ROUTES ROUND-UP
TAKING OFF
Low-cost carriers are leading the way, but legacy carriers continue to bolster their networks too as global air capacity nears 2019 levels
By Lauren Arena, published 21 April 2023
Europe’s major carriers are gearing up for a busy summer season, with aviation giants like Lufthansa Group and Air France-KLM planning to increase capacities to near-2019 levels in 2023, and IAG expecting to fully restore pre-Covid capacity by Q4 this year.
It is low-cost carriers, however, that are leading the charge, with the likes of Ryanair and Wizz Air both significantly ahead of 2019 capacity levels as new aircraft deliveries create opportunities for expansion.
Based on the number of scheduled departures from European airports this quarter (Q2 2023), Ryanair is projected to be the biggest airline in Europe, followed by easyJet, Turkish Airlines, Lufthansa and British Airways, according to aviation analytics firm, Cirium.
Some 2,056,000 flights are scheduled to depart European airports during the quarter, according to Cirium, equating to nearly 350 million seats and 89 per cent of pre-pandemic capacity. The number of flights is up 10 per cent up on Q2 2022, and is 147 per cent higher than the same period in 2021.
But there’s little scope for further development according to John Grant, chief analyst at aviation intelligence organisation OAG. “Resources remain very tight in all areas of the aviation eco-system – from pilots, to aircraft spares, new aircraft and the supporting crews and airport resources – so many airlines have already factored that into their planned expansion this summer,” he says.
Labour strikes across Europe, coupled with the Dutch government’s attempt to reduce flight capacity at Amsterdam Airport, are also adding pressure. Lufthansa has also reportedly cut more than 30,000 flights from its original summer schedule, but insists the outlook for 2023 “remains positive”.
Nevertheless, Grant suspects the 2023 winter season will be “pretty flat”. While capacity will likely hit 95 per cent of pre-pandemic levels, he said this will be operated by 92 per cent of 2019 flights as low-cost carriers “grab more share of the local point-to-point markets”.
Geopolitical tensions that affected air connectivity in 2022 – namely the war in Ukraine and subsequent closure of Russian airspace – are unlikely to bring much change in the next six to 12 months since, according to Grant, “the market has settled into a new position and is operating within the parameters that it can”.
The same goes for re-establishing connections between Europe and China, which removed all travel restrictions in January. Grant said rebuilding flight capacity to and from China will be a “slow process”.
“European airlines are dipping their toes back into the market this summer but the circuitous routings and increased operating costs are a factor, along with the market’s confidence yet to be fully restored,” he said.
Still, strong tailwinds are also expected for the aviation industry in 2023, with carriers pointing to increased premium leisure demand, coupled with the cautious recovery of business travel.
Here are some of the key new (and re-established) routes that travel managers can expect to see over the next few months...
REGIONAL CONNECTIVITY
Lufthansa will add five new destinations from Frankfurt starting in April, with flights to Belfast (four times per week), London Gatwick (twice daily), Asturias (three flights per week), Skopje in North Macedonia (up to two daily) and Biarritz (weekly). The German airline will also add new seasonal routes from Munich to the short-haul destinations of Asturias (weekly), Bordeaux (three per week) and Rzeszow (daily) from April.
Aer Lingus launched a new route from Ireland West Airport Knock to London Heathrow on 26 March, which operates daily.
British Airways will launch a new daily service from London Heathrow to Florence, Italy, on 26 April as part of its summer schedule. And the UK flag carrier will also add new short-haul routes from London Gatwick through its BA Euroflyer subsidiary to the French city of Montpellier (three-time weekly) from 27 May and the Greek islands of Corfu (three per week) and Mykonos (weekly) from 30 May and 10 June, respectively.
Vueling launched a new three-times weekly service from London Gatwick to Spain’s Alicante-Elche Airport on 28 March as part of its summer 2023 schedule. The low-cost Spanish carrier also plans to add two new seasonal services to Brussels from Seville (three-times weekly) from 1 May, and Bilbao (three-times weekly) from 3 July.
UK regional carrier Loganair will offer twice-weekly flights between Glasgow and Donegal in northwest Ireland from 1 July to 24 September. Services will operate on Saturday and Sunday. The carrier is also moving two regional routes to the country’s main hub at London Heathrow airport. Flights to/from Derry move over from London Stansted on 6 May and services to/from Dundee move from London City on 7 May.
RYANAIR EXPANSION
Irish budget airline Ryanair launched four additional routes from its new base at Belfast International Airport on 29 March, with services to Budapest, Cardiff, Majorca and Valencia.
Fourteen short-haul destinations will also be added to the carrier’s Dublin base this summer. These include destinations in Spain, Italy, Bulgaria, Romania, Greece, Germany and Sweden.
