AIR CANADA:

Montreal-Houston effective September 4 is CANCELED.
Toronto-Memphis effective September 18 is CANCELED.
Toronto-Houston effective September 4 will increase from 3x/day to 4x/day (4th flight operates weekdays only).
Vancouver-Sydney effective December 14 will increase from 1x/day to 10x/WEEK.

BRUSSELS AIRLINES:

Brussels-Edinburgh effective October 28 will BEGIN 6x/week service.
Brussels-Edinburgh effective March 31 will increase from 6x/week to 12x/week.

LOT POLISH:

Warsaw-Athens effective October 28 will be reduced from 5x/week to 3x/week.

LUFTHANSA:

Munich-Athens effective October 28 will be reduced from 19x/week to 14x/week.
Frankfurt-Athens effective October 28 will be reduced from 3x/day to 2x/day.
Dusseldorf-Sophia effective October 27 is CANCELED.
Munich-London City effective October 27 is CANCELED.

SINGAPORE:

Singapore–Mumbai effective October 28 will increase from 19x/week to 21x/week.

SOUTH AFRICAN:

Johannesburg-Nairobi effective September 13 will increase from 1x/day to 10x/week.
Johannesburg-Mumbai effective September 27 will increase from 6x/week to 1x/DAY.
Johannesburg-Sao Paulo effective October 1 will increase from 10x/week to 11x/week.

SWISS:

Geneva-Athens effective October 28 will be reduced from 2x/day to 1x/day.
Zurich-Geneva effective October 28 will be reduced from 21x/week to 16x/week.
Zurich-Miami effective November 29 will increase from 1x/day to 11x/WEEK.

THAI:

Bangkok-Sapporo effective December 25 will increase from 3x/week to 4x/week.

TURKISH:

Istanbul-Dar es Salaam effective October 28 will be reduced from 1x/day to 5x/week.
Istanbul-Sharm el Sheikh effective October 9 will BEGIN 4x/week service.

PREVIOUS STAR ALLIANCE ROUTE ANNOUNCEMENTS

Source: www.Airlineroute.net

Lufthansa’s Social Media Team has just launched their next contest via Facebook. Called “Sports Bingo”, the contest is geared around the London Olympic Games and is based on a “Bingo” format.

The prizes are outstanding for this promotion. Lufthansa will be giving away 3 sets of tickets to Rio De Janeiro (each set contains 2 tickets), Hotel Vouchers from “Worldhotels” and 10,000 Lufthansa Flight vouchers.

You must use your Facebook account to enter. The format is similar to the “Euro Cup 2012″ Fussball contest that had been run during the tournament.

To register for the contest and begin collecting you Bingo “Markers”, please visit the contest’s Facebook Page. Registration is open from July 25 to August 12, 2012.

Participation is limited to citizens of the following countries (Sorry US, we’re excluded again):

Albania, Argentina, Austria, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Belarus, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Brazil, Bulgaria, Colombia, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Egypt, Estonia, Finland, France, Georgia, Germany, Ghana, Greece, Hungary, Hongkong, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Irish Republic, Israel, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Latvia, Lebanon, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Malta, Mexico, Moldova, Morocco, Netherlands, Nigeria, Norway, Oman, Poland, Portugal, Qatar, Romania, Russian Federation, Saudi Arabia, Serbia, Singapore, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Thailand, Tunisia, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, Venezuela, Vietnam.

Good luck to everyone and let me know if you win something along the way!

To celebrate Belgium’s National Day on July 21, brussels airlines is getting into the spirit of the Holiday and offering travelers a 21% (July 21, get it?) discount off of Economy and Business Class tickets to Brussels. A promo code has been issued that must be used at the time of booking: 11117942.

The fare is valid for travel only on brussels airlines to Brussels. Travel needs to take place between September 15 and December 15, 2012. Booking must occur between July 20 and July 27.

PLEASE USE THIS LINK TO BE TAKEN TO THE FARE SALE

Lufthansa is offering another fare promotion on it’s website. They’ve been “fare-ly” busy with such sales over the last few weeks and it looks like they want passengers to get a head start on fall and winter travel.

For this promotion, the lowest fare is $664.00 for travel between New York and Berlin. Fares to a variety of European cities generally range between $700-$900 from New York, $800-$950 from Chicago and $900-$1000 from San Francisco.

These prices are typical for the season (late summer through winter) so they are not plumbing new depths as fare as pricing goes, but it does give you the opportunity to do some advance planning for travel to Europe later this year. Oktoberfest and Christmas Markets immediately come to mind!

