In new strategy Etihad invests in Darwin Airlines, re-brands it Etihad Regional

by Devesh Agarwal

Etihad Airways, the national carrier of the United Arab Emirates, today announced what it calls a ‘step-change in global aviation’ with the launch of its first branded regional operation, after taking a 33.3 per cent stake in Swiss carrier Darwin Airline.

(Left to right) James Rigney, Etihad Airways’ Chief Financial Officer; Maurizio Merlo, Chief Executive Officer of Darwin Airline; James Hogan, Etihad Airways’ President and Chief Executive Officer; Emilio Martinenghi, President of Darwin Airline, celebrate the launch of Etihad Regional at the Dubai Air Show 2013.

Following completion of the minority investment, which is subject to regulatory approval, Darwin Airline will rebrand its operations as Etihad Regional and align its network to connect passengers from secondary European markets onto the main networks of Etihad Airways and its equity alliance partners in Europe, airberlin and Air Serbia.

Part of the strategy will see Etihad Airways launching daily services on June 1, 2014 from Abu Dhabi to Zurich, which will become one of Darwin Airline’s main operating hubs. The flight will depart Abu Dhabi at 2am and arrive early morning in to Zurich, enabling connections on to Regional's flights.

James Hogan, Etihad Airways’ President and Chief Executive Officer, said

“This is a step-change for Etihad Airways. With our new partner Darwin Airline, we are creating a unique approach to network development for global airlines. European travellers will now be able to connect from a far, far wider range of European towns and cities on Etihad-branded aircraft, through Abu Dhabi to our destinations worldwide. We are also linking the new Etihad Regional network into the key hubs of our equity alliance partners, bringing benefits to the customers of airberlin and Air Serbia. This is not just a great new offer for European travellers. It is also great news for Darwin Airline, which will see increased investment, greater sales and marketing opportunities, and the chance to benefit from Etihad Airways’ global network.”

Darwin Airlines Saab 2000 in current livery. Photo Devesh Agarwal

Darwin Airline is headquartered in Lugano, Switzerland, with its major hub in Geneva, to which Etihad already operates flights. Darwin currently offers scheduled flights to 21 destinations in Europe using a fleet of 10 50-seat Saab 2000 turboprop aircraft. Its flights operate under the IATA designator code 0D, which will continue past the re-branding.

After the 33% stake investment by Etihad, Darwin Airline will become he seventh member of the Etihad Airways equity airline alliance. Etihad Airways has minority shareholdings of 29% in airberlin, 40% in Air Seychelles, 19.9% in Virgin Australia and 3% in Aer Lingus. Etihad has received approval to acquire 24 per cent of India’s Jet Airways, and from January 2014, will acquire 49 per cent of Air Serbia.

Darwin, will continue to focus on secondary markets, and become the first airline to operate using a new sub-brand called ‘Etihad Regional’. Darwin Airline will also adopt the Etihad Guest frequent flier program.

The investment will give Etihad Airways access to regional markets in Europe, and enable a major expansion of Darwin Airline’s operations.

Darwin Airlines Saab 2000 in new Etihad Regional livery. CGI.

Darwin's fleet will be re-painted in the new ‘Etihad Regional’ livery which sees the logo displayed prominently on each side of the fuselage of the aircraft, while the rear of the plane will carry the words “Operated by Darwin Airline”, and the Darwin Airline’s present logo. The Swiss flag will be displayed on the dorsal tail fin, though the E of the Etihad logo will take prominence on the tail.

By mid-2014, Darwin Airline will add 21 new routes and 18 new destinations. Its network will then include six European gateways served by Etihad Airways – Geneva, Amsterdam, Paris, Düsseldorf, Belgrade and, commencing in June, Zurich.

Darwin Airline will be able to connect to the network of airberlin, Etihad Airways’ equity partner, through new and existing routes to Berlin, Düsseldorf and Zurich. Berlin and Düsseldorf provide excellent connections to the United States with airberlin.

