Airline News April 2005

Airguide Online, April 30, 2005

GB Airways, disguised as BA, will start direct flights to Sharm El Sheik (three times a week) and Hurghada (twice weekly) on the Egyptian Red Sea Riviera from 22 October 2005. The services will be operated by a two class Airbus A320 series aircraft. British Airways themselves already fly from Heathrow to Cairo and another franchise partner, BMED, to Alexandria, also from LHR. http://www.gbairways.comhttp://www.ba.com Apr 30, 2005

British Railways and their actual routings have been something of a mystery since the demise of BR. Look around and whilst there are plenty of timetables and maps of the individual railway companies there is nothing covering the whole country (although to be fair Virgin Rail did have a one off attempt). Even the excellent Transport Direct web site does not offer this information. It has taken an individual, one Barry S. Doe, public transport consultant, to actually produce a free offering. It's all on his web site. http://www.barrydoe.plus.com/railmap.pdf http://www.barrydoe.co.uk Apr 11, 2005

Club 328, the Southampton Airport based executive jet operation, has a chief operating officer, Mike Farge. He takes over from Warren Seymour who has moved to the Isle of Man to concentrate on activities at regional air services provider EuroManx. Mike joined the Club 328 Group in July 2004. He started in the aviation business nearly 40 years ago with Westland. He has held senior managerial/director positions with blue chip companies BAE Systems; FLS Aerospace and Meggitt plc. Club 328 has its own AOC and operates BAE HS-125s, Cessna Citation V and Dornier 328Jet aircraft, providing on-demand business and leisure flights, plus regular business flights. Headquartered at Southampton Airport, it has other bases in the Isle of Man, Paris, Geneva and Nice. http://www.club328.com Apr 8, 2005

Lagos, Nigeria is not to be joined to New York, at least not by Continental Airlines in the immediate future. The Houston carrier has withdrawn plans announced last December to introduce what would be the only scheduled nonstop transatlantic service to Nigeria. The airline says it was unable to complete all the necessary authorization. As Continental now plans to introduce a Newark - Delhi service in October, one can assume a reallocation of the aircraft. http://www.continental.com Apr 18, 2005

CSA Czech has increased flights between the UK and Prague to 96 a week. Prior to launching its summer schedule last weekend, CSA offered 83 flights a week between seven UK airports and Prague. The regional airports have benefited most from the increased frequencies with Birmingham flights going from 10 to 13 flights per week, Manchester from 13 to 17, Edinburgh from six to 10 and Glasgow from seven to 10. Flights with CSA out of Heathrow (20 per week), Gatwick and Stansted (both 13 per week) to Prague will stay the same for the summer. http://www.csa.cz Apr 4, 2005

Cyprus Airways has confirmed that a buyer for Greek subsidiary Hellas Jet has not been found, setting in motion the process for its closure in May. The airline, majority owned by the Cyprus government, created Hellas Air in 2003 as a fallback due to its frustrations over a possible acquisition of Olympic. With the exception of the short Olympic period it has not met expectations and clearly the airline, with its own financial problems, could not sustain continued losses. Also on the Greek front bids for Olympic were due in last week with Athens-based Aegean thought to be a front-runner. http://www.cyprusairways.com Apr 18, 2005