New routes and services

AirBaltic will fly twice-weekly between Riga, Latvia and Dushanbe, Tajikistan from 1 June using Boeing B737s.

Air Europa – Spain’s second largest carrier – is starting a daily non-stop A330 service between New York and Madrid from 1 June.

Emirates has increased the number of cargo flights between Dubai, Zaragoza and Milan from two a week to three, as of 8 March.

Ethiopian Airlines is cutting flights to the US and China. Girma Wake, chief executive officer, said the six weekly flights to the US will be cut to four, while those to China will be cut to 12 from 14.

Finnair is temporarily suspending its four flights a week to Mumbai, India from Helsinki, Finland between May and mid-October. The carrier blames overcapacity for the move as well as other cost-cutting measures to improve profitability.
Flights to New Delhi will continue as normal during this time.

Gulf Air is no longer flying to and from Calcutta from 24 March, five days before British Airways also stops servicing the city. Gulf Air currently operates two flights every week between Calcutta and Bahrain; one less than previously. Air India will reintroduce its Calcutta to London flight via Delhi on the same day.

Japan Airlines (JAL) and Nippon Cargo Airlines are considering an extension of their space sharing agreement between Japan and Los Angeles and Chicago. The agreement may now include routes from Japan to Seoul and Shanghai. Yuji Fujita, vice-president planning and marketing for cargo and mail at JAL said that they may consider extending this to the whole network and also ground handling

Jet Airways is increasing its flights between Mumbai and Kuwait from once to twice daily. It will use a Boeing B737-800 and start on 29 March

Kenya Airways is considering flying to Botswana and Namibia as an extension from its current Nairobi, Kenya to Johannesburg, South Africa service. Flights will also start from Nairobi to Brazzaville, Congo in late March, and will operate three times a week.

Oman Air is to fly to 40 destinations by the end of 2009 after increasing the size of its fleet. This year it has already taken delivery of one Boeing 737-800 but is also expecting four more and four Airbus A330-300s later this year. New destinations this year will include Paris, Frankfurt, Colombo and the Maldives. The carrier is also aiming to increase cargo revenue from its current two per cent of the airline’s total revenues, to at least 12 per cent over the next five years.

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