Darwin Airline will also be able to connect to the network of Air Serbia, through its hub at Belgrade.
Subject to regulatory approval, Etihad Airways, airberlin and Air Serbia will codeshare on Darwin Airline routes, while Darwin Airline will codeshare on Etihad Airways, airberlin and Air Serbia flights from a range of European gateways. This will provide deeper access to Europe for the three larger carriers and significant new international connectivity and feeder traffic for Darwin Airline.

Maurizio Merlo, Chief Executive Officer of Darwin Airline, believes the Etihad Airways partnership will enable Darwin Airline to build upon its success to date and enjoy significant growth, not only by providing a larger network for customers within Europe but also greater access to Europe for travellers from around the world.

Darwin Airline’s expanded network, to be implemented in stages from April 2014, will provide significant new opportunities for travellers to fly between major regional centres in Europe and the global network of Etihad Airways, via its hub in Abu Dhabi, capital of the UAE.

• In April 2014, Darwin Airline will launch nine new routes, from Dusseldorf to Berlin, Cambridge and London City; from Berlin to Poznan and Wroclaw; from Geneva to Toulouse; from Zurich to Leipzig; and from Rome to Tirana and Zagreb.
• In May 2014, it will start flights from from Zurich to Geneva, Florence and Turin; and from Geneva to Belgrade.
• In June 2014, it will launch flights from Zurich to Linz, Graz, Verona and Lyon; and from Geneva to Bordeaux, Marseille, Nantes and Verona.

What are your thoughts on this new strategy by Etihad? Post a comment.

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Analysis: Air India to begin several new routes - including San Francisco and Madrid?

by Vinay Bhaskara

Earlier this month, erstwhile Indian national carrier Air India placed a tender asking for fuel supply contracts at 9 different stations as seen below. The tender includes Sydney, where Air India is planning to launch 4 weekly nonstop and 3 weekly one-stop flights (in a triangle routing with Melbourne) on-board the carrier's new Boeing 787 Dreamliner. Australian services are scheduled to commence August 29th as of press time.

As the document states, just because the destinations are mentioned in this fuel tender, it does not necessarily mean that they will in fact be operated. The airline business is transitory, and airline plans are rapidly changing. That being said, if we take this document at face value, it represents a major international expansion, both for Air India's under-utilized fleet of Boeing 777-200LRs (5 are currently being shopped) and Boeing 777-300ERs, as well as for the 27 787 Dreamliners on order.


Sydney is already a known quantity, but Jakarta is an interesting destination. Indonesia and India recently revised their bilateral air service agreement (ASA) in 2011 to allow carriers from either side to operate up to 28 flights per week with aircraft of size up to a Boeing 747-400. Indonesian carriers are allowed to serve Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata, and Chennai, while Indian carriers are allowed to serve Jakarta, Medan, Bali, and Surabaya. Garuda Indonesia was reportedly planing on serving Jakarta - Mumbai/Delhi with 737-800 aircraft but those plans never materialized. The largest Indian population in Indonesia is actually on the island of Sumantra, and India-Medan demand is under-served. Even so, Air India would have the first mover's advantage on connecting these two burgeoning regional powers.

The addition of Nairobi on this list raises an interesting question - the biggest demand center from Nairobi is with India's commercial hub in Mumbai thanks to historical ties of Indian expats to Africa and the type of business traffic on the route. However, Air India looks committed to building a proper connecting hub in Delhi, where there is some demand to Nairobi, but low yields and existing competition in the form of SkyTeam member Kenya Airways. It will be interesting to see where Air India chooses to route its Nairobi services from. Perhaps a nonstop Nairobi-Mumbai service that continues on to Delhi could work; as the 787 is the right aircraft for the job but all of the 787s are currently based in Delhi.

The European centers vary in feasibility - Milan and Rome both have strong O&D demand - and Milan in particular has a large North Indian community with more than 76,000 annual passengers (in each direction) demand to Delhi. Rome is a more tourist-oriented destination but it too has a strong VFR (visiting family relatives) traffic component. Delhi-Milan was previously tried by Jet Airways with an A330-200, but Air India is stronger in Delhi than Jet Airways is, and the 787 has a better cost profile for the route than Jet Airways A330s.