Recent expansion at Ryanair’s Italian base at Venice Marco Polo Airport will see new routes to Berlin, Birmingham, Bordeaux, Bournemouth, Bristol, Cologne, Edinburgh and Manchester.
An additional 10 new routes from Italy are also planned from Treviso Airport, with flights to Cork, Crotone, Gdansk, Katowice, Marseille, Menorca, Santander, Tallinn, Toulouse and Zaragoza due to commence this summer.
The carrier in April also launched six new short-haul routes from London Stansted Airport: to Edinburgh (three-times daily), Belfast (twice daily), Cornwall, Asturias and Leipzig (each three-times weekly), and Klagenfurt (twice weekly).
EASYJET GROWTH
Low-cost carrier EasyJet is adding new domestic UK routes from both Belfast airports to replace capacity lost following the latest collapse of regional carrier Flybe. This includes new routes from Belfast City to London Luton and Manchester airports, from 26 June.
The UK-based carrier will commence a new twice-weekly flight to Istanbul from Manchester, starting on 9 June, and in March launched a new year-round route between Manchester and Paris Orly, operating on weekdays.
Other additions for the summer season include London Luton to Izmir in Turkey, Glasgow-Lisbon, Birmingham-Naples and Southend-Amsterdam, as well as the return of its Gatwick-Ancona route.
NORDIC CARRIERS EXTEND THEIR REACH
Icelandic start-up carrier Play will add its first route from Scotland with a new four-times weekly service between Glasgow and Reykjavik starting from 26 May.
Icelandair will upgrade seasonal routes from Reykjavik to both Barcelona and Rome to year-round services as part of its winter season, which begins in October.
Finnair will add new routes from its Helsinki base to Bodo in Norway (three-times weekly) and Milan Linate (twice weekly). The new Linate service will run from April to October 2023, complementing the carrier’s existing route to Milan Malpensa, while the direct service to Bodo will operate from May to August 2023.
TRANSATLANTIC DEVELOPMENTS
Spanish carrier Iberia will completely restore its international network this summer, with increased flight frequencies to Latin America, the US and Europe. This includes additional flights to San Francisco, Washington DC and Dallas.
Lufthansa will add a three-times weekly service from Munich to Mexico City from 2 June.
Scandinavian carrier SAS will launch two new seasonal routes to New York from Aalborg in Denmark and Gothenburg, Sweden from 27 April. Both routes to Newark Liberty International airport will operate three times per week.
French flag carrier Air France will resume services between Paris Charles de Gaulle and Quebec City on 2 May and will introduce a new five-times weekly direct flight from Paris Charles de Gaulle to Ottawa on 27 May.
Icelandic airline Play will offer its first transatlantic flights to Canada from 22 June. Services to Hamilton International airport in Ontario will operate from London Stansted and Liverpool John Lennon airports via Reykjavik.
Icelandair’s seasonal flights from Reykjavik to Baltimore, Raleigh-Durham and Vancouver will become year-round routes from October. The carrier will also increase frequencies to New York, Boston and Minneapolis this winter.
British Airways will fly direct to Cincinnati from London Heathrow from June.
Irish carrier Aer Lingus will launch a new four-times weekly service from Dublin to Cleveland, Ohio, from 19 May as part of its summer schedule. In March the carrier also recommenced its daily service between Dublin and Hartford, the capital of Connecticut, the only direct service from Europe to Hartford’s Bradley International Airport.
TAP Air Portugal will add 10 weekly flights to US destinations this summer, including extra services from Lisbon to Boston, Miami, Washington DC, Chicago and San Francisco. The Portuguese flag carrier will also introduce six more weekly flights to Brazil in summer 2023, with connections from Lisbon to São Paulo, Belo Horizonte, Salvador, Brasilia and Belem.
Transatlantic start-up carrier Norse Atlantic Airways plans to add six US destinations to its operations from London Gatwick this summer. New services to Orlando and Fort Lauderdale will start in May, followed by flights to Washington DC (from 1 June), Los Angeles (from 30 June), San Francisco (from 1 July) and Boston (from 2 September). The Oslo-based carrier will also add a new daily service between Rome Fiumicino and New York’s JFK airport from 19 June.
American Airlines is continuing to rebuild its transatlantic network with the return of three seasonal services from Dublin this summer. The US carrier will fly daily from the Irish capital to Dallas Fort Worth, Charlotte and Chicago.
JetBlue will commence daily flights between Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport and New York JFK in “late” summer, with a Boston-Amsterdam route to follow within an unspecified timeframe. The US carrier is also due to launch a non-stop service between New York and Paris in June.
Air Canada will resume and extend its non-stop service between Edinburgh and Toronto from 2 June, which will operate daily during the summer peak and three-times-weekly into the winter season. The Canadian flag carrier will also launch a five-times weekly flight between Amsterdam and Montreal from 2 June to 14 October 2023.
