Short Takes
July 7th 2017
MRO: China Airlines (CAL) and Boeing have signed a memorandum of understanding to explore the development of the airline’s capabilities to serve the growing maintenance, repair and overhaul market in Asia. Read More » Boeing anticipates providing technical support and maintenance training to CAL, enhancing the airline’s ability to service Boeing products. CAL has previously signed a similar deal with Airbus. StandardAero and Airbus have entered into exclusive negotiations for StandardAero to acquire Vector Aerospace Holding SAS from Airbus.
Routes: AirAsia will start a daily Kuala Lumpur-Nha Trang A320 flight from September 14. Beijing Capital Airlines has launched a twice-weekly Hangzhou-Saipan A330 route. Cebu Pacific now offers three A330-300 wide body services a day between Manila and Hong Kong. China Eastern Airlines will add a four-weekly Hangzhou-Quanzhou-Singapore A320 route on August 25. El Al will replace the B777-200ER with the B787-9 on the six-weekly Tel Aviv-Hong Kong route from March 18. Emirates will reduce capacity to Yangon and Phnom Penh, replacing the B777-300ER with the B777-200LR on the daily route from August 1 through to November 30. Hong Kong Airlines will increase A330-200 frequency between Hong Kong and Auckland from ten weekly to double daily from October 29. Iran Air will fly its new A330-200 twice a week between Tehran and Hamburg from July 6, followed by thrice-weekly Tehran-Frankfurt A330 flights starting July 22. JC International will launch a twice-weekly Phnom Penh-Kaohsiung A320 service on July 10. Following Kunming-Brunei, Lucky Air will launch a twice-weekly Nanning-Brunei B737-800 route on July 15. Italian charter airline Neos will offer a weekly Milan-Guiyang B767-300ER service from July 10 through to October 2. Shenzhen Airlines will add a thrice-weekly Shenzhen-Manila B737-800 flight on August 2. Solomon Airlines will launch a weekly Honiara-Tarawa A320 route on August 30. Tianjin Airlines has added a twice-weekly Baotou-Irkutsk A320 service. THAI will roster its new B787-9 twice daily between Bangkok and Singapore from October 1 through to October 28.
Traffic: Asia-Pacific airlines saw their traffic grow 10.5% in May compared with the year-ago period. Capacity increased 7.2% and load factor jumped 2.3% to 77.6%, the International Air Transport Association (IATA) has reported. Traffic on the Asia-Europe route has recovered strongly since last year’s terrorism-related disruption, surging at an annualized rate of more than 26% since November. Traffic on inter-Asia routes remains robust.
