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FEBRUARY 2013 PAGE 59
THE FLYING COLUMN
Aviation with Gerry O’Hare
Back to growth
Dublin sees new services and capacity for 2013
EU-wide secondary trading of slots by air-
lines has been approved by the European Parliament, a step proposed a year ago by the European Commission. The assembly rejected a separate proposal to raise the use-it-or-lose-it slot obligation form 80pc to 85pc. The EU wants to end an opt-out on a 1996 law which allows EU nations to limit competition to two suppliers in four handling areas: baggage, ramp, fuel and freight or mail.
WIZZ AIR
will pull out of its routes from Cork to Warsaw and Wroclaw in Poland and Vilnius in Lithuania from 13 January. It will continue to operate services from Cork to Gdansk, Poznan and Katowice in Poland. Wizz Air Corporate Communications Manager, Daniel de Carvalho, once European Communications Manager for Ryanair, has written to the newspapers, claiming the closures were seasonal factors and unconnected with the launch of similar services by Ryanair in November.
Emirates over 220,000 passenger con-
Delta’s 767 service to JFK will see three extra flights this summer (inset) business class on Delta’s 767
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welve airlines have announced increased capacity and new routes for the summer. It is the first sign that the decline of 15-20pc in air capacity has stabilised and may be about to change. After last year’s growth in Middle Eastern service, the biggest growth area for 2013 has been in North American and Scandinavian services: n Aer Lingus is increasing frequency on Dublin-Boston and Dublin-Chicago and will increase Dublin-Orlando to three weekly. Aer Lingus is launching weekly to Corfu on March 13. n Air Moldova which is to increase its Dublin–Frankfurt–Chisinau A320 weekly service to twice weekly from June 19 to Sept 4, an extension of 8 extra weeks using an E-190 instead of A320, 58 extra seats per week. n Air Canada which resumes its seasonal service two weeks earlier
than last year on May 18. n American Airlines is to operate Dublin to JFK daily at 9am using a 2-class B757 from June 12. n Delta is increasing Dublin-JFK from seven to ten weekly, using a 767-300ER instead of a 757, June 17 to August 28. Flights will be at 11.20 and 14.50, return flights from JFK at 19.20 and 21.25. n Etihad is to increase capacity on six of its 10 weekly Dublin-Abu Dhabi morning flights from A330200 (262 seats) to B777-300 (412 seats) aircraft from July 1 from A330-200 (262 seats) to B777-300 (412 seats) from July 1. n Minoan is to fly to Oxford 12 times weekly increased from daily. n Norwegian is to fly twice weekly from Dublin to Helsinki April 14October 26, although there is a chance this will remain year round. n Ryanair is to launch twice weekly
from its base in Zadar from summer 2013. n SAS is increasing capacity and will fly 26 non stop flights a week gtp, Dublin to Copenhagen, Oslo and Stockholm. n Smartwings is to fly Dublin to Prague from June 3 to September 23 using a B737-800. n Turkish is to increase its DublinIstanbul from seven to ten weekly in March. n US Airways is to upgrade its Dublin-Philadelphia service to a daily B767-200ER from a daily B757 on March 22. There will be extra weekly charter flights to Corfu, Palma, Faro and Lanzarote as well as the new two weekly service to Tenerife. Sunway’s Agadir operation resumes in summer after two seasons when it was just a winter service.
TURKISH PLANS 300 DESTINATIONS BY 2015
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urkish Airlines now flies to 214 destinations in 94 countries. The airline increased its Dublin frequencies from seven to ten in 2012 and is planning to go double daily, depending on aircraft availability. CEO Temel Kotil says that 300 destinations by
2015 “will be the absolute limit. More will be not possible. We will also increase frequencies throughout our network.” He expects to add 20 to 25 new destinations per year, including Havana and Mexico City. The carrier is considering more long-haul
routes, which could include destinations like Bogota or Panama City. New destinations already announced include Buenos Aires (Argentina), Sebha (Libya), Niamey (Niger), Ouagadougou (Burkina Faso), Yaounde and Douala (Cameroon) as well Isfahan (Iran).
nections in its first year on the Dublin Dubai route. It carried over 10,000 tonnes of freight in and out of Ireland. The freight included Botox for Australia, live crab to China, family pets to Australia and New Zealand and Irish potatoes to Dubai.
BA is now code-sharing with Flybe/Loganair on Donegal Carrickfin-Dublin.
AER LINGUS has one extra daily Amsterdam service in 2013, up from seven daily to eight daily.
RYANAIR has been designated as the
Irish carrier on Dublin-St Petersburg. A curious new ryanair.ru website is reading as “under development.”
AER LINGUS is offering a premium Premier Class seat, without Premier Class service, is offered on a selection of Aer Lingus European flights according to the web-site, suggesting that their A330s will be used on some Dublin-Malaga flights.
AUSTRALIA’s Competition and Consumer Commission has authorised an alliance between Qantas and Emirates for a period of five years. The federal government, the state governments of Victoria and Queensland, Australian Tourism Export Council and the National Tourism Alliance have all supported the application, which will effectively turn Dubai into the gateway to Australia, an unofficial position formerly held by Singapore. DELTA is to buy Singapore Airlines' 49pc
stake in Virgin Atlantic for $360m. Benefits for passengers will include shared access to Delta Sky Club and Virgin Atlantic Clubhouse airport lounges for elite passengers. The airlines have agreed a transatlantic joint venture with the British carrier on routes between Britain and North America. The pair plan to cooperate on services between New York and London, with a total of nine daily round-trip flights from London Heathrow to JFK and Newark. Singapore paid $950m for this stake in 1999.
Turkish CEO Temel Kotil