US-based Delta Air Lines resumed daily flights from London Gatwick to New York JFK in April after a decade-long absence. The carrier also relaunched its daily service from London Heathrow to Los Angeles International Airport in March. The non-stop route, last operated by the airline in 2015, will be serviced by A330-900neo aircraft as a year-round service. Delta’s seasonal routes from New York's JFK airport to Geneva (from 10 April) and Berlin (from 25 May) and from Los Angeles International to Paris Charles de Gaulle (from 8 May) have been extended and will now operate throughout the year.
United Airlines will add a new three-times-weekly route between Malaga and New York Newark from 31 May. It will be the carrier’s fifth destination in Spain. United will also resume daily flights from Stockholm to Newark on 27 May for the first time since 2019, and will add a second daily flight between Paris Charles de Gaulle and Washington Dulles airport from 2 June. The airline will also offer a second seasonal frequency between Newark and Edinburgh from 25 May to 27 October, and between Newark and Naples from 23 June to 7 September. As part of a major transatlantic expansion this summer, United will also increase flights to other cities in Europe including Rome, Paris, Barcelona, London, Berlin and Shannon.
RECONNECTING TO THE MIDDLE EAST
Qatar Airways has announced new routes from the French cities of Lyon and Toulouse to Doha as part of a major expansion of its schedule this summer, and it is also resuming services from Nice. The carrier will resume daily flights between Doha and Birmingham, England, from 6 July. The route marks the first regular service between the two cities since the start of the pandemic. The airline will also increase frequency for 21 existing routes between Europe and Doha, including extra flights from London's Heathrow and Gatwick airports, plus Athens, Berlin, Madrid and Milan.
Emirates will add a second daily service from London Stansted airport from 1 May. And the Dubai-based airline will operate a new daily seasonal service from Dubai to Athens between June and September. In April, the airline increased its schedule between Amsterdam Schiphol airport and Dubai from 14 to 19 flights per week. Frequencies will also be increased on existing routes from Dubai to Bologna, Budapest and Venice this summer.
Etihad Airways will commence a new service from Abu Dhabi to Copenhagen on 1 October. The carrier will also add a three-times weekly service to the German city of Dusseldorf on the same date. The Middle Eastern airline will also introduce a new three-times weekly direct service between Abu Dhabi and the Portuguese capital Lisbon from 2 July, and increase services on its route from Abu Dhabi to Frankfurt from 1 May.
Israeli carrier El Al launched three-times weekly flights between Tel Aviv and Dublin on 23 March. The non-stop service had been due to launch in 2020 before the pandemic struck.
Saudi Arabian Airlines , also known as Saudia, will fly to several new European destinations in the coming months. These include London Gatwick, Birmingham, Nice, Lisbon, Malaga, Sarajevo in Bosnia, and Larnaca in Cyprus.
NEW ROUTES TO AFRICA
Air France will launch a three-times weekly service from its Paris hub to the Tanzanian city of Dar Es Salaam from 12 June. The flight will be a continuation of the carrier’s service to Zanzibar, which launched in 2021.
TAP Air Portugal plans to commence a new direct flight between Porto and Luanda, Angola in May 2023.
RESTORING CHINA CONNECTIONS AND BEYOND
Air China resumed flights from London Gatwick to Beijing Capital International Airport on 1 April. The four-times-weekly route becomes daily from 24 April.
Lufthansa-owned carrier Swiss relaunched its Zurich to Shanghai route on 3 March, which expanded to a three-times-weekly service in April. The airline will also increase frequencies from Zurich to Hong Kong from five to six flights per week for its summer 2023 schedule.
Air France will resume flights to China this summer, with daily flights from Paris Charles de Gaulle to Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong from 1 July.
KLM has doubled the number of flights to Asia as part of its summer schedule, which includes daily services from Amsterdam to Beijing and Shanghai, plus three-times weekly flights to Hong Kong.
British Airways will operate daily flights between London Heathrow and Shanghai from 23 April, while flights to Beijing will commence on 3 June and operate four times per week.
Virgin Atlantic will restore its daily service from Heathrow to Shanghai from 1 May. It also began operating flights between London Heathrow and Seoul’s Incheon Airport in March as part of a codeshare agreement with Korean Air.
Middle East carriers Emirates and Etihad have also increased flight frequencies to both Beijing and Shanghai.
Finnair will add flights to Hong Kong and Delhi this summer, with both destinations benefiting from daily services. The move comes after the carrier restored its service between Helsinki and Osaka in March.
German carrier Lufthansa will operate a three-times-weekly service to Osaka from 2 May.
Singapore Airlines added two weekly flights between Singapore and Manchester from 2 April.
Indian airline Vistara will add a new five-times weekly service between London Heathrow and the business hub of Mumbai from 1 June.
Air India in March commenced 12 new weekly flights to London Gatwick from Amritsar, Ahmedabad, Goa and Kochi, each operating three times per week.
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