AIRLINE NEWS

ANA will give its first Airbus A380 a special “sea turtle” livery to commemorate the aircraft’s deployment on the Japanese carrier’s Tokyo-Honolulu route. The design was chosen as part of a competition that included more than 2,000 submissions from members of the public. ASIANA AIRLINES will introduce a new Economy Smartium class of seats on its A350 aircraft starting May 15. Offering more seat pitch than standard economy but featuring the same width, recline and screen size, Economy Smartium will also include access to priority boarding and entry to the Asiana Business Class Lounge at Incheon International Airport for long-haul travellers. CATHAY PACIFIC will increase flight frequencies on select routes to the UK, US, France, Spain and Australia starting from June. These will include its services to Manchester, Gatwick, Madrid, Paris, San Francisco, Cairns and Brisbane, though its Los Angeles flights will be reduced from the end of October. CHINA SOUTHERN has launched a new rapid transfer service for international travellers flying via its home base, Baiyun International Airport Guangzhou, enabling flyers to proceed directly through China customs without the need to claim their checked baggage. EVA AIR has unveiled its latest Sanrio-character airline livery, this time featuring the Bad Badtz-Maru penguin character. The new livery will adorn its Airbus A330-300 and will fly from Taipei Taoyuan to Fukuoka and Seoul. GARUDA INDONESIA will be removing first class from a number of flights operating between Amsterdam and Jakarta during the peak summer months. This is to enable the carrier to boost seat capacity during the summer season with 99 additional economy class seats, which it still configures in the slightly more spacious nine-across layout. JET AIRWAYS and FIJI AIRWAYS have begun codesharing, enabling Fiji Airways passengers to fly to destinations in Jet Airways’ network, including Mumbai, Delhi and Chennai from Singapore. Meanwhile, Jet Airways will place its code on Fiji Airways’ flights from Singapore and Hong Kong to Nadi. JUNEYAO AIRLINES is set to get its first Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner following an estimated US$1.3 billion order for five of the aircraft. The order comes as the Chinese carrier looks to expand its long-haul network to destinations in North America, Europe and Australia by 2020. KOREAN AIR has taken delivery of its first Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner – one of ten the national carrier currently has on order. The aircraft will be deployed on the airline’s longhaul routes including Toronto, Madrid and Zurich this year. VIRGIN AUSTRALIA will begin direct flights to Hong Kong starting mid-2017. The new route is part of a wider alliance agreement with Chinese company HNA Aviation – which operates Hainan Airlines, among others – Hong Kong Airlines and HK Express.