Qatar Airways Launched Direct Flights from Doha to Ankara
The first direct flights between Ankara and Doha, the Qatari capital, were launched on Monday by Qatar Airways. Akbar Al Baker, chief executive of the airline, said the company would apply to add more destinations in Turkey to its network if the market becomes “more open to competition.”
The Ankara-Doha flight is the 88th route of Qatar Airways and will operate between the two capitals four times a week. The airline launched direct flights to Istanbul in 2004 and currently operates daily flights to the city.
“Since we entered Turkey, our performance has exceeded our expectations,” Baker said, adding that excluding invited quests, the load factor on the first flight from Doha to Ankara was 80 percent on Monday.
The new route is aimed to support growing business relations between Turkey and Qatar. Bilateral trade increased from $21 million in 2007 to over $1.2 billion in 2008. “We hope to see this figure reaching some $10 billion by 2015,” Al Baker said.
“More than 25 Turkish companies have projects worth over $8.3 billion in Qatar, including interests in the New Doha International Airport, which is due to be completed next year. There is also strong collaboration in other fields such as energy, food and agricultural products, infrastructure and health services.”
Easing pressure in Istanbul airspace
The four weekly flights are likely to ease pressure on Istanbul’s Atatürk Airport and bring thousands of tourists from the Middle East to Ankara. “Most of the passengers on the launch flight were actually tourists. There are so many historical attractions to explore in Turkey,” Al Baker said.
Sani ?ener, chief executive officer of airport operator TAV, congratulated Qatar Airways for the new opening and underlined the need to ease pressure in Istanbul. “The plan to launch direct flights to Ankara from Doha was first discussed three years ago. I have always said the solution to the traffic problem in Istanbul is in Ankara. And last year, the airport was also chosen as the best in Europe,” ?ener said.
Qatar Airways is keen to increase capacity on its Istanbul flights and add new destinations to its network within Turkey, but the expansion, according to Al Baker, depends on Turkish authorities. “In any country it is usually the national carrier that has a major share of the market and that is afraid of new foreign players. Once Turkey opens up to airlines to operate more freely here, yes, we will be interested in opening new routes.”
International expansion
The direct flight to Ankara is part of Qatar Airways’ expansion strategy, which consists of fleet upgrades, opening new routes and increasing capacity to existing destinations. Over the first three months of 2010, Qatar Airways has opened routes to Bangalore and Copenhagen and six new destinations, including Tokyo, Barcelona, Buenos Aires and São Paulo will follow suit this year.
The company has also invested $40 billion in new aircraft and infrastructure. “While other airlines are cutting down on networks and reducing the number of flights, we are doing the opposite. In addition to the seven new destinations we are launching this year, there will be eight more openings in the future. Our plan is to fly to 120 destinations and have a fleet of 120 aircraft by 2013,” Al Baker said.
The new jets are likely to reduce the average fleet age of Qatar Airways, which currently stands at 3.2 years. “Our principle is never to keep a fleet more than five years or more. When adding new aircraft, we will also discontinue some of the older planes, which will mean the fleet age will either stay at 3.2 years or go down to three years,” Al Baker said.
Commenting also on the increasing popularity of low-cost airlines, Al Baker said Qatar Airways is not currently experiencing significant competition from such carriers. However, the company has prepared a plan to launch a low-cost carrier of its own, in case competition in the Middle East air business becomes fiercer. “We have a business plan to launch a low-cost carrier, but this is not at the top of the agenda yet,” Al Baker said.
Airline Has Launched Cheap Flight Tickets Sales For Summer Season
Leading discount airlines have launched a new round of airfare sales for summer, but travelers may have to act fast and be flexible on dates to grab the best deals.
Sales from JetBlue Airways, Frontier Airlines and AirTran Airways end this week.
Frontier is touting fares as low as $98 roundtrip between Denver and West Coast cities including Long Beach, Calif., Phoenix and Tucson, Ariz., and $78 to Albuquerque, N.M. Those prices cover trips through June 9 but don’t include taxes and fees, tickets must be bought at least 14 days before flying, and the cheapest seats are only available for travel on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Saturdays.
