Air Transport

India's Kingfisher Airlines will commence daily services from Mumbai to Hong Kong and Singapore this month. It will operate Airbus A330-200 aircraft on the routes.

UK carrier bmi is to end services on four routes, citing the current weak economic position. The sectors and dates of closure are Manchester-Glasgow and East Midlands-Cologne, both on 18 September, plus London Heathrow-Palma on 3 November and Heathrow-Venice on 15 November.

Brazilian low-cost carrier Azul will this month launch its third route from Rio de Janeiro's downturn Santos Dumont airport with a new connection to Salvador. The service will initially operate twice-weekly from 26 September before going daily in December.

Romanian flag carrier Tarom has opened a new route between Bucharest and Lyon. It is deploying a Boeing 737 on the four-times weekly flight.

Thai Airways International could resume three-times-weekly service on the Bangkok-Johannesburg route next year. The carrier does not have a specific date fixed, but is aiming to resume the route after March 2010 using Boeing 777-200 aircraft, says the Star Alliance carrier.

Virgin Blue subsidiary Pacific Blue is beginning operations on four new international services from New Zealand. It has just launched twice-weekly Sydney-Queenstown flights, following the start of flights from Hamilton to Sydney and Brisbane, and from Dunedin to Brisbane.