I have been making a concerted effort to fly more Star Alliance partners having now flown all of the One World carriers. This has meant flights with ANA, LOT, EVA Airways and Air China for the first time this year. Now it’s time to try TAP Portugal on their brand new Airbus 330neo, taking advantage of their generous free Lisbon stopover program. Have you tried TAP?
Airline News (Friday)
Category Archives for Airline News (Friday).
HK airlines exits US market- cuts more capacity
Hong Kong airlines initially operated a nice collection of routes around Asia. Then, the airline embarked on a massive expansion, ordering a very large number of new planes and using them to new long distance destinations in the Australian, New Zealand and North American. In June 2017, Skytrax announced that Hong Kong Airlines was the second-best airline in the Asia region and 24th best internationally. Having flown them a few times, they are definitely a great airline. The trouble is they have been losing money and things really came unstuck over the last year with resignations…
Is Adria Airways finished?
Overshadowed by the collapse of Thomas Cook, Slovenia’s Adria suspended flights for two days on Monday and Tuesday. They have now extended the shutdown: “Adria Airways announces that it will continue with temporarily ceased majority of its flight operations also on Thursday, 26 September and Friday, 27 September. During these two additional days, the company will maintain a connection to its most important hub in Frankfurt. The Airline plans to operate on both days evening flights on route Ljubljana – Frankfurt – Ljubljana.” Two flights a day is cold comfort for the people stranded across…
Jet Airways suspended- not coming back
On my list of airlines in trouble, Jet was near the top. People hoped that they would find a rescuer. I was more pessimistic. Jet suspended all operations this week after 25 years of operations after teetering on the brink of collapse for almost six months. After the State Bank of India, on behalf of the consortium of refused to offer a cash lifeline, the airline announced its flights were grounded. At the last count, only seven of their planes were still in the air, anyway. The rest were being held by creditors at ports…
WOW is gone..who is next?
WOW’s rapid demise after seven years of flying trapped up to 4,000 passengers and crew were abandoned in destination cities around the globe. The impact of the collapse will be keenly felt in Iceland. There are currently six other airlines which should be concerning passengers: Adria – Slovenia’s national air carrier; Star Alliance member Code: JP. 18 planes 1.2 million passengers, 18 destinations If you want to get to your destination on time, do not fly Adria. They reportedly cancel an average of at least two flights per day due to ” crew shortages and…
WOW no longer wowing
After 7 years, of which six were characterized by rapid growth and the last year by a rapid demise, Wow is no more.The airline that put Iceland on the map could not keep itself on the map. (ad in happier days for the launch of WOW flights to Delhi. The route lasted just four weeks before being axed in January. It was meant to save the company!). The demise is not a surprise. In November last year, Wow had to return four planes (two A320 and two A330) because the airline could not afford them.…
Japan Airlines low cost Zipair to fly for Olympics
JAL (Japan Airlines) revealed its new low cost subsidary set up to compete with ANA’s budget airlines Peach/ Vanilla (which are merging in May) as well as Air Asia, Jetstar (owned by Qantas) and Scoot (Singapore). The newbrand will be known as ZIPAIR Tokyo. ZIP, meaning speedy travel between ZIP CODES and Tokyo presumably to link the airline to next year’s Tokyo Olympic games. I am decidedly underwhelmed by the logo. I pictured something speedy and dashing. Something that zips between zipcodes should be exciting not this: The font is set in Roman and the…
HK Express in active talks with Cathay- Why I am so interested
Hong Kong’s flagship carrier Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd reported on Tuesday it is in “active discussions” about acquiring discount airline Hong Kong Express Airways Ltd, also known as HK Express ( 香港快運航空). Buying HK Express would be a game changer for both Cathay Pacific and the region of Hong Kong. Cathay has been hit by competition from Air Asia and Qantas low cost subsidiary Jetstar and has been forced to price discount. The airline has had two consecutive losses for the first time in 71 years. This deal, if successful, would allow Cathay to gain…
Joon, the airline searching for purpose, to shut down
Air France in 2016 unveiled its new low cost subsidiary which they called Joon. It’s aim was to win market share back. The word “Joon” is meant to sound like “jeune” which is French for “young“. Rolled out as a “new generation travel experience”, a low cost carrier for Mellinials, It therefore aimed to attract a new market to flying -at a cheap rate, it aimed to attract a new market to flying -at a cheap rate. On board, Joon offered VR-headset entertainment, allowed access to inflight streaming, had cabin crew dressed in “trendy” clothes made…
Goodbye -The airlines that vanished in 2018
You know the scene, as you have seen it on the news programs. Passengers milling around desks in airports whilst a news commentator drones on about the number of planes grounded. Usually, the news does not affect you unless you are flying or when you might be an employee or family member of an employee. This scene repeated itself about fifty times around the world in 2018. Some of these airline collapses were with a bang and some with a whimper. A number of carriers were merely folded into their parent company or another subsidiary.…
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