Short Takes
October 13th 2017
Airlines: An Air Canada B787 had to declare ‘Mayday’ four times before being cleared for a direct approach into Hyderabad following a fuel emergency after being diverted from Mumbai. Emirates Airline will become the launch operator of the B777X, skipping ahead of Lufthansa, according to Emirates president, Tim Clark. Read More » Hawaiian Airlines is mulling a B787 order. Lucky Air is considering establishing a base in Thailand.
MRO: Sepang Aircraft Engineering, an MRO centre based in Kuala Lumpur, partially owned by Airbus since 2011, has become a fully owned Airbus subsidiary, following the acquisition by Airbus of its remaining shares.
Routes: AirAsia X will launch four-weekly Kuala Lumpur-Jeju A330-300 flights on December 12. Air China will launch a weekly Chongqing-Taipei Song Shan B737-800 rotation on November 2, complementing its five-weekly Chongqing-Taoyuan route. Cathay Dragon will terminate its five-weekly Hong Kong-Kota Kinabalu A320 route from January 9. China Eastern Airlines will launch a daily Dalian-Osaka A320 route on October 29, in addition to four-weekly Fuzhou-Bangkok and thrice-weekly Fuzhou-Singapore A320 rotations launching on October 29 and October 31, respectively. The airline will also add a thrice-weekly Nanjing-Quanzhou-Kuala Lumpur A320 flight from November 17. EVA Air will reduce Taipei-Seattle B777-300ER operations from ten-weekly to daily from March 8. Hong Kong Airlines will add a four-weekly Hong Kong-San Francisco A350-900 route from March 25. Korean Air will increase frequency on the Incheon-Da Nang A330-300 route from daily to double daily beginning November 25 and it will increase Incheon-Hanoi from twice- to thrice-daily A330-300 operations from October 29. Qatar Airways will increase frequency on the Doha-Adelaide A350-900 service from five-weekly to daily commencing December 2 and it will launch Doha-Chiang Mai on December 12 with four-weekly A330-200 flights, rather than previously scheduled B787-8 rotations. Spring Airlines will launch a thrice-weekly Guangzhou-Singapore A320 route on November 5. Turkish Airlines will replace the A330-300 with the B777-300ER on the daily Istanbul-Narita route starting May 7; the spare A330 will replace the B777 on the Kuala Lumpur route from the same date. T’Way Air is increasing frequency on the Daegu-Osaka B737-800 route from nine- to eleven-weekly starting October 29.
