December 9, 2022

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December 9, 2022

Wizz Air turns its back on Balaton-Airport Heviz

Passengers of the low-cost airline Wizz Air will have to do without further routes from Germany and Austria. The carrier is once again giving up some routes. These have already been removed from the reservation system. They are withdrawing completely from Heviz. Some of these are routes that were offered seasonally during the warm season. They will therefore not be resumed at the start of the 2023 summer flight schedule period. In Germany, the airports of Cologne/Bonn, Dortmund, Friedrichshafen and Frankfurt-Hahn are affected by the latest cuts. Wizz Air will no longer fly to Catania from Vienna-Schwechat. On this route, they were recently in direct competition with the low-cost airline Ryanair, among others. The latter intends to continue offering the Sicily route. Heviz Airport again without scheduled flights In Frankfurt-Hahn, the Belgrade route has been affected by the red pen. This should actually have been reactivated in the 2023 summer flight schedule. The plan has been scrapped and the route removed from the reservation system. The same applies to the Ohrid flights from Friedrichshafen, so that the destinations Tirana, Tuzla and Ohrid are planned from the Lake Constance airport in summer 2023. Wizz Air will no longer fly to Katowice from Cologne/Bonn. In Dortmund, the low-cost airline is canceling the non-stop route to Balaton Airport Heviz, which was only launched this year. This not only means that the Hungarian airport will disappear completely from the Wizz route network, but the regional airport near Lake Balaton will once again be without regular scheduled flights. This shows once again that no carrier has so far been able to maintain scheduled operations to/from Heviz on a permanent basis.

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Last Boeing 747-8F has left the assembly hall

An era is about to end at the US aircraft manufacturer Boeing, as the last B747-8 has left the factory hall. It is a cargo aircraft intended for Atlas Air. After more than 50 years, production of the “jumbo jets” is coming to an end. The Boeing 747 was first manufactured in 1967. Since then, the model has been continually developed. In its 54-year history, 1.574 units in various versions were produced. The most recent variant, the B747-8, no longer proved to be a best-seller. It has not been manufactured as a passenger aircraft for several years. Now the last freighter, which is scheduled to be delivered to Atlas Air in early 2023, is nearing completion. “For more than half a century, tens of thousands of dedicated Boeing employees have designed and built this magnificent aircraft that has truly changed the world. “We are proud that this aircraft will continue to fly around the globe for many years to come,” said Kim Smith, Boeing vice president and general manager, 747 and 767 programs.

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Brussels Airlines gets two more Airbus A320neo

In 2023 and 2024, Brussels Airlines will add five Airbus A320neos to its fleet. Originally, three aircraft were planned, but the board gave the green light for two more medium-haul jets of this type. These will be taken over in 2024. Three Airbus A320neos will join Brussels Airlines' fleet next year. Two more units will follow in 2024, so that the partial fleet will initially consist of five units. In addition, two Bombardier CRJ-900s operated by Cityjet will be wet leased. The carrier expects demand to continue to rise in summer 2023. Flight operations are therefore to be increased by ten percent. Compared to this year, four additional aircraft are planned and 200 new employees are to be hired. In return for the A320neo fleet, older Airbus A319s will gradually leave the fleet. Of the four additional aircraft, two Airbus A320s will join Brussels Airlines' fleet permanently and will be used across the airline's medium-haul network. In addition, Brussels Airlines will partner with wet-lease company CityJet, which will fly two CRJ aircraft for the Belgian airline throughout the summer. These smaller aircraft, with 85 to 100 seats, will operate flights to secondary markets such as Bordeaux and Billund, connecting these areas to Brussels Airlines' intercontinental and European network.

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Faked contractions: Pegasus passengers wanted to flee after stopover

On Wednesday, December 7, 2022, Pegasus flight PC652 en route from Casablanca to Istanbul Sabiha Göckcen had to make an unscheduled stopover at Barcelona Airport due to labor pains faked by a woman. After landing, 28 passengers attempted to escape across the tarmac. An obviously pregnant woman reported about an hour and 45 minutes after takeoff that she had gone into labor. The captain, informed by the cabin crew, then decided that a stopover should be made in Barcelona. However, a subsequent medical examination carried out in Spain revealed that the woman was only five months pregnant. Doctors believe that the alleged labor pains were merely faked in order to "force" a landing in the European Union. This is also indicated by the official police statement. According to a statement from the executive, a total of 28 passengers took the opportunity to leave the plane after landing, despite instructions to the contrary, in order to supposedly provide care for the perpetrator. They are said to have tried to flee across the tarmac of Barcelona airport. However, they did not get far. The airport security service and the Spanish police immediately intervened and "collected" the fugitives. 14 people were handcuffed and arrested. It was decided that eight others would be immediately deported back to Morocco and five were forced by the police to re-board the Pegasus jet. The executive did not provide any information about the remaining two people. Similar incident on the same airport