Zurich is a premium destination with growing Indian tourist demand to Switzerland. But there isn't the volume required to sustain nonstop services for Air India - the premium segment of the market is already dominated by Swiss. However, the size of the fuel contract indicates that Air India will be likely serving Zurich as a tag-on to one of the other European destinations - likely Rome or Milan.

Moscow has strong demand thanks to growing business ties but will face strong competition from Aeroflot's existing flights to Sheremetyevo. Madrid is an odd one. There are no significant business or leisure ties between Indian and Span, and with Spain in the midst of debilitating recession, demand is not set to grow any time soon.

San Francisco is another interesting case. Air India is the only Indian carrier with the aircraft required to launch San Francisco nonstop from Delhi (a flight of 7706 miles) - the Boeing 777-200LR and the Boeing 777-300ER (Jet Airways' configuration of the 777-300ER is too heavy to do so)  - however, the size of the fuel tender involved implies that San Francisco will be served as a one-stop destination; likely via Milan given the inflated size of the tender in Milan. Delhi-San Francisco is a large market, with 159,520 annual O&D passengers, but yields are extremely low. Meanwhile, Bangalore-San Francisco is a much higher yielding market with still 70,802 passengers of annual demand in 2011 alone (has likely crossed the 85,000 mark given the boom in Silicon Valley). Bangalore-San Francisco is doable on Air India's 777-200LRs.

Regardless, the expansion from Air India is interesting to behold. These routes will likely not return Air India to profitability given the massive debt. But on an operational basis; a few of them could be sustainable and break even.

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Video: Making of the Qatar Airways Boeing 787 Dreamliner

Qatar Airways' first Boeing 787 Dreamliner arrived at Doha earlier today and was mobbed by hundreds of VIPs, media, airline and airport staff.

Video below the fold

Qatar Airways is the first 787 operator in the middle-east with 60 aircraft on order for delivery in phases over the next few years.

Chief Executive Officer Akbar Al Baker, who was onboard the delivery flight, was joined by almost 100 passengers, mostly international media and senior management from the airline and the airframe, on the maiden 13-hour journey direct from Seattle.

The 787 will spend a few days positioned at Doha International Airport giving staff an opportunity to tour the aircraft before it enters commercial service for a few weeks on selected Doha – Dubai flights from November 20 and then deployed long-haul on one of the five daily London Heathrow services.

As more 787s join the fleet over the next few weeks, the aircraft will be inducted on other long-haul routes including Zurich, Frankfurt and New Delhi.

The new aircraft has 254 seats in a two-class layout of 22 flat bed seats in Business Class in a 1–2–1 configuration, and 232 seats in a narrow bone crunching 3–3–3 layout very similar to Air India, in economy.

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MAPS: New international flying rights granted to Indian carriers

India's erstwhile civil aviation ministry has granted new international flying rights to both national carrier Air India, and private carriers Jet Airways and SpiceJet.

First up is Air India, which received flying rights for  several new routes from its Delhi and Mumbai hubs.

The Sydney and Melbourne rights give credence to the idea that Air India plans to begin operations on the Kangaroo route. 

Meanwhile, Jet Airways received a mix of routes from Delhi and Mumbai as well.

Of these routes, Mumbai-Zurich and Delhi-Tashkent are the best prospects (especially the former if Jet Airways is able to secure a place in the Star Alliance). Finally, SpiceJet secured a potpourri of international rights, though a couple could be used to augment their burgeoning central hub in Delhi.

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Lufthansa group analysis - Part 2: India Operations

Vinay Bhaskara

India is the second largest market for German carrier Lufthansa, after North America, in numbers. In return the all member airlines of the "Lufthansa Group" including SWISS, and Austrian Airlines devote a considerable share of their fleet to India, while Brussels Airlines has a strategic partnership with India's largest private carrier Jet Airways.

Most Lufthansa loyalists were excited about Lufthansa's plans to its all new Boeing 747-8 Intercontinental (748i) to India, with its brand new flat bed business class product, feeling it once again demonstrated the commitment of the “Lufthansa Group” of airlines to their Indian operations. (Click to see videos and photos of the new Lufthansa business class.)

