AIRLINE NEWS
BRITISH AIRWAYS has announced a range of summer services from Manchester, Birmingham, Bristol and London Stansted. From May, it will begin flights from Manchester to Alicante, Ibiza, Malaga, Mykonos, Nice and Palma, and a weekly London City service. The same month, the carrier will return to Birmingham and Bristol with summer routes to Florence, Ibiza, Malaga, Palma, operating on Saturdays. It will also launch weekly flights from Stansted to Florence, Geneva and Nice. RYANAIR is to launch a new route between Liverpool and Milan Malpensa this winter. The three-times weekly service will start in October. IBERIA is to boost its Madrid-Barcelona shuttle service from 16 times each weekday to 26 (13 at the weekend) from July, when a new agreement sees Iberia and Vueling jointly operate the shuttle. KLM will enlarge its international Crown lounge at Amsterdam Schiphol over the next two years. Phased work will take place until spring 2019, with the lounge remaining open throughout. Seating capacity will increase from 800 to 1,400. AIR INDIA has moved its Heathrow operations from T4 to T2, joining its fellow Star Alliance member carriers. ETIHAD AIRWAYS will launch its third Abu Dhabi-Bengaluru service on March 26. A two-class A321 will depart the UAE at 2145 and arrive in Bengaluru at 0315 the next day, with the return flight leaving India at 0435 and landing at 0705. AUSTRIAN AIRLINES will be expanding its Iranian services with a Shiraz route on July 2. A continuation of the carrier’s Vienna-Isfahan link, flights will be operated by an A320 departing Vienna four times a week at 2200, arriving into Shiraz (after a short stop in Isfahan) at 0310. FINNAIR is to increase frequencies on its routes between Helsinki and Russia, which it says will improve connectivity with Finnair’s network from the UK. From April 10, the carrier will double its flights between the Finnish capital and Moscow, to 14 weekly. From April 23, it will add six weekly flights to its Helsinki-St Petersburg route, bringing the total frequency to 20 flights per week.