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Comment: Liliair – The new airline for Carinthia

The Lilihill Group plans to present its new Liliair on December 13, 2022. The project seems to have come out of the blue, but that is not the case at all. It has been ambitiously pushed forward since 2019 - with corona-related delays. It will not be easy and a lot of money and patience are needed, as examples from Bolzano, Altenrhein and Mannheim show. But Lilihill is using private funds and not taxpayers' money. The Lilihill Group, majority owner of Klagenfurt Airport, has been pushing ahead with the development of its own airline since 2019. Even then, it secured the aviation specialists necessary to operate an airline. The plans were never officially commented on, but they were not denied either. Liliair should actually have been in the air long ago, but the corona pandemic meant that it was approached more slowly than originally planned. The constant cross-fire from Carinthian state politics has not exactly had an accelerating effect either. In any case, intensive work was carried out on the project behind the scenes. On December 13, 2022, the former AUA boss Peter Malanik and Dieter Kandlhofer, who act as managing directors of Lilihil, want to present the new Liliair. Kay Kratky, who also previously headed Austrian Airlines, was also able to be won over for the project. Ex-Niki competence on board But an airline cannot be built with just managing directors. Lilihill was able to take advantage of the fact that numerous former Niki key employees have left the company since Ryanair took over Laudamotion. After the waves of layoffs that have occurred

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Norwegian with 1,4 million passengers in November 2022

Low-cost airline Norwegian carried 1,4 million passengers in November with a load factor of 79,5 percent. In direct comparison with the same month last year, the carrier had 37 percent more passengers on board. From Norway, routes to beach destinations in southern Europe were in particularly high demand. According to the company, they were able to achieve a load factor of around 2022 percent on these in November 90. "We are well positioned to respond to seasonal fluctuations. We have adjusted our capacities to the lower demand during the winter season and have secured a total of 15 percent of our estimated fuel consumption for 2023. Looking ahead, we continue to see pent-up demand for air travel, especially to sunny beach destinations. We recently opened several new routes to destinations across Europe and look forward to welcoming both passengers and new colleagues during what is expected to be a busy summer of 2023," said Norwegian CEO Geir Karlsen.

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Eurowings Europe takes on Prague-Geneva

The Maltese airline Eurowings Europe will start a non-stop connection between Prague and Geneva at the end of March 2023. There will also be new flights from Stockholm-Arlanda to Rome-Fiumicino. Both new flights are scheduled to be served for the first time on March 26, 2023. There will be five flights a week between the Czech and Swiss cities in the 2023 summer flight schedule. There will be three flights a week from Stockholm to Rome.

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Gatwick: Emirates increases to three daily A380 flights

Gulf carrier Emirates Airline is increasing its capacity between London Gatwick and Dubai due to high demand around Christmas and New Year. It will operate three daily flights with Airbus A380s. This will increase the daily capacity between the two cities to well over 1.000 seats per day. The routes affected in Dubai are K11, EK15 and EK09. Emirates now offers 119 flights per week from the United Kingdom. It flies to a total of seven airports in the island state. These are Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted, Manchester, Birmingham, Newcastle and Glasgow.

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Tui Austria: Thailand is experiencing a comeback in demand

The tour operator Tui Austria is currently seeing strong demand for the Canary Islands, Egypt and Thailand during the busy travel period around Christmas and New Year. The top holiday destinations for Tui travellers this year are the Canary Islands and Egypt with the diving hotspots Hurghada and Marsa Alam. Thailand has taken the lead as a long-haul destination this year, alongside the Maldives and Mexico. "Compared to last year, we have seen increased demand for the Christmas holidays in almost all trend destinations. We are very pleased about this, as it confirms once again that TUI guests' desire to travel is unbroken," says Gottfried Math, Managing Director of Tui Austria. "The popular holiday destination Thailand in particular is experiencing a strong comeback after the abolition of the Corona entry regulations."

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Air Baltic satisfied with self-handling in Riga

For about a year, the Latvian airline Air Baltic has been handling passenger handling itself at Riga Airport. Previously, it relied on a service provider. The company is satisfied with the decision to carry out the activity in-house. The new ground handling model has improved operational performance at the airline's home airport and increased both competitiveness and passenger satisfaction, Air Baltic said in a press release. "The recovery from the world's worst aviation crisis caused by the pandemic has given us the opportunity to revise our products and services - to focus more productively on communicating core brand values. A successful example of this is the takeover of the most important ground handling processes in Riga, with an average of 90 daily flight movements," said Laura Vecvanaga-Puķīte, Senior Vice President Ground Operations and Customer Care.

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