JetBlue says through June 16 it has $58 round trips in California, including Long Beach-San Francisco and Long Beach-Oakland. On the East Coast, it’s offering $78 round trips between New York and Washington, and between Boston and New York or Baltimore. Long-distance flights include $238 roundtrip between Los Angeles and Boston and between Long Beach and Washington.
However, dates are limited, there’s a 14-day advance-purchase requirement, there are blackout dates that vary by city, and the cheapest seats are offered only for travel on Tuesdays and Wednesdays.
AirTran’s sale resembles one it ran earlier this month and covers travel through Nov. 16 – an unusually long span. The lowest prices apply for flights on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Saturdays, but there are 28 blackout dates including around the Easter, Memorial Day and July 4 holidays. Tickets must be bought 10 days before travel.
AirTran’s lowest price is $88 roundtrip between Atlanta and Charlotte, N.C., with other fares including $188 roundtrip between New York and San Francisco, and $258 between Atlanta and Los Angeles.
As usual with these types of fares, the airlines don’t say how many seats they’ll sell at these prices, and fare watchers say some airlines are already blocking out much of July, when they expect to command a premium for tickets.
JetBlue’s sale ends Wednesday; AirTran’s on Thursday; and JetBlue’s on Friday.
Those sales fit this year’s unusual pattern – many midweek sales that often run just a day or two – says Tom Parsons, CEO of discount travel Web site BestFares.com. The best prices are also for midweek travel, he says.
“There is some strategy this year,” Parsons says of shopping for deals. “Be flexible. If you can fly midweek, odds are better you’ll get one of the cheaper fares.”
Parsons also says it pays to buy tickets midweek, after competing airlines have matched the fare sales launched by discount carriers. Fares sometimes rise by $100 or more over the weekends, he says.
Airlines Halt Premium Slide at Expense of Price Cuts
The decline in premium air travel slackened in June after carriers slashed prices to fill seats.
First- and business-class traffic fell 21.3 percent from year-ago levels, compared with a 23.6 percent drop in May, the International Air Transport Association said today. The decline was the least since March.
“The issue now is that this stabilization of passenger numbers is partly being achieved at the expense of much lower yields as airlines seek to boost cash flow by making more cheaper seats available,” IATA said in a statement.
Revenue from premium seats fell an estimated 41 percent in the second quarter, compared with a 33 percent drop in the first, IATA said. Including economy tickets, traffic, or the passenger total times the distance flown, slid 7.1 percent in June, easing from a 9.2 percent drop in May and indicating that demand has steadied when adjusted for seasonal fluctuations.
The decline in premium travel has hit hardest at carriers such as Singapore Airlines Ltd., which gets about 40 percent of its revenue from business and first-class berths. The state-controlled carrier reported its first quarterly net loss in six years in the three months through June following an 20 percent plunge in passenger numbers.
Japan Airlines Corp., Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd., Air France-KLM Group and British Airways Plc also had losses.
International air traffic fell 19.2 percent in March, helped by the timing of the Easter holiday.
Capacity Growth
Separately, the Official Airline Guide said today that airlines have increased seating capacity by 0.2 percent this month compared with a year earlier, a move that will erode average occupancy unless traffic also returns to growth.
The gain was the first in a year, with airlines previously parking planes or flying them less to curb capacity. The number of flights is down 2 percent versus last August, suggesting carriers are using bigger planes with more seats in each.
“It’s dangerous for the airlines as a group to be moving into positive territory on capacity when they haven’t quite yet gotten back the volumes,” said Penny Butcher, an analyst at Morgan Stanley in London. “I wouldn’t say it’s a surprise, that’s where our expectations were for the year overall, but it’s not prudent of the global industry on the whole.”
Morgan Stanley has a “cautious” rating on the European airline industry, is “overweight” on Air France and “neutral” on Deutsche Lufthansa AG.
British Airways Passenger Data Show Drift From Premium To Economy Class
The drift away from premium to economy class air travel has been reconfirmed by British Airways, which has registered another month of falling sales from first- and business-class passengers.
The airline saw premium-class traffic in August fall by 11.9 per cent year-on- year although “non-premium” economy-class custom edged up 1.3 per cent.