If you’ve never been to a Christmas Market, it’s one of the more enjoyable events that you can take in while visiting in Europe in December. I had a chance to take in the Christmas Market in Nürnberg a couple of years ago, and had an absolutely great time. I took advantage of a business class fare sale and took in the “Market” during a “Mileage Run” weekend to Germany.

Use this link to be taken to the Fare Sale webpage.

As always, there are terms and conditions that apply, and are as follows:

Purchase by: July 25, 2012.
Depart between August 26 and December 12, 2012.
Return between September 2 and January 12, 2013.
Tickets must be purchased 14 days ahead of planned departure date
Flights may be operated by Air Canada, Austrian, Lufthansa, Swiss or United.
Weekend departure/arrival surcharges may apply (up to $70).
Saturday night stay required.
Maximum stay is 1 month.
You can change travel dates for $250 per ticket.

SWISS is holding a contest that will award the Grand Prize Winner a “Behind The Scenes” Tour of Zurich Airport as well as accommodations at the Renaissance Hotel Zurich. The prize also includes an airline ticket from one of 8 German airports to Zurich. Should you win the contest and are not in Germany, getting to Germany will be your responsibility.

After reading through the terms and conditions, it only excludes Lufthansa Group employees and their families, so I suspect the contest is open to everyone else.

The “itinerary” for the winner is as follows:

1 night accommodation at the Renaissance Hotel Zurich
A tour of Zurich Airport
Access to the SWISS Operations Control Center
A tour of the Swiss Product Hub
A cocktail Party at the Renaissance Zurich Hotel

Entry for the contest is easy. There is a simple question that you need to answer: “Why would you be interested in a behind the scene look of Zurich Airport”. Once answered you just need to provide your typical contest contact information. However there is one caveat, the Contest Entry is in German so you may need to use “Google Translate” to have you answer converted to German!

The prize will be “awarded” October 12-13, 2012. The deadline for entering the contest is July 29, 2012.

Please use this link to be taken to the Contest’s Entry Page and Good Luck!

Austrian Airlines today took delivery of 2 Airbus A320 aircraft as it begins to migrate to an Airbus-only fleet for its medium-haul service. In all, 7 new A320′s are expected to be in the fleet by the end of next year. The 2 delivered today are scheduled to enter service later this quarter or early in the 4th quarter of this year. As each new A320 enters service, one 737 will be removed (4 have already been sold). Currently Austrian has a total of 15 A320 and A321′s and 7 Boeing 737′s.

The decision by Austrian to move to an all Airbus fleet for it’s medium haul service is as a result of extensive cost cutting measures initiated by the airline earlier this year. As a member of The Lufthansa Group, it has been challenged by the parent company to return to profitability under Lufthansa’s Group SCORE initiative. The word from Austrian is that a return to profitability is actually possible yet this year.

Standardizing its fleet as much as possible is seen as a necessary step to reach their profitability objective. With an all Airbus fleet for their medium haul routes, they will recognize substantial savings on crew expense and parts inventory/maintenance since they will no longer have to maintain parallel processes for 2 different aircraft models.

Austrian still operates 6 Boeing 767′s and 4 Boeing 777′s on it’s long haul routes along with an assortment of Bombardier and Fokker aircraft for it’s short haul schedules.

At the moment Austrian is saying that it will continue to operate Boeing Aircraft on it’s long haul flights, but I can’t help but wonder if that attitude will change over time especially when the A350′s start entering service. Having a standardized fleet across it’s entire operation should only bring additional efficiencies and savings to Austrian. More to come on this since their 767′s and 777′s are not getting any younger!

Lufthansa is set to begin A380 service between Frankfurt and Houston in August and is marking the occasion with a fare sale. Fares from Houston to most European destinations range between $1200 to $1450 and are available for a limited time.

If you have never flown on an A380, I would recommend that you try it. I flew on the A380 to Frankfurt on trips last year and enjoyed the ride. Very quiet and very big would be 2 appropriate ways to describe the aircraft. The aircraft even has cameras located throughout the fuselage so that you can watch external views during take off, landing and even during the flight on your Inflight Entertainment System. You can see an example of these videos below.

As with any fare sale there are terms and conditions, and for this Fare Promotion they are as follows:

Tickets must be purchased by 07/31/2012
You must depart from Houston between August 1 and August 25, 2012
You must return to Houston between August 5 and September 25, 2012
Tickets must be purchased 14 days in advance of departure date.
Saturday night stay is required.
Maximum stay is 1 month
Travel date changes are allowed, but are charged $250 per change.

