Flight – The News