The deployment of the 747-8i was not driven solely by Lufthansa’s own priorities. The Government of India has been sitting on the carrier's request to deploy the Airbus A380 superjumbo to New Delhi. As per sources, the carrier has also run in to a diplomatic spat when the Star alliance "indefinitely suspended" national carrier Air India’s entry. Lufthansa is the mentor for Air India's entry, and is also a founding member of the alliance.

With the Indo-German bilateral agreement allowing generic "747" aircraft, most industry insiders felt operating the 747-8i was a smart move, especially on the lucrative Delhi and Bangalore sectors which. like all other Lufthansa Boeing 747-400 destinations, are suffering from an outdated business class cabin, that the 748i will remove.

Just last week, for unexplained reasons, Lufthansa put paid to the hopes of its many Indian fans and announced the 748i would be first deployed to other north American destinations like Chicago and Los Angeles, ahead of India. The reasons for this move remain unanswered, despite our best attempts.



There have been a few bumps in the road. In 2011, Lufthansa Group announced a couple of changes to its Indian operations, with the first being that Austrian Airlines service between Vienna and Mumbai was being canned yet again. The flight had just resumed in 2010 after being dropped before in 2008, but apparently Austrian Airlines’ network cuts (especially on the long haul side) were just too deep to make a Mumbai flight viable.

Meanwhile Lufthansa itself announced an end to flights between Kolkata and Frankfurt, marking another “nail in the coffin” for international long haul services from the city. Domestic traffic growth in Kolkata remains very strong, but if they are not careful over in Bengal, they might find their international airport in a state of permanent “bandh” from all non-Gulf international carriers.

Internationally, the Kolkata market is very low yield and dependent heavily on visiting family and relatives (VFR) traffic which becomes marginal in times of economic trouble, such as now., when carriers like Lufthansa have to face the dual threat of a double dip European recession and ever-rising fuel prices.

That being said, we’d like to take a look at Lufthansa Group’s operations within India.

Currently, the trio (Lufthansa, Swiss, Austrian) operate close to 66 flights per week for the April-June semi-peak season from five Indian ports to four European hubs.

Secondly, the entire business model for Lufthansa Group’s Indian operations is based on connecting traffic. In 2009-10, as per DGCA, Lufthansa proper carried 1.137 million passengers to and from India. A staggering 988,000 of those passengers or 87%, were carried as 6th freedom connecting passengers, while 149,000 were origin and destination (O&D) passengers traveling to Frankfurt and Munich. Meanwhile Swiss carried 203,000 total passengers to and from India, and 128,000 or 63% of those were 6th freedom connecting passengers, while 75,000 passengers flew directly to Zurich. Finally, Austrian carried 97,000 passengers, with 83,000 connecting and 14,000 O&D for an 86% connection ratio.

European connections certainly play a big role in Lufthansa Group operations from India, but these have become much more lower yielding in the past few years as gulf behemoth Emirates has continued to balloon and now offers the same one stop service to most European destinations as the European carriers.

Either way, Vienna, Munich, Frankfurt, and Zurich all have hundreds of European flights at every possible hour of the day, so the European connection line is clear. Furthermore, because of the continual frequency, the carriers do not need to structure their operations around European flights. Thus when analysing the structure of the Indian ops, we will primarily consider connections to North America and Brazil, which are the two largest traffic bases to and from India. For Indian Americans, the most important destinations are Toronto, New York/Newark, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, Boston, Washington D.C., Sao Paulo, Vancouver, Houston, and Dallas-Fort Worth.

On a hub by hub basis, all of the above destinations are served from Frankfurt with the remaining three hubs (Munich, Vienna, Zurich) having mixed services to those destinations. The tables below are as follow. The first table is a synopsis of India-EU services on Lufthansa group, with the arrival times into the European hub highlighted. The next four charts denote departure times (of the earliest flight when there are multiple daily flights) to the destinations we mentioned above from Frankfurt, Munich, Zurich, and Vienna in that order.