For more information on specific fares between City pairs, please visit the Fare Sale webpage.

The A380 External Camera videos:

The Take Off:

The Landing:

Swiss is holding a weekend fare sale for travel from Zurich or Geneva to your choice of Venice, Madrid, Prague, Milan or Rome.

Fares are attractive, ranging between CHF 199 (Geneva-Prague) and CHF 219 (approx. $223 USD) for departures from Zurich.

As usual, terms and conditions apply and are as follows:

Tickets must be booked between 11 July and 13 July.
Travel must occur between 12 July and 15 July.
No Refunds
No Rebooking

For more information on specific fares between City pairs, please visit SWISS’ Fare Sale Website.

In an article from Friedlnews, it appears that Vienna has received permission to proceed to the next step of the approval process to begin construction of a 3rd runway. According to the article, final approval is expected in 2014, construction would begin in 2016 and the Runway would be operational 4-5 years afterwards.

This comes as especially good news for Lufthansa Group’s Tyrolean Airways (formerly Austrian Airlines) as they navigate through a restructuring program.

Fortunately, we finally see a decision taken in the right direction that will help improve airport operations and help airlines expand to meet the growing demand for air travel.

Recently Munich had voted down a 3rd runway and Frankfurt has had its share of problems with the local community in terms of using its runways overnight. It may be turn out that Munich’s and Frankfurt’s loss may become Vienna’s gain. With the new Star Alliance Terminal now in operation (discussed here and here), Vienna is quickly becoming an airport to be reckoned with.

If you have been reading my scribble over the last several months you should know where I stand on airport expansion. I finally have something to be happy about as far as airport expansion plans go.

Here is a copy of the FriedlNews Release:

Vienna Airport to Build Third Landing Strip

Published: 5 minutes ago 18:31 · (FriedlNews)
Vienna International Airport is now entitled to start the construction works oft he third landing strip. The construction works will take two years.

After a proceedings of twelve years, board member Günther Ofner is happy to announce that Vienna International Airport will get a new landing strip in two years. Above all, the environment impact assess took a lot of time.

For Ofner, a third landing strip is an enormous competitive advantage for Vienna. In Europe, the capacities of airports are becoming increasingly scarce, he says. The construction costs are expected to reach about € 2.0bn.

Ofner does not think that a capital increase at Vienna International Airport is necessary. However, a capital injection would be no problems for the major shareholders, the province of Vienna and the province of Lower Austria, Ofner argues.

Nevertheless, board member Julian Jäger views the decision to be an „important step“ but no final decision yet. As a result, the final decision is expected for 2014. Construction works will not begin before 2016, he says. However, this would be sufficient to set up the new landing strip in 2020 or 2021.

This week, Vienna International Airport could announce another record in passengers. The number of passengers handled by Vienna Airport rose 7.1% year-on-year to 2,062,155 in June 2012. Flight movements and maximum take-off weight (MTOW) increased 2.2% and 0.9%, respectively, while cargo turnover declined 1.9%. The number of transfer passengers was 14.9% higher than in June 2011, and the number of local passengers rose by 3.6% during this same period.

Passenger traffic to Eastern Europe increased 17.3% in comparison with June of the previous year. The number of passengers travelling to Western Europe rose by 5.1%, and the Middle East recorded growth of 14.4% during June 2012.

Lufthansa announced today a very brief, but great fare sale from cities in Germany to virtually every European city served by Lufthansa. The sale is quick, you must book your tickets between Friday and Sunday (13-15 July). Fares start at €99 and work their way up to €129 for most routes (roundtrip). I love these kind of fare sales because it allows passengers traveling to Europe to add on destinations without having to alter existing tickets (which for the most part would be expensive or not allowed).

Travel must begin between 1 September and 15 December and must conclude between 2 September and 15 March (2013). For intra Germany destinations, the minimum stay is 1 night. Minimum stays at non-Germany destinations is 3 nights, or Friday-Saturday or Saturday-Sunday (in other words weekends to European cities are not subject to the 3 night day minimum). The maximum stay on these fares is 3 months.

For this fare sale Lufthansa is utilizing their new “Flight Price Guarantee“ which lets you put your ticket on hold immediately and allows you up to 48 hours to pay for the fare. This is a great way for you to lock in your fares and seats when a great deal comes up on short notice. This way you can work out the rest of your plans and not worry about a fare going up, or a seat disappearing on your desired flights.

For more information and specific fares between City pairs, please visit the Lufthansa Fare Sale Website.