Oasis Hong Kong Airlines has gone into liquidation and has ceased flying from today. The budget carrier had started flying between London and Hong Kong in October 2006 and later added a service from Hong Kong to Vancouver.
Read more here: Oasis Suspends Flights
Today marks the day when Singapore Airlines‘ first A380 flight arrives at London Heathrow from Singapore. According to BAA’s website flight SQ308 scheduled for 1505 is expected to land at 1444 for arrival at a special gate (‘Pier 6′) at terminal 3.
Singapore has been operating the A380 Super Jumbo since October 2007 on flights between Singapore and Sydney, Australia and now has 3 aircraft in service.
If you want to fly on the A380 you can book with Singapore Airlines – return to Singapore from £570. Flights to Australia can be had from £750 return – you can fly out to Oz on the 380 as follows:
Flight SQ 317 Departs LHR 1155, Arrives SIN 0745
Flight SQ 221 Departs SIN 2035, Arrives SYD 0555
This gives you 13 hours to kill at Changi airport – you could head into the city on one of the free tours available.
If you want to return on the A380 you will pay a slight premium which will bump the price to £882.
April 2008 will mark the start of ‘Open Skies‘ which finally deregulates air travel between the EU and the USA. This will mean that any EU or US airline will be able to fly whichever routes they want between the EU and the US – this should result in lower transatlantic fares for the passenger.
Consider London Heathrow where 4 airlines have had a virtual monopoly on flights to the US – British Airways, Virgin Atlantic, American Airlines and United Airlines. Come April we will see some new routes coming to the market as airlines juggle valuable take-off and landing slots.
Air France-KLM plans to fly from Heathrow to Los Angeles. In addition KLM has given some slots to its US partner Northwest Airlines which will fly from LHR to Detroit, Seattle and Minneapolis.
Fellow SkyTeam carrier Delta Airlines will fly to New York JFK and to its Atlanta hub. Continental Airlines will service New York Newark and Houston.
Meanwhile Star Alliance carrier United will add a route to Denver.
With American Airlines starting a second daily flight from London Stansted to New York from April 2008, plus the all business class airlines EOS and Silverjet (Maxjet having folded recently) there will be plenty of competition which could benefit passengers particularly in business class.
Not to be outdone British Airways is planning its own non-stop flights from mainland Europe to New York. Codenamed ‘Project Lauren’ BA will probably operate flights configured with Club World and premium economy seating from Euro hubs such as Brussels, Amsterdam and Paris. (Note, More info here: Open Skies)
One dark cloud on the horizon for airlines and passengers is the high oil price. Having recently touched $100 per barrel, BA, Virgin and United have all raised their fuel surcharges with others to follow soon. Should oil keep rising (and some analysts are predicting $150-$200 oil) then this will increase airfares worldwide.
Silverjet, the all-business class airline has announced today that it is to start flying from London Luton to Dubai (DXB). The daily service will commence from November 18th 2007 and is timetabled as follows:
Luton to Dubai departs 2100, arrives 0830 (+1)
Dubai to Luton departs 1030, arrives 1445
Return prices start from £999 all-in.
Silverjet already operates a twice-daily flight from Luton to New York Newark in competition with other start-ups Maxjet and EOS Airlines. Silverjet uses Boeing 767s configured with 100 seats of 75″ pitch.
The Luton – Dubai flight marks the significant milestone of being the first non Trans-Atlantic all-business class international service.
Read our articles on Silverjet and background on Silverjet