Category Archives: Aviation

Qatar Airways has added another eight flights a week to Riyadh and one more daily flight to Dammam, increasing its connectivity to the two major Saudi cities, starting October 30, 2016. Through its hub in Hamad International Airport, Qatar Airways will operate four flights a day to King Khaled International Airport in Riyadh, and five daily flights to King Fahad International Airport in Dammam. The additional flights take Qatar Airways’ total connectivity within the Kingdom to 158 flights a week, serving eight destinations: Riyadh, Jeddah, Madinah, Dammam, Hofuf, Gassim, Taif, and Abha. Qatar Airways, the official sponsor of Al-Ahli Saudi FC and F.C. Barcelona recently announced hosting a friendly football match bringing together both teams to play at Shiekh Thani Bin Jassim Stadium (Al-Gharrafa Stadium) on December 13, 2016. Travellers from Saudi Arabia can take advantage of the increased frequencies to visit the new destinations that Qatar Airways has announced this year, which include exciting cities all around the globe, such as Los Angeles and Atlanta in the USA, Adelaide in Australia, Auckland in New Zealand, and numerous others in Europe, Asia, and Africa.

Etihad Airways’ latest Boeing 787 Dreamliner route was launched with the art aircraft touching down in Riyadh, capital of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The aircraft operates on one of the twice-daily flights between Abu Dhabi International Airport and Khalid International Airport. The occasion was marked with an official welcome ceremony attended by the airline’s senior management led by Hareb Almuhairy, Etihad Airways Senior Vice President Corporate and International Affairs, together with Mohammad Al Bulooki, Etihad Airways Vice President UAE and GCC Commercial, Sultan AL Mansoori, GCC Country Manager, Abu Dhabi Tourism & Culture Authority (TCA Abu Dhabi) and Adel Al Ragadi, Terminal Operation Manager, King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh. The Dreamliner offers more seats and features the airline’s award-winning interiors in a two-class configuration – 28 Business Studios, each providing aisle access and equipped with an in-seat massage and air cushion control system, and 271 Economy Smart Seats with unique ‘fixed wing’ headrests. Riyadh becomes Etihad Airways’ newest B787 destination this year following the induction of the aircraft on flights to Perth, Dusseldorf and Shanghai, with Abu Dhabi – Johannesburg set to become a Dreamliner route on 1 November. Etihad Airways’ current fleet of nine B787s also operates to Singapore, Washington DC, Brisbane and Zurich. The aircraft is equipped with full mobile and Wi-Fi services as well as the latest Panasonic eX3 in-flight entertainment system featuring seven satellite channels of live TV including BBC World News, Sport 24 and CNN to name a few.   Etihad Airways currently operates 14 weekly non-stop flights to and from Riyadh; 21 weekly services to Jeddah; 21 weekly flights to Dammam, in addition to a daily operation to Medina.

Air India Express and Jet Airways have both launched new Sharjah routes this year catering to business travellers and tourists, plus Indian expatriates working in the UAE. Jet Airways introduced a new daily route to Sharjah International Airport from Mangaluru (IXE) in India’s southern state of Karnataka in August and has just announced a new daily service from Kozhikode, or Calicut (CCJ) in Kerala, beginning 30 October 2016. Meanwhile, Kochi-headquartered Air India Express has, so far, added three new routes this year connecting Sharjah with Mumbai (SAHAR), Chandigarh (IXC) and Tiruchirapalli (TRZ) airports, bringing its total number of direct Sharjah services to seven. The low-cost airline also operates direct flights to Sharjah from Kochi (COK), Kozhikode (CCJ), Thiruvananthapuram (TRV) and Varanasi (VNS). Jet Airways also plans to launch a daily service from Hyderabad to Sharjah in December 2016. Jet Airways is India’s second largest airline operating flights to 67 destinations.

Saudi Arabian Airlines (Saudia) has announced its decision to implement International Air Transport Association’s (IATA) New Distribution Capability (NDC) in a modular approach. Saudia has appointed TPConnects, a leading technology solutions provider, as its NDC distribution partner to manage the NDC standard platform. At Saudia, implementation of NDC is seen as a major Transformation project focusing on revenue drivers, major cost reducing programs and implementing ONE Order initiatives, beyond opportunities in distribution. NDC standards enable Saudia to offer our guests the opportunity to have a consistent shopping experience, including access to rich content, ability to buy ancillary products and services and to be recognized and receive personalized offers, wherever they shop for Saudia products, especially from the travel agents and Online Travel Agency channels. The introduction of NDC could help travel agents to improve the offering to the customer, to upsell additional services including branded fares or fare families which are of value to both the traveler and the corporation and create business process improvements.

