Airberlin (airberlin.com) (Berlin) and Jat Airways (Belgrade), the national airline of the Republic of Serbia, will offer their passengers selected flights under shared flight numbers, subject to government approvals. The codeshare agreement is valid for flights from August 1, 2013.
Under the agreement, Airberlin will offer the nonstop Jat Airways flights between Belgrade and Berlin, Dusseldorf, Frankfurt and Stuttgart under an AB flight number, thereby expanding their route range in South East Europe.
In return, Jat Airways passengers will be able to connect from Berlin, Dusseldorf, Frankfurt and Stuttgart to numerous Airberlin German domestic flights. From Airberlin’s hub in Berlin there will be further codeshare flights to prime destinations in Northern Europe to cities such as Copenhagen, Oslo and Stockholm.
Top Copyright Photo: Ton Jochems/AirlinersGallery.com. Airberlin’s Boeing 737-86J D-ABMC (msn 37752) in the Oneworld color scheme taxies to the gate at Palma de Mallorca.
Airberlin:
Jat Airways:
Bottom Copyright Photo: Keith Burton/AirlinersGallery.com. Jat Airways’ Boeing 737-3H9 YU-AND (msn 23329) prepares to land at London (Heathrow).
Jet2 (Jet2.com) (East Midlands) on July 15 added weekly service between its East Midlands base and Gran Canaria in the Canary Islands. Jet2 now serves Gran Canaria from Glasgow, Manchester, Leeds/Bradford, Newcastle and now East Midlands.
Copyright Photo: Paul Denton/AirlinersGallery.com. Boeing 737-377 G-CELS (msn 23660) taxies at Geneva.
Norwegian Air Shuttle (Norwegian.com) (Oslo) has issued a new video. This video explains Norwegian’s strategy in order to stay competitive. New aircraft, a smooth organization and international expansion are mandatory to stay in business. This video contains interviews with independent sources, Norwegian’s CEO Bjørn Kjos and several employees at Norwegian.
Copyright Photo: Keith Burton/AirlinersGallery.com. Norwegian is rapidly phasing out its less efficient Boeing 737-300s. Boeing 737-36N LN-KKL (msn 28671) with Roald Amundsen on the tail departs from Southend.
Jet2 (Jet2.com) (Leeds/Bradford) yesterday (May 27) launched a new route from Belfast to Reus, Spain (near Barcelona). The airline issued this statement and publicity photo:
Latino beauty Juliana Cunha is celebrating leading leisure airline Jet2.com’sinaugural flight to Reus. Flights to this Spanish hot-spot, which is close to Salou and only an hour from Barcelona, started on Monday, May 27 and will continue every Monday until September 16 from Belfast International Airport.
In this new era of social media, an airline that survives understands the importance of being noticed with innovative “attention getters”. Jet2 bills itself as a holiday destination airline with “package holidays you can trust” and “friendly low fares” inscribed on the aircraft and also on their website and the social media sites. The latest promotion is the “Party Plane” TV commercial (please see the video below).
Top Copyright Photo: Paul Denton. Boeing 737-377 G-CELA (msn 23663) arrives in brilliant sun at Geneva.
airBaltic (Riga) on May 12, 2013 launched a new route from Riga to Malta. The new route will offer convenient travel between the airports, and beyond to destinations in the Baltics, Scandinavia, Russia, and the CIS.
Destination served
(from North Hub Riga)
Flight frequency
Start date
Price*, Basic
Price*,
Business Flex
Malta
1 flight weekly
May 12, 2013
59 LVL/ 85 EUR
315 LVL/ 449 EUR
* Lowest fare, including taxes, fees and service charges, on http://www.airBaltic.com, subject to availability
airBaltic will fly from Riga to Malta once a week on Sundays, the return flight from Malta to Riga will be operated also on Sundays to secure convenient connections. Passengers will board a Boeing 737-300 aircraft (above) for a flight that will last for 3 hours and 40 minutes.
airBaltic serves 60 destinations from its home base in Riga, Latvia. airBaltic offers convenient connections via North Hub Riga to its network spanning Europe, Scandinavia, Russia, CIS and the Middle East. For summer 2013, airBaltic has introduced six new destinations – Prague (Czech Republic), Heviz-Balaton (Hungary), Olbia (Sardinia, Italy), Rijeka (Croatia), Larnaca (Cyprus), and Malta.
On the financial, the struggling flag carrier stated it trimmed its first quarter net loss by over $12 million. The airline issued this statement:
Latvian airline airBaltic has improved its net result by LVL + 6.7 milllion in the first quarter of 2013, compared to the same perid a year ago.
Martin Gauss, Chief Executive Officer of airBaltic: “After improving our consolidated net result by LVL +66 million in 2012, we were again able to beat our own plan.”
For the January to March period, airBaltic achieved +41% improvement of its net result, compared to the same period a year ago. airBaltic achieved +10% yield improvement in the first quarter of 2013 compared to the same period in 2012, and generated LVL 44.5 million in revenues. The unit revenue, or RASK – revenue per available seat kilometer, was improved by +8% in the January to March period, compared to the same period a year ago.
airBaltic operated 9,685 flights in the first quarter of 2013, or 9% less than in the first quarter of 2012 when airBaltic operated 10,637 flights. In March 2013, airBaltic operated 3,442 flights. The airline carried 534,879 passengers in the first three months of 2013 in its network spanning Europe, Scandinavia, Russia, CIS and the Middle East, but in March 2013 the airline carried 201,757 passengers. The airline’s load factor, which represents the number of passengers as a proportion of the number of available seats, in the first quarter of 2013 was at a level of 63%, while in March it stood at 69%.
