Short Takes
May 5th 2017
Airlines: Cathay Pacific Cargo will wet lease two B747-8Fs from Atlas Air Worldwide to expand its network. Cebgo, the Cebu Pacific Air subsidiary, plans to shift its operational base from heavily-congested Manila Ninoy Aquino International Airport to Mactan–Cebu International Airport in 2018. Read More » Gulf Air will receive the first of 16 on-order B787-9s during the second quarter of 2018. Scoot-Tiger Airways has signed a new global distribution partnership with technology provider, Sabre Corporation, which will connect the airline’s information about the carrier’s fares and ancilliary offerings to 425,000 travel agents worldwide.
Routes: AirAsia will launch a thrice-weekly Langkawi-Shenzhen A320 route on August 9. Emirates Airline will replace the B777-300ER with the A380 on the Dubai-Madrid route from September 1, resulting in double daily A380 flights to Dubai. HK Express will terminate its twice-weekly Hong Kong-Yangon service on May 23 and it will also cancel its thrice-weekly Hong Kong-Guam A320 route from June 24. MIAT Mongolian Airlines will add a twice-weekly Ulan Baatar-Busan B737-800 route on June 22. Nok Air has postponed the launch of Phuket-Beijing B737-800 flights from April 30 to May 31. Qatar Airways will launch a fifth daily Doha-Bangkok rotation commencing June 1. Spring Airlines will add a four-weekly Ningbo-Phuket A320 route on May 14. SriLankan Airlines will increase frequency on the Colombo-Delhi A321 route from daily to eleven-weekly from July 15. Thai AirAsia will launch a daily Don Mueang-Da Nang A320 route on June 9. Vietnam Airlines will resume daily Ho Chi Minh City-Yangon A321 flights from June 15 and it will increase frequency on the Hanoi-Yangon A321 route from five-weekly to daily from the same date. The Vietnamese flag carrier will also raise Ho Chi Minh City-Nagoya A321 frequency from five-weekly to daily operations beginning October 29.
Training: CAE has announced a US$273 million series of commercial aviation training solutions contracts and agreements with airlines worldwide, including Scandinavian Airlines, Ethiopian Airlines, Korean Air and new Chinese customer Donghai Airlines, raising to 50 the number of FFSs CAE has sold in fiscal 2017. TRU Simulation + Training has completed ICAO 9625 Edition 4 Interim Type VII qualification of the B737 MAX FFS by the Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore (CAAS) at the Boeing Training Campus in Singapore; the South Carolina-based firm also sold a B737 MAX FFS to Icelandair’s flight training centre in Reykjavík.
