Over the past week Air China and Turkish led the way with route announcements. Some of the highlights include Air China beginning service between Beijing and Washington DC as well as between Shanghai and Munich. Additionally, Austrian is planning to resume service between Vienna and Tehran, pending government approval.
AIR CHINA:
Beijing – Washington IAD: Effective June 10 will begin 4x/week service (pending gov’t approval).
Beijing – Vienna-Barcelona: Effective May 5 will begin 4x/week service.
Beijing – Vladivostok: Effective June 3 will begin 4x/week service.
Shanghai – Fukuoka: Effective June 1 will increase from 1x/day to 2x/day.
Shanghai – Munich: Effective June 6 will begin 4x/week service.
ANA:
Osaka – Aomori: Effective July 1 will begin 3x/day service.
Sapporo – Aomori: Effective July 1 will begin 3x/day service.
AUSTRIAN:
Vienna – Frankfurt: Effective in late March will increase from 5x/day to 6x/day.
Vienna – Tehran: Effective March 11 will resume 5x/week service (pending gov’t approval).
COPA:
Panama City – Montreal: Effective June 2 will begin 4x/week service.
Panama City – Ft Lauderdale: Effective July 11 will begin 4x/week service.
ETHIOPIAN:
Addis Ababa – Shanghai: Effective March 29 will begin 1x/day service.
SAS:
Copenhagen – Lodz: Effective February 4, 2x/week service is cancelled (Operated by Cimber).
TURKISH:
Istanbul – Almaty: Effective January 27 will increase from 9x/week to 10x/week.
Istanbul – Astana: Effective February 10 will increase from 3x/week to 5x/week.
Istanbul – Budapest: Effective March 30 will increase from 2x/day to 3x/day.
Istanbul – Dusseldorf: Effective June 17 will increase from 28x/week to 29x/week.
Istanbul – Niamey – Ouagadougou: Effective March 30 will increase from 4x/week to 5x/week.
In late November I had the opportunity to visit AUSTRIAN Technik and take a behind-the-scenes look of their facility in Vienna. I was expecting a high level tour highlighting a few key pieces of the operation, but what took place was quite the opposite. The head of the facility was kind of enough to spend over 2 hours personally escorting me throughout the hangars showing me every aspect of their operation.
As part of the tour I had the ability to board an A320 during a comprehensive C-Check (Interior cabin and panels removed for thorough inspection), tour the various departments (Metal Fabricating, Upholstery, Paint, Tires/Brakes, Engine, Graphic Design and the main Engineering offices) and had free reign to poke, prod or handle anything that I came across. I’ll cover these parts of the tour in upcoming posts since there is simply too much to cover in a single writing. This was truly a fantastic experience for this recovering Avgeek!
As my luck would have it during my visit, one of OS’ Boeing 777s was being brought into the hangar to have its Air Conditioning System serviced before its flight later that day. So obviously we took time out of the tour to watch this take place. It’s not everyday that an airline arranges this kind of an event for a visitor 😉 !
The timing was perfect and I had the ability to climb up a 4 story A320 scaffolding to capture the 777 being towed into position:
As usual for these kind of posts, I’ll let the pictures tell the rest of the story:
Looking down from the A320 Scaffold
The A320 Scaffold is approximately 5 stories tall
Not a bad vantage point!
A quick look at AUSTRIAN’s new Business Class Cabin
AUSTRIAN announced today that it will be the official carrier for the Austrian Olympic Team for the 2014 Olympics. According to ‘OS’, this continues to the relationship that the airline has cultivated with Austrian Olympic Committee over the last 21 years. The agreement between AUSTRIAN and the Austrian Olympic Team was signed in Vienna on 10 December.
It will take 13 non-stop flights to Sochi to carry the Austrian Team, their equipment, trainers and other government and Olympic officials to the games. In the past, Austrian has transported Austria’s athletes to the Olympic Games in Lillehammer, Albertville, Barcelona, Sydney and Salt Lake City.
To make it more convenient for passengers to stay informed of changes in their flight status, AUSTRIAN has begun a service that alerts passengers of any changes via SMS text messages or E-mail to their mobile devices. The timing of this launch couldn’t be better as winter sets in on Europe and flight delays tend to be at their worst.
The program, dubbed yourUpdate, will notify passengers whenever their flight is delayed by more than 30 minutes or cancelled altogether. In the event of a cancellation, the text message or email with contain contact information for rebooking. In most cases, passengers are rebooked automatically but the contact information should still come in handy. In addition, passengers whose travels involve transiting Vienna Schwechat (VIE) will receive automatic updates as far as gate changes are concerned at VIE.
In order to receive these updates, passengers simply need to provide their cell phone number or email at time of booking. Miles&More members are automatically enrolled and need to do nothing more.
Getting into the retail holiday spirit, AUSTRIAN is offering everyone a 10% discount on all economy class flights booked on December 2. The offer is valid for travel taking place between January 1 and March 31, 2014. Flights must be operated by Austrian Airlines.
The offer will be available on Austrian’s Website. You’ll need to enter the code CyberMonday13 in order to have the discount calculated into your fare.