As expected, Frankfurt provides the most connectivity by far, with service to all of the destinations but two (Newark and Toronto) lining up within 2.5 hours of arrival times from India, which occur between 7 and 8:30 am. Furthermore, those two destinations have earlier service from Lufthansa’s trans-Atlantic joint venture (JV) partners United Airlines and Air Canada. This JV basically allows these carriers to act and operate as one airline across the Atlantic; they share revenues, costs, and profits).

Frankfurt is unique amongst these hubs as it has 2 banks of departures to North America, one that occurs in the morning around 10:00 am and is designed to facilitate connections from Asia and the Middle East, as well as one in the early evening around 6:00 pm to allow connections and O&D from Europe and Africa.

The one outlier from India is the flight from Pune, the all business class, PrivatAir operated, Boeing 737 Lufthansa Business Jet, which arrives in Frankfurt at 12:10 pm, and basically caters to the senior management O&D traffic between Europe, Germany included and the many European auto manufacturing companies located in Pune.

When traveling to these European airports (with the exception of Zurich) long haul connections are a little more complex, as passengers must often pass through security checkpoints for a second time. Thus the two to three hour wait till the US flights is actually quite necessary, and it is often all but impossible to make a long haul connection in Frankfurt in less than an hour. At the same time, Lufthansa cannot afford to put too much time between the connections so as for them to lose their viability amongst business travellers (the typical maximum is somewhere between 3 and 4 hours).

The operations in Munich and Zurich are a bit more mixed. Once again, flights are timed to arrive in the morning (excluding Delhi-Munich which is likely the way it is because of aircraft rotation needs), but the flights to North America are a little more diverse, primarily because neither Munich nor Zurich is a strong enough hub to support two banks worth of North American flights. Still the pattern is relatively clear; the core Indian flights arrive before flights to the US/NA depart in each case.

Vienna does not have the same value proposition, though the connection time is adequate (4 hours or so). But they no longer have enough US destinations to really sustain flights from Delhi, meaning that the route is heavily dependent on European connections. And with the MEB4 (MEB3 + Turkish) continuing to chip away at the Asia-Europe market, that’s not really a strong place to be from a yields/profitability perspective. Geographically, Vienna is just 400 km east of Munich, and as such is only a more convenient connecting point for travellers to the Balkans and Eastern Europe. But the primary base of profitable India-Europe connections is to Western Europe, and as such, Delhi-Vienna is a largely redundant route in the overall Lufthansa group. Thus we feel that it is likely that Vienna-Delhi will be cut again rather soon, especially with Austrian Airlines facing severe financial troubles. The 260 seats per day out of Delhi that are lost can be replaced entirely if Lufthansa is allowed to bring the 525 seat A380 onto Delhi-Frankfurt, or partially through up-gauge in equipment of both Munich and Frankfurt to Delhi.

While I chose Sao Paulo as a representative route for South America because it is the single largest destination from India, the same applies to Latin America in general, where the majority of Lufthansa departures are scheduled for the late night, creating a 12-15 hour wait between arrival from India and departure. This is largely a value proposition, as the South American O&D market favours these sorts of timings. However, what this has done in effect is allow the MEB4 to clean the EU carriers’ clocks on the growing India-Latin America market. Previously, passengers travelling from India to Latin America connected in Europe almost by default, as these were the only convenient one-stop options, even with double digit layover lengths.

But now, with the onset of Middle Eastern and even Asian flights to Latin America, it has become easier for Indian travellers to get to and from South/Central America, right as the market has begun to explode. Within a few years, it is projected that city pairs like Mumbai-Sao Paulo will have enough O&D demand to sustain a nonstop flight (though the distance is too far to permit such operations).

Thus Lufthansa has locked itself out of a growing market, a fact that becomes apparent when one realises that it is actually quicker to fly Mumbai-Singapore-Barcelona-Sao Paulo on Singapore Airlines than Mumbai-Frankfurt-Sao Paulo on Lufthansa thanks to the super long layover. Obviously for Lufthansa, their own O&D considerations are more important, but perhaps in the future, they will introduce another daily flight from Mumbai and Delhi that can connect more efficiently to their evening and night long haul banks; perhaps once they acquire the next generation of more efficient long haul aircraft like the Boeing 787 and Airbus A350.

So what does the future hold for Lufthansa group in India?

