Airlines
Vision Taps Into The Trends
If you're wondering what some of the top travel trends will be in 2016, Vision Travel is tracking 8 trends that it sees for Canadian business travel in the coming year. According to Vision, some of the trends to watch include: Ultra-Long Haul Is Back – Newer, lighter and faster airplanes paired with new routes means international travel growth will be flying at an all-time high in the coming year. In fact, Vision says that we'll see a major, technologically-advanced launch, pointing to the expected commercial roll-out of the Airbus A350 in 2016. The A350 is an ultra-long range...
A Solid Performance
Etihad Airways turned in a solid operational performance in 2015, achieving continued growth in both passenger and cargo volumes. The airline carried 17.4 million passengers last year, an increase of 17% over 2014 levels, and it operated 97,400 flights which covered 467 million kilometres. The growth in passenger demand continued to surpass the airline’s capacity increase, underscoring the strength of its long-term growth strategy. In total, Etihad Airways carried more than 75% of the total passengers who travelled to and from Abu Dhabi International Airport in 2015. With...
NewLeaf Temporarily Postpones Ticket Sales
Just weeks before NewLeaf Travel was set to take off in Canada, the company announced it is temporarily postponing sales of airline tickets pending a Canadian Transportation Agency (CTA) review of licensing regulations for Indirect Air Service Providers. NewLeaf will refund all credit card transactions for reservations that were scheduled to begin on Feb. 12. “During this uncertain time, we didn’t want to put anyone with existing bookings at risk, and we wanted to give customers time to make other travel arrangements,” said NewLeaf CEO Jim Young. NewLeaf aims to resume...
Ruling Reversed
Etihad Airways is welcoming the ruling by the higher administrative court in Luneburg, Germany reversing an earlier judgment and allowing it to continue operating 26 out of the 31 code-share flights for the full Winter Schedule - which ends on March 26, 2016. The court definitively ruled that 26 of the 31 codeshares are lawful. Together with the other 50 approved codeshares with airberlin, 76 of the 81 codeshares are now approved once and for all, that is 94% of the codeshares applied for. The other five codeshares are on German domestic routes. The court's interpretation of the...
Lufthansa Group Posts Record Results
In 2015, member airlines of the Lufthansa Group carried 107.7 million passengers – a new record for the company – and 1.6% more passengers than in the previous year. At the same time the company operated more than one million flights and achieved its highest ever seat load factor of 80.4%. This corresponds to an increase in capacity utilization of 0.3 percentage points compared to 2014. In the past few years, the Lufthansa Group has invested heavily in the improvement of its offers and services. As part of this, 17 new aircraft were taken into service by the Lufthansa Group...
Strong Traffic Demand Continues
IATA reports that global passenger traffic continued to be strong in November and was above the 10-year average rate of 5.6%. Total revenue passenger kilometres (RPKs) rose 5.9% compared to the same period a year-ago. Although below the October rate of 7.1%, this largely was owing to the impact of factors that are expected to be short-lived, including the cessation of operations by Transaero, Russia’s second largest carrier, and labour strikes at Lufthansa. The healthy demand continued despite some softening in economic growth, in large part owing to falling fares. Data for the...
Take Off With Transat Seat Sale
Air Transat has unveiled details of its January Seat Sale which offers travellers deals on more than 60 destinations in Europe and the South, for bookings made by February 1. From Amsterdam to Zagreb, Air Transat offers direct flights to 28 destinations in Europe, including several new ones like Croatia, available as of June 15 from Montreal and Toronto, as well as new direct flights from Montreal to Glasgow and Vancouver to Rome. As for the South, Air Transat offers a broad portfolio of 34 Sun destinations in the Caribbean, Mexico, Florida, and Central and South America. Air...
WestJet, Aeromexico Sign Code-Share Deal
WestJet and Aeromexico have signed a code-sharing agreement. The new deal will give Aeromexico's customers enhanced connecting service via Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver to more than 10 Canadian destinations including Calgary, Edmonton, Winnipeg, Ottawa, Halifax, Deer Lake and St. John's, among others. The agreement provides WestJet guests new connecting service from WestJet's extensive Canadian network to Mexico City via Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver. In addition, WestJet will also now sell non-stop flights to and from Mexico City from Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver. WestJet...