Over 50 travel agents and tour operators from Dubai and Sharjah attended the Educational seminar session conducted by Qatar Airways and Orange County. The event took place at Raffles Dubai in association with AVIAREPS the representative for ME region for Orange County. They shared the importance of the destination and the many facilities, language, social etiquette etc to welcome guests from the ME region. Glenn Johnston, Vice President Corporate Communications & Public Relations, GM, UAE/Middle East, AVIAREPS, reiterated key ways to reach out to the clients with the many value added options with the one year partnership with Qatar Airways. They also launched the special privilege e-card for the travel agents and tour operators.

Air Arabia has expanded its international route network with a new service to Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan. Starting 23 March 2017, the airline will operate four weekly flights from its primary Sharjah International Airport hub. On Thursdays and Sundays, the flight will depart Sharjah at 07:55 and arrive at the Heydar Aliyev International Airport in Baku at 10:50 local time, with the return flight scheduled from Baku at 11:30 destined to reach Sharjah at 14:10 local time. On Tuesdays and Saturdays, the flight will depart from Sharjah at 14:55 to land in Baku at 17:50 local time, and make its return journey starting 18:50 at Baku and land at Sharjah International Airport at 21:30 local time. The launch of the new flights follows a joint cooperation between Air Arabia, Azerbajian Airlines and local authorities aimed at promoting the new route connecting Baku and Sharjah. Sitting on the crossroads of Europe and Asia, Azerbaijan’s largest city also serves as the country’s financial nerve centre. Baku invites business and leisure travellers to its unique urban setting where ancient stone mansions co-exist with newly developed skyscrapers and mosques that stand as architectural marvels.

Travelport has announced a new multi-year, global full content agreement (FCA) with Turkish carrier Atlasglobal Airlines. Under the agreement, Atlasglobal will now offer Travelport-connected agencies in over 180 countries, servicing hundreds of millions of consumers around the world, real-time access to its fares and inventory-through the Travel Commerce Platform. The airline also joins over 180 airlines now live on Travelport’s industry leading merchandising solution, Travelport Rich Content & Branding, which enables the airline’s fare families to appear on travel agency screens, on a fully integrated basis, in exactly the same way it displays fares and ancillaries on its own website. Operating in the region since 2001, and under the name Atlasglobal since 2015, the airline has a legacy of innovation in customer service and passenger quality and comfort, having introduced unique initiatives such as the “Flying Chef” and “Fly & Bus” services for its passengers. Atlasglobal operates a network across three continents and flies to almost 50 destinations. Travelport’s unsurpassed ability to provide detailed product descriptions- including images and related ancillary options- will support Atlasglobal in demonstrating its unique attributes to the 68,000 Travelport connected travel agents around the world. The merchandising solution also offers the airline the ability to send tailored offers to travel agents and corporates to help drive additional bookings and revenues per seat.

Qatar Airways will provide travellers with greater access to the idyllic white sand beaches and turquoise waters of the Seychelles with daily flights from Doha starting on December 12, 2016. Travellers wishing to explore Seychelles – one of the world’s most popular tourist destinations in the Indian Ocean – will enjoy convenient flights and award-winning service when travelling with Qatar Airways. Residents of the Seychelles will also benefit from the opportunity to connect to the airline’s network of more than 150 business and leisure destinations around the world via the airline’s hub in Doha. The airline’s expanding global reach and modern fleet will take travellers to exciting places across the globe including the airline’s latest destinations launched in 2016: Adelaide, Atlanta, Birmingham, Boston, Helsinki, Los Angeles, Marrakech, Pisa, Ras Al Khaimah, Sydney, Windhoek and Yerevan.

Abu Dhabi International Airport (AUH) has welcomed 2.1 million passengers throughout September, marking an increase of 5 per cent on September 2015. Since the beginning of the year, passenger traffic has grown 6 per cent from the same period last year, with 18,528,723 passengers between January 1 and September 30. Total departures numbered 352,067, which signify a 10.1 per cent increase on September 2015. Passenger traffic to India grew 10 per cent on 2015, which maintained its position as the top destination, with 355,328 passengers throughout September. Passengers to Qatar totaled 70,627, representing an increase of 18.4 per cent compared to September 2015. Saudi Arabia rose to become the third busiest destination, with traffic to and from the country increasing by 19 per cent. Traffic to and from Egypt rose by 37.9 per cent to 57,885 passengers.

Turkish Airlines has unveiled its new mobile application. Users can now buy tickets, make reservations and check in, manage Miles&Smiles account and follow departure-arrival status via the recent application. All processes can be done quickly under favor of the simple and easy to use design. It is now possible to add passengers, display the latest airport searches, and gain time by choosing favorite airports. Also the flights can be reserved easier due to the interactive map. The promotions which provide new discoveries via Turkish Airlines can be reached at any place and any time. The new functionalities of the mobile application allow passengers to change tickets, make cancellations, add infants, and add flights directly. The application includes the terminal maps in order to make mobile users find their desired location. Also the mobile application users will have ability to buy emergency row seats to have a more comfortable journey. Also it is now possible to upgrade Economy tickets to Business via new update. Turkish Airlines’ updated mobile application can be downloaded on AppStore and also Google Play to all mobile devices.