The 15-minute flight punctuality indicator for airBaltic was at a level of 83.9% in the first quarter of 2013. This means that 83 of every 100 airBaltic flights in the first quarter of 2013 departed at the planned time or with a delay of no more than 15 minutes.
For summer 2013, airBaltic has introduced six new destinations – Prague (Czech Republic), Heviz-Balaton (Hungary), Olbia (Sardinia, Italy), Rijeka(Croatia), Larnaca (Cyprus), and Malta.
Copyright Photo: Ole Simon/AirlinersGallery.com. Boeing 737-33V WL YL-BBK (msn 29332) taxies past the camera at Paris (CDG).
Lufthansa (Frankfurt) and the Verdi union representing 33,000 Lufthansa workers have agreed to a new pay increase and a new contract. Pay increases range from three percent to 4.7 percent.
Southwest Airlines (Dallas) is changing its Atlanta operation in order to better compete against Delta Air Lines (Atlanta) for business customers. The airline, according to this Bloomberg report, will have no more than 20 aircraft on the ground at any time at ATL instead of current 30 (including the shrinking AirTran Airways). This will allow the 175 daily flights to be spread more evenly throughout the day according to the airline. The new strategy and schedule will become effective in November.
Jat Airways (Belgrade) is moving closer to Etihad Airways (Abu Dhabi). The latter will introduce daily Abu Dhabi-Belgrade flights on June 15. The two carriers are now exploring partnership options where Etihad could buy into the struggling Serbian carrier and help it upgrade its aging fleet. Etihad will take a hard look at Jat Airways before it makes an investment. If it invests, the investment is likely to follow and resemble the previous Airberlin (Berlin) investment. In the meantime, the two airlines will be code-sharing (see details below).
Etihad Airways, the national airline of the United Arab Emirates, will commence daily nonstop flights between its home-base of Abu Dhabi and Belgrade, the capital of Serbia, from June 15, 2013.
Jat Airways, Serbia’s national carrier, will place its JU code on the new service, as well as to 21 destinations on the Etihad Airways network. In return Etihad Airways will place its EY code on 23 of JatAirways’ European flights.
This new Etihad Airways flights will help provide better travel access to Belgrade for several hundred thousand Serbian nationals living around the world.
Etihad Airways will operate a two cabin Airbus A319 aircraft on the service between Abu Dhabi and Belgrade, configured to carry 106 passengers, with 16 seats in Pearl Business Class and 90 seats in Coral Economy Class. The announcement was made on April 15, at a media conference in Belgrade hosted by James Hogan, Etihad Airways’ President and Chief Executive Officer. Mr Hogan was joined at the media conference by Vladimir Ognjenović, JatAirways’ Chief Executive Officer.
As part of the codeshare agreement, subject to government and regulatory approval, JatAirways will place its JU code on Etihad Airways flights to Abu Dhabi and beyond to Bangkok, Beijing, Brisbane, Chengdu, Chicago, Colombo, Ho Chi Minh City, Islamabad, Johannesburg, Karachi, Kuala Lumpur, Kuwait, Lahore, New York, Melbourne, Seychelles, Shanghai, Singapore, Sydney, Toronto, and Washington, D.C.
In return, subject to government and regulatory approval, Etihad Airways will place its EY code on JatAirways flights between Belgrade and Amsterdam, Athens, Berlin, Brussels, Copenhagen, Düsseldorf, Rome, Frankfurt, Gothenburg, Istanbul, Heathrow, Larnaca, Milan, Moscow, Podgorica, Sarajevo, Skopje, Stockholm, Stuttgart, Thessaloniki, Tivat, Vienna and Zurich.
Jat Airways will place its code on a number of the flights operated by Etihad Airways’ equity partner, Airberlin (Berlin). A major highlight of this would be the provision of a direct link for passengers travelling from Belgrade, via Berlin, to Chicago in the US. The capital of Illinois is renowned for having the second largest Serbian population of any city in the world, with an estimated 200,000 Serb nationals living in Chicago, and up to 500,000 residents of Serb origin.
Belgrade will become the third of five new destinations to be served by Etihad Airways in 2013, following the launch in March of flights to Washington, D.C., and in May to Amsterdam.
Etihad Airways will commence services later this year to Sao Paulo, Brazil; and Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.
Norwegian Air Shuttle (Norwegian.com) (Oslo) reported a full-year pre-tax profit of 623 million Norwegian kroner ($112.4 million), an increase of 457 million Norwegian kroner ($82.5 million), compared with 2011. According to the carrier, “2012 was characterized by high traffic growth and international expansion with many new routes and the establishment of new bases.”
Sales for 2012 amounted to 12.9 billion Norwegian kroner, an increase of 22 percent. Norwegian flew 17.7 million passengers in 2012, an increase of 2 million (13 percent). The load factor for 2012 was 79 percent, the same as last year.
In 2012, Norwegian took delivery of 13 brand new Boeing 737-800 aircraft. This year, Norwegian will continue to phase in new aircraft – 14 Boeing 737-800s and 3 Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner aircraft.
Copyright Photo: Terry Wade. Norwegian is gradually phasing out its Boeing 737-300s and many of its special aircraft schemes. The pictured Boeing 737-3S3 LN-KKY (msn 29245) in the special ACTA livery at London (Gatwick) in 2011 went to Transaero Airlines as EI-ERP.
PIA-Pakistan International Airlines (Karachi) had an incident today at Muscat, Oman. Boeing 737-33A AP-BEH (msn 25504) operating flight PK 259 from Sialkot, Pakistan to Muscat suffered a rough landing on its arrival. The left main gear collapsed on landing. There were no injuries to the 108 passengers and crew members on board.
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