Long-established Air Malta is expected to cease to exist at the end of this year. The loss-making carrier, which could not secure more state aid, is to be replaced by a brand-new operator; one without historic shackles. The purpose is to be considerably more efficient, lower-cost and competitive. Given Air Malta’s big route removal recently, […]
April 25, 2023 | Airlines, Europe, News & Analysis, Top Story
The recent resumption of Delta’s non-stop transatlantic service from Atlanta to Stuttgart was some much-needed good news for the German airport. Ranked as the country’s sixth busiest in 2019 with 12.7 million passengers, it has struggled (along with several other medium-sized airports in the country) to get traffic back to anywhere near pre-pandemic levels. Passenger […]
April 21, 2023 | Airports, Europe, News & Analysis, Top Story
Located closer to Brussels than to Paris, Lille welcomed 1.78 million passengers in 2022, when it was France’s 10th busiest airport. According to the airport’s own figures, traffic was inevitably up by a strong 52.2% year-on-year. However, it was down by 19.1% versus 2019. As the recovery continues, there is much to shout about. In […]
April 20, 2023 | Airlines, Airports, Europe, News & Analysis
Romania is Europe’s 19th largest country market in S23. According to Cirium schedules information data, it has 8.28 million one-way seats, making it less than half the size of the Poland market. Romania’s S23 capacity is the highest to date and is up from 8.26 million (+0.24%) in S22, the previous record. While the growth […]
April 18, 2023 | Airlines, Europe, News & Analysis, Top Story
SunExpress (IATA code XQ) is a joint venture between Star Alliance partners Lufthansa and Turkish Airlines, founded as long ago as 1989. A German-based subsidiary, SunExpress Deutschland (IATA code XG) operated between 2011 and 2020. According to planespotters.net SunExpress currently has a fleet of 50 737s, a mix of 41 -800s and nine MAX 8s. […]
April 13, 2023 | Airlines, Europe, News & Analysis, Top Story
Few intercontinental markets have grown so quickly recently as Saudi Arabia to Europe. It is part of the country’s highly ambitious drive towards Vision 2030 and is assisted by the government’s Air Connectivity Program (ACP). This subsidises new routes and, therefore, facilitates greater connectivity and more tourism. According to Cirium schedules information data, the market […]
The capital of Slovakia, Bratislava had 1.41 million passengers last year, according to the airport’s own statistics. Traffic was down by 38.4% versus 2019. As the following figure indicates, this was its lowest level since 2015 (other than 2020/2021), and it was similar to 2005. Cirium schedules information data shows that Bratislava is Europe’s 174th […]
Ryanair has celebrated 10 years of serving Nuremberg. It is one of 14 German airports in its network in S23, of which eight are bases. With two stationed aircraft, the airport is Ryanair’s 74th most-served network-wide this summer, according to Cirium schedules information data. Nuremberg is unusual for the ULCC: it is one of only […]
April 11, 2023 | Airlines, Airports, Europe, News & Analysis
Spanish headquartered Volotea operated its first commercial flights on 5 April 2012, from its first base at Venice VCE to Brindisi, Cagliari and Palermo. It just celebrated its 11th birthday and recently announced that it had carried 50 million passengers. It reached 40 million passengers in March 2022, 25 million in July 2019 and 15 […]
April 6, 2023 | Airlines, Europe, News & Analysis, Top Story
Bristol ended 2022 with 7.95 million passengers, according to the UK Civil Aviation Authority. Traffic was down by 11.3% versus 2019; Bristol performed much better than UK airports generally (-25.2%). As the following figure shows, it was Bristol’s lowest passenger volume since 2016 (excluding 2020/2021). Nonetheless, it had the best recovery of all UK airports with […]
April 5, 2023 | Airlines, Airports, Europe, News & Analysis, Top Story
The UK is India’s largest second-largest long-haul market by passenger traffic, behind the US. In 2019, approximately 3.5 million point-to-point passengers flew to/from the UK. While that reduced to around 3.1 million last year, it still had more than 8,000 passengers daily. Invariably, many travelled indirectly, especially through the Middle East to secondary destinations. They […]
Having operated a series of charter flights in S22, Romania’s AirConnect started its own scheduled services on 27 March. As they were expected to begin last summer, the delay meant the regional carrier performed many wet-lease flights for other operators. It has two ATR-72-600s but is also leasing in a Saab 340, with talk of […]
April 4, 2023 | Airlines, Europe, News & Analysis, Top Story