news: July 2011 Archives

Swiss International Air Lines from the Northern Winter season of 2011/12 is expanding its operation at Geneva (IATA:GVA). The airline will be adding the tenth based aircraft to the airport.

The airline will be increasing its Geneva - London City flights to five daily from the present four, effective 31st October 2011. From the same date, the Geneva - Budapest services will be discontinued. The carrier will still be offering connections to Budapest via Zurich on its thrice daily Zurich-Budapest flights.
From 16th December, SWISS will be adding its second daily flight on the Geneva - Moscow (DME) route.
From 10th February 2012, it will be launching a new twice daily service to Nice from Geneva. This service will be further increased to thrice daily from Summer season of 2012.
From the same date, the airline is also adding its third daily flight on the Geneva - Milan (MXP) route.

In addition to these changes, the airline also announced that effective 31st March, 2012 its Zurich - New York Newark service will return to the airline's own Airbus A340-300 aircraft from the present PrivatAir Boeing 737 fleet operation.

Emirates Airline from 1st December 2011 is launching daily A380 service to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
The A380 will replace the Boeing 777-300ER aircraft presently used on the EK346/7 rotation.
New schedule:
EK346 DXB 0405 - 1455 KUL 388 D
EK346 KUL 1930 - 2230 DXB 388 D

The airline has also earmarked Rome, Auckland via Melbourne and Shanghai (increase) as possible new A380 routes, a source close to the airline stated to The Networker.

Eva Air (IATA:BR) of Taiwan from 31st October is switching its New York operation from Newark airport to the John F. Kennedy airport. The airline will be using Terminal 8 at the JFK.

Schedule
BR32 TPE 1930 - 2100 JFK 77W Mo, We, Th, Sa flying time: 14h30
BR31 JFK 2250 - 0730+2 TPE 77W Mo, We, Th, Sa (one-stop) flying time: 19h40

SriLankan Airlines has changed the flight schedule of its Milan and Rome service for the Winter season.

New schedule eff 2nd November
UL571 CMB 0500 - 1115 MXP 1245 - 1405 FCO 1520 - 0505+1 CMB We, Fr, Su 330

The Moscow service reverts to the originally planned departure time which was changed a few weeks ago.
UL531 CMB 0730 - 1045 DXB 1130 - 1640 DME Th, Sa 320
UL532 DME 1740 - 2225 DXB 2325 - 0525+1 CMB Th, Sa 320

Further changes to the network are expected following the recent appointment of a new CEO, Mr. Kapila Chandrasena, for the airline - replacing the previous CEO, Mr. Manoj Gunewardena, a thirty year industry veteran, after his retirement.

 "So where did SureJet come from? Simply put, it came from our people; it's a symbol of the assurance, reliability and trustworthiness that our 10,000 aviation professionals told us they stand for and that our airline is committed to. The new identity also combines elements from each airline's existing brand, such as the red icon from the Atlantic Southeast brand and the forward moving text from the ExpressJet brand"

SriLankan Airlines has temporarily increased its Dubai flights from 7 to 12 weekly, with effect from 4th July. The new flight, UL225, operates five times a week onboard an Airbus A320 till 14th July.

UL225 CMB DXB 1725 2025 320 1237
UL225 CMB DXB 1845 2145 320 5

UL226 DXB CMB 2125 0340+1 320 1237
UL226 DXB CMB 2245 0500+1 320 5

SriLankan Airlines (IATA:UL) has loaded a number of changes to its network effective from late 2011.

Moscow flights, due to begin on 15th September, will now be operated with a schedule aligned to its present evening hub flow.
The new schedule:
UL531 CMB 1200 - 1500 DXB 1600 - 2110 DME 320 46
UL532 DME 2230 - 0330+1 DXB 0430+1 - 1030+1 CMB 320 46

On select days, including 21 March 2012, the airline is operating a sixth weekly one way service to Frankfurt.
UL503 CMB 1215 - 1840 FRA 332 21MAR12

As reported by The Networker previously, the airline is reducing frequencies to Mumbai from ten to seven weekly.

Further changes are expected.

British carrier FlyBe and Finnish national career Finnair today announced their intention to jointly acquire Finnish Commuter Airlines (also known as Finncomm). The new joint venture will be called FlyBe Nordic and is to be split 60% - 40% between FlyBe and Finnair respectively.
The new holding company for the joint venture, Flybe Nordic AB, plans to acquire the airline for about €25m and the total cash at the company at the time of the agreement completion. FlyBe will pay €12m of the amount and Finnair plans to pay the remaining €13m.
Finncomm presently operates two Embraer E170s and 13 ATR 42s and 72s with more on order. It has about 400 employees.
In a deal for acquisition of a 20% stake in Finncomm, in September 2010, Finnair acquired some of the airline's aircraft. Under the new deal, Finnair will acquire all nine of Finncomm's ATR72s and lease them out to FlyBe Nordic, along with the two Finncomm Embraer E170s already owned by Finnair. Finnair will also acquire and lease to FlyBe Nordic, the three ATR72s which Finncomm presently has on order. The four ATR42 aircraft will be owned by Finncomm's present majority owner Finncomm Oyj, and be leased out to FlyBe Nordic.
The new airline will continue to operate its routes under the FlyBe brand. However FlyBe and Finnair expect to make FlyBe Nordic the leading regional carrier in the Nordic and Baltic countries in the coming years.
More info about the airline is not known immediately and is expected to be revealed at a press conference scheduled for later today.