Total passengers carried during the busy month dipped 1.7 per cent year-on- year to 3.16m.
Passenger traffic on Asia-Pacific routes was down 13 per cent but there was a small increase on routes to the Americas. Passengers carried on short-to-medium-haul routes in the UK and Europe fell 2 per cent.
The monthly breakdown confirmed trends established this year as BA continued to grapple with a downturn in demand among business travellers.
The airline is also battling against competition from no-frills budget airlines on its less lucrative short-haul routes in Europe.
BA, which last month closed a £350m issue of convertible bonds to strengthen its balance sheet, saw some recovery in demand for cargo services, with cargo load kilometres down 5.4 per cent against a year-to-date decline of 9.2 per cent. The overall load factor on flights was 75.9 per cent, up from 75.1 per cent in July.
BA’s figures came as rival Ryanair announced it had carried 6.88m passengers across its low-cost network of European routes in August.
The expansion in passengers carried, up 19 per cent on August last year, was achieved as Ryanair maintained its load factor for the month at 90 per cent year on year.
Shares in BA closed up 2½p at 184p, while those in Ryanair finished 6.6 cents higher yesterday at €3.13.
*EasyJet is considering plans to close its East Midlands base and reduce its flying schedule at Luton by 20 per cent, placing as many as 230 jobs at risk, in order to redeploy assets to growth markets.
In July, Easyjet said that it would be one of the few airlines to remain profitable in the current year, although earnings would drop sharply, and reiterated its desire to build on that success by increasing capacity by 7.5 per cent a year over the medium term.
The low-cost airline has waged a long battle with Abertis, the Spanish operator of Luton, and Luton borough council, which owns the airport, over charges that it claims have risen 25 per cent in the past three years and are unsustainable.
Talks over the charges broke down in the past few weeks, prompting EasyJet’s management to look for ways to cut costs ahead of the winter months.
Luton borough council declined to comment but said it had done all it could “to work with EasyJet and other airlines to retain and grow their operations during this difficult time brought about by the worldwide recession”.
EasyJet also released statistics showing passenger numbers rose 4.7 per cent year-on-year in August and load factors from 91.3 per cent to 91.8 per cent. EasyJet shares closed up 0.3p at 315.8p.
China International Aviation and Aerospace Exhibition, A hope Increase Airline Inudstry
The Chinese airline industry is hoping to sign some profitable deals at Tuesday’s 7th China International Aviation and Aerospace Exhibition.
Jin Zhuanglong, general manager of the newly-founded Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China (COMAC), said on Monday that he wished to sell short-haul passenger planes, ARJ21, to overseas clients at the forthcoming air show.
“One of our goals is to serialize and mass produce ARJ21 products for further growth,” said Jin. “We will do our best to expand business overseas, break into the international market for the first time and occupy a certain proportion of the global market share as early as possible.”
Li Yuhai, deputy general manager of China Aviation Industry Corporation (AVIC), also expressed his conglomerate’s determination to explore overseas markets and turn China-made planes into brand names.
AVIC was reorganized in October. The country’s two aviation industry conglomerates, AVIC-I (China Aviation Industry Corporation I) and AVIC-II (China Aviation Industry Corporation II) were merged in an effort to make a bigger impact internationally.
Miao Wei, vice minister of Industry and Information Technology, said on Monday that the Chinese government encourages development of export-oriented aviation products of civilian use either independently or through cooperative manner.
“The government will also encourage efforts designed to enlarge the size of production of civilian aviation components via subcontracts,” said Miao.
The 7th China International Aviation and Aerospace Exhibition, also known as Airshow China, will take place in Zhuhai, a port city in the Guangdong Province. It runs from Tuesday to Sunday. It is the largest air show of the kind, according to Zhou Lewei, deputy secretary-general for the Organizing Committee for Airshow China.
Some 600 business people from 35 countries and regions are expected to attend. Aviation giants Boeing of the United States, Airbus of France, Bombardier of Canada, and Embraer of Brazil included. More than 60 aircraft will be exhibited including China-made Jian10 strike fighter plane and Airbus 380.
Source: Xinhua
