), Rome Fiumicino (FCO) and Tenerife (TFS) all started this week with winter ski routes to Innsbruck and Salzburg starting next week. Frequencies range between two and five flights per week. Somewhat ironically Transavia had abandoned its Amsterdam to Copenhagen route earlier in the year. KLM-owned Transavia.com already has bases in Amsterdam, Rotterdam and Paris Orly (a joint venture with Air France).

• TUIfly.com has begun weekly flights from Memmingen (FMM) to Palermo (PMO). Flights operate during the winter on a Saturday. Next summer frequency is increased to two per week with flights on Monday and Thursday. Memmingen is a relatively new airport that lies around half way between Munich and Stuttgart. TUIfly.com is currently the only airline operating scheduled flights at the airport and is serving eight destinations this winter; three domestic routes (Berlin, Cologne/Bonn and Hamburg), three destinations in Italy (Brindisi, Palermo and Rome) and two destinations in Spain (Fuerteventura and Gran Canaria).

The return of the Rome Fiumicino to Colombo service is Sri Lankan’s first new route since April. Staff at the launch included Mr Sergio Berlenghi, Strategic Planning and Airport Marketing Development for ADR and Nicky Samarasinghe, Sri Lankan’s manager, Italy.

• SriLankan Airlines recently launched its first new route since major management changes took place back in April. The airline is returning after a seven year absence to Rome Fiumicino (FCO) with thrice-weekly flights from Colombo (CMB) using an A340. The route was one of several axed in the wake of ‘9/11′. The aircraft operating the route will travel on to Paris before returning to Colombo via Rome. Last week the airline took delivery of its first new aircraft for over four years. A two-year old A320 leased from AWAS will replace one of the older A320s the airline already operates.

To see the latest information we have on routes that have recently been dropped or soon will be, check out our unique downloadable Route Recycle Bin spreadsheet. We currently have over 650 routes in our database which may be of interest to carriers.