JOHANNESBURG - Fortunes for airlines in the Indian Ocean can change quickly, as currently illustrated by the example of Air Seychelles, which I have reviewed here just one year ago. At the time the carrier operated two A330s, to Düsseldorf among other routes.»
DOHA - Qatar Airways doesn’t appear modest at all when praising its new premium product as “the best Business Class in the world” or, literally, “First in Business”. Anyone who puts the benchmark this high should make sure to be able to deliver. »
CAPE TOWN - Ethiopian Airlines is Africas biggest airline since some time, ranging in front the former market leaders from the continent, SAA, Kenya Airways and Egypt Air. Ethiopian Airlines has long held the reputation of being Africa’s best airline, an assertion supported by its continuous profitability, its modern aircraft fleet and its impressive route network.»
HELSINKI - Finnair has massively renewed its long haul fleet by adding
currently eleven A350s, eight more are to follow. At the same time eight
older Airbus A330s remain a second backbone, especially for shorter
routes like to the US East coast.»
FRANKFURT - United Polaris, Delta One Suite, Ethiad Business Studio and Qatar Airways Q-Suite - airlines double down on Business Class revenue with schmick new cabins. Lufthansa will close the comfort gap to competition with introduction of the first Boeing 777-9 widebodies in to its fleet by 2020.»
DUBAI - In 2003 Emirates was the first airline offering fully private suites in First Class. Now other carriers are upping the ante and the Dubai-based carrier has to catch up. At the Dubai Air Show this week, Emirates managed to launch a few industry firsts in First – question is: Are they really enhancing the experience?»
San Francisco - Hardly any product launch has stirred so much interest and discussions among frequent fliers as United Airlines did when it launched Polaris. When the world’s third largest airline announces a revamp of its premium product as United did in June 2016, this naturally raises expectations. »
SINGAPORE/HAMBURG - It will have been ten years and barely two months since the world’s first A380 passenger flight when the new cabins of the first freshly delivered Airbus A380 for Singapore Airlines (SIA) are seeing their premiere.»
ASTANA - Kazakhstan sounds very far and remote for most Western
Europeans, hardly anyone has an idea about this huge country. It is the
world`s ninth-largest even, home to only 18m people, while its economy
is just about half the size of Ireland`s.»
HAMBURG - Icelandair is a booming airline, last year it jumped the four-million threshold for the first time, carrying 4.1m passengers. Only in 2009 it flew just 1.3m customers. Then in 2010, a volcano erupted on the Atlantic island, paralysing air traffic over Europe for days.»Discussions about current news, developments and events of passenger experience industry.
FORTALEZA - Air France, currently battered by strikes, is far behind in the quest of the airline industry to lower costs and become more efficient to sustain tough competition. One way to achieve this is supposedly the new “Joon” brand, whose operational costs are 15-18% below the Air France main-line, according to Joon`s CEO.