It’s a bit of a slow news week thanks to the extended Easter holiday in Germany, but this update did catch my attention.
Germanwings announced that it was suspending flights to two of their destinations from Hamburg:
Hamburg – Birmingham effective June 12 is CANCELLED.
Hamburg – Geneva effective May 29 is CANCELLED.
H/T: AirlineRoute.net
Seven months ago, Austrian first announced that it was planning to begin service this Spring between Vienna and Los Angeles.
Today, the first flights for the new route took place as OS81 departed for Los Angeles at 10:00a and the return flight (OS82) departed back to Vienna shortly after 3:00p.
The route will be flown 6 days a week (No flights on Sundays) by their 777 fleet and will be in place for Austrian’s summer timetable through October.
This brings Austrian’s total weekly flights to the USA to 37. In addition to the new LAX route, OS flies to Miami, New York JFK, Newark, Chicago, and Washington DC.
Lufthansa has updated their timetable to reflect that the A350 will remain on routes from Munich to both Mumbai and Delhi beyond this Summer.
Initially, the A350 was scheduled to serve the routes until the end of the 2017 Summer timetable, but now the schedule reflects that the A350 will remain on these routes for the Winter 2017/18 schedule. This suggests that the A350 will be flying to these destinations through at least March of 2018.
Lufthansa has announced that it has cancelled their 3x/week service between Frankfurt and Tokyo for the Summer timetable. This is an extension of the seasonal cancellation of the route that was to take place between January 9 and March 25.
Initially, LH was to bring back FRA-NRT for the Summer 2017 timetable but the decision has been made to permanently cancel the route.
This announcement does not impact their existing service between Frankfurt and Tokyo Haneda.
SWISS has announced that they will introduce the 777 on several flights between Zurich and Chicago beginning June 1, 2017. Specifically, the 777 will be assigned to Flight LX008 and LX009 for 6 of the 7 weekly flights. Overall, SWISS will maintain 12 flights per week between ZRH and ORD.
Here is what service will look like beginning June 1:
LX006 and 007 will still fly between ZRH and ORD 5 times a week (not Wednesdays/Fridays). The flights will be operated with A330-300 aircraft.
LX008 and 009 will fly daily and will have the 777 on the route everyday except Tuesdays. The Tuesday flight will be operated by an A330-300.
The 777 is expected to be on LX008/009 until October 28, 2017. I expect that the Airbuses will come back for the winter due to demand decrease.