Firstly, consolidation will be very important. Hyderabad and Kolkata have already been dropped from the roster of destinations, and expect capacity to cluster in Mumbai, Delhi, and Bangalore (the three current Boeing 747-400 destinations). In my opinion, Austrian Airlines will keep its services to India limited to New Delhi, but there is strong future potential for flights to be added from either Munich or Zurich to Bangalore in the medium term, four to six years out, by some other member of the group.

Thus from a macro-level perspective, Lufthansa’s Indian operation will be largely stable as the carrier attempts to hold off the ever-growing threat from the MEB4. It will be critical that they find a local feeding partner as well, which can improve their traffic base in secondary cities like Ahmedabad, Kolkata, Hyderabad, Kochi, Amritsar and the like.

Whether the ever inconsistent Air India can reform its act enough to become that partner remains to be seen, but even the alternate case of taking on an LCC like SpiceJet is not the worst possible thing. It’s ironic, but perhaps for Lufthansa, the Indian Airlines-Air India merger was a bad thing. If the carriers had remained separate in 2007-8 then the well thought of and profitable (though it is unclear if that profitability would have survived the global financial crisis or onslaught of low cost carriers) Indian Airlines might have been the perfect feeder partner for both Lufthansa and Star Alliance.

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Plane Spotting: Airside at Flughafen Zurich - an aviation photographer's wet dream

I arrived in Zurich yesterday morning to meet my friend and Bangalore Airport President Marcel Hungerbeuhler, and do some spotting.

Thanks to some other friends at Bangalore and Zurich airports (who shall remain anonymous), both Marcel and me, were met by this huge strapping guy -- Rolf Wallner, one of the senior plane spotters in Switzerland with thousands of photos on sites (check them here), and who happens to work airside at the airport.

Clear skies, good sunshine, good breeze, a beautiful green wooded airport called Zurich, a line of wide-bodies, airside!!!! ...... an aviation photographers spotter's wet dream.

Incidentally, Zurich airport is one the most spotter friendly airports in the world. Authorities have even cut holes in the fence for spotters to take photographs from, and have observation decks and guided tours airside. If you are spotter who is travelling, a transit via Zurich is essential.

Rolf knew all the right spots so we got up close to the action. Click on the photos for a high resolution view.

Take-offs from runway 28

Take-offs from runway 16

Landings on runway 14 (managed to get both the smokin' touchdown and the jet thrust. Woot!!)

A panoramic view of the E concourse for all long distance international operations.

Unfortunately due to my poor scheduling (completely forgot that the sun sets well after 8pm during summers in Europe) I had to leave. Dang!!!! ..... but it gives me the excuse to return.

Thanks Rolf for a great time and to H for arranging it. Let us repeat it ....... and soon.

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Air China increases Bangalore operations, Lufthansa increases Mumbai Munich

From the Summer 2011 time-table which commences this Sunday, Air China is increasing its frequency on the Shanghai-Chengdu-Bangalore flight from two to three times a week. The Wednesday, Saturday arrivals with Thursday, Sunday departures will be complemented by an additional frequency arriving in to Bangalore on Mondays and departing early morning Tuesdays. Aircraft type continues to be an Airbus A319-100.


Lufthansa continues is expansion in India with two more frequencies on the Mumbai Munich route, making it a daily service, and taking the total of the Lufthansa group to 77 frequencies per week.


Lufthansa :

Delhi-Frankfurt: daily : Boeing 747-400
Delhi-Munich : daily : Airbus A340-600
Mumbai-Frankfurt : daily : Boeing 747-400
Mumbai-Munich : daily : 1,3,4,6 : Airbus A330-300 : 2,5,7 : A340-300
Bangalore-Frankfurt : daily : Boeing 747-400
Chennai-Frankfurt : daily : Airbus A340-300
Kolkata-Frankfurt : 3 per week (2,4,7) : Airbus A330-300
Hyderbad-Frankfurt : 3 per week (2,4,7) : Airbus A340-300
Pune-Frankfurt : 4 per week (2,5,6,7) : Boeing 737-800 Lufthansa Business Jet
(operated by PrivatAir)

Swiss :
Delhi-Zurich : daily : Airbus A330-300
Mumbai-Zurich : daily : Airbus A330-300

Austrian Airlines :
Delhi-Vienna : 6 per week (X2) : Boeing 767-300ER (B767)
Mumbai-Vienna : 5 per week (X4,6) : 2,3 : Boeing 767-300ER (B767) and 1,5,7 : Boeing 767-300ER (B763)

Related articles

• HK's Cathay adds 27 Boeing, Airbus jets to fleet (sfgate.com)
• Virgin creates 450 jobs as new routes launched (dailyexpress.co.uk)
• Swiss cuts fuel consumption (abtn.co.uk)

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Swiss connects Zurich with Goa by adding code share on Edelweiss service

Lufthansa owned, Swiss International Air Lines has connected one of India’s best known leisure destinations, Goa, directly with its Zurich hub by adding its “LX” code to the regular charter flights operated by its subsidiary Edelweiss Air.

The Edelweiss service has traditionally been geared towards incoming tourist groups. The code-share agreement facilitates booking access to these flights for individual customers.

From Zurich, Goa passengers can connect on to the global network of Swiss.

Members of the airline’s frequent flyer program Miles & More will accrue miles on this route and the ground services will be on par with other Swiss stations.

The once a week service is operated under flight number LX8958 with an Airbus A-330 aircraft in a 2-class configuration of 32 business and 275 economy seats. The flight schedule is:

Departing Zurich Sundays 17:35 arriving Goa Monday 07:00
Departing Goa Mondays 08:00 Arrival Zurich (via Male) 17:25

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Singapore Airlines cuts capacity to India Thailand USA Europe, increases Middle East

Singapore Airlines is making further adjustments to its route network, primarily cutting back flights to various destinations in India, Thailand, Europe, and USA, while increasing capacities to the middle east.

The changes, will take place progressively from now and will apply for the rest of the Northern Winter schedule (i.e. till end-March 2009), and will most likely continue in to the Summer schedule.

India
Hyderabad-Singapore services SQ439 and SQ438 will be reduced from four to three times weekly, with the suspension of the Saturday service from 21 February. Service will operate on Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays.

New Delhi-Singapore services SQ405 and SQ406 will be reduced from a six times weekly service, to five times weekly service, from 10 March to 24 March 2009, as flights on Tuesdays during this period will be suspended.

Mumbai-Singapore services SQ421 and SQ422 will be progressively reduced from five to four times weekly services, starting 27 February 2009. Flights on Fridays will be suspended.

Thailand
Bangkok-Singapore services SQ972 and SQ975 will be suspended from 2 February until the end of the Northern Winter Schedule bringing Singapore Airlines capacity to 25 flights weekly.

USA
Newark-Singapore and Los Angeles-Singapore non-stop services performed by the Airbus A340-500; frequency will reduce by two flights to five weekly flights on each route. The Tuesday and Wednesday services, will be suspended.

Ironically, Thai Airways, who has been unable to find a buyer for its suspended A340-500 aircraft, is resuming Bangkok-USA non-stop services.

Europe
United Kingdom
London Heathrow-Singapore services SQ308 and SQ319 will be suspended on Mondays and Thursdays between 9 and 23 March 2009. Total frequency on the Singapore-London route will reduce from 21 to 19 flights per week.

Switzerland
Zurich-Singapore services SQ342 and SQ341 will be reduced from daily to five times weekly, from 9 March 2009. Total frequency on the Singapore-Zurich route will reduce from 14 to 12 flights per week.

Middle East
Kuwait and Abu Dhabi
Singapore Airlines will commence four times weekly services to Kuwait, via Abu Dhabi, from 15 March 2009, with the introduction of SQ458 and SQ457 on Tuesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays and Sundays. Singapore Airlines will continue its existing three times weekly service to Abu Dhabi. With the addition of the Kuwait service, Abu Dhabi will become a daily service.

Egypt
Cairo-Singapore services SQ492 and SQ493 will increase from thrice weekly to four times a week from 12 March. The Cairo flights will operate via Dubai, thus increasing frequency between Singapore and Dubai to 16 per week.

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