TPJ

Interesting:

GDS response view:

01MAY SUN VIE/Z‡2 DEL/‡3.5
1OS 33 JC CC DC ZC VIEDEL 1310 0005‡1 76W MS 0 X2 DCA /E
PC YC BC MC UC HC GC QC VC WC SC TC EC LC KC
2AI 136 C4 D4 J4 Z4 VIEDEL 2245 0925‡1 788 M 0 357 DCA /E
Y9 B9 M9 H9 K9 Q9 V9 W9 G9 L9 U9 T9 S9 E9 NC

So apparently OS is ceasing VIE-DEL.

AI picks up the route - 3 weekly frequencies with B787.

oliver2002

bmi is picking up MUC-RLG from CL, MUC-BGY from EN, and staring MUC-NRK starting April 2016

oliver2002

Strapped of its E190, CL gives up MUC-GVA and LX picks it up:
http://airlineroute.net/2016/03/01/lx-gvamuc-s16/

GVA-SJJ/CPH/BEG and ZRH-HEL bites the dust: http://airlineroute.net/2016/03/01/lx-europe-apr16/

gusd

They are increasing MUC-CLJ from 2 to 3 daily. It's now operated by Air Dolomiti

HKG1111

Anyone heard about new destinaions in Central/South America? Others in Europe (KLM, BA or Iberia) opening or increasing flights to destinations but nothing much from LH group. Even Emirates is asking for permission to fly ZRH to MEX direct.

NewbieRunner

PTY finally started earlier this month.

oliver2002

JP starts MUC-SZY for LH 3x Weekly in June.

oliver2002

LH will resume FRA-CPT with 343 service in DEC2016

whiskey_sk

seasonal?

Concerto

Where the heck is SZY? Quicktrip shows it is Szczytno in Poland, but I, who knows the map of Europe quite well, have never heard of it. Looked it up, can't see any airport there. Who on earth needs to go there?

Didn't JP (Adria Airways) run VIE-FRA for quite a while?

dj_jay_smith

Along with the FRA-CPT resumption already mentioned, below are more changes to the W16/17 long haul schedule.

According to http://www.routesonline.com/news/38/...as-of-25may16/

oliver2002

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olszty...gional_Airport

Its the place you want to fly to when you visit what the Germans call the 'Masuren'. Beautiful area.

Concerto

Yes I gathered that. The original European forest cover is very extensive in that region. I wonder how on earth JP think they're going to make it work. Sounds a bit like Kassel airport to me.

YuropFlyer

Tourism in summer is quite growing/strong in that area.

JP flies rather small airplanes, and 3x weekly.. yes, I can see that working during the summer season with people being willing to pay a bit more for a flight where they don't have to take a long detour from an airport "somewhere near" to where they actually want to go.

Remembers me of the time when people claimed that FDH will never work for TK (and they went from 3x weekly to something like 10x weekly now)

Sometimes, a route does work even if it seems there is not much demand (yet) - for example, I could see Kassel working fine with some airlines that do not need connecting traffic from FRA - examples: Turkish, Aeroflot

Personally, I prefer to fly NOT from big airports, but small ones. Cheaper parking/cheaper train ticket to get there, easier arrival, usually less crammed, nicer staff (yes, that's also one thing I do consider) at checkin, security, etc. - I'm not sure if many people prefer to fly from huge, anonymous airports over the "cozyness" of small ones.

Yes, many of them can't post profits, that's true. FDH might finally get back into black numbers, with TK expanding and more traffic from other smaller airlines coming in, the problem is having a steady number of flights so your staff is actually occupied, and not just waiting for passengers 90% of their time. It's a problem that big hubs with a few waves a day actually do have as well.

A "prime example" would be ZRH airport. They've a lot of (expensive) staff to work the rush hours (morning, mid-day, evening) waves when LX has plenty of flights, but mid-morning and mid-afternoon, hardly much to do. But you can't just have staff hired for 3hrs a shift, or send them home or on break for 2-3hrs in between. Smaller regional airports that only operate very few flights a day have it even harder. A full TK flight, with almost everyone checkin luggage, needs a certain amount of staff. Especially as people tend to arrive relatively late at small airports. Thus, having several flights (1-2 hours apart) is best to keep staff efficency high, not just at checkin but security, duty free, restaurants, baggage handling, fuel, etc. etc.

Economy of size is very important for airports. If 2 more flights can save the airport lots of money and make it profitable, they might be interested into accomodating you with better offerings. Probably the same what happened here for that little Polish airport. Staff is there anyway I must assume, the extra costs of handling that JP flight will be tiny, instead it will create cash for them (fees, duty free sales, transport) - so even if it's just a very tiny route, it might work for them in the "bigger picture" - and thus offering JP very low handling rates. While JP can charge higher than for a flight to WAW or BER for such a route.

From Wikipedia: The airport has a railroad access, that is operative since the scheduled flights started in January 2016. The distance to the town of Olsztyn is 55 kilometres with the journey taking some 45 minutes. As of April 2016, trains run in accordance with the flights.

Also, London, Munich, Berlin, as well as two domestic flights. They do have some traffic in summer at least. Meaning that staff will be busy during the day, and facilities actually used. I could think of worse ideas. It's clearly a summer destination - they might shut it down completely / almost completely in winter to save costs, like many seasonal airports. This isn't Kassel in my books.

klausa

JP runs some weird routes in Poland - they're also operating AMS-LCJ and MUC-LCJ (and according to wiki, will soon start CDG-LCJ), which makes even less sense than SZY, given that WAW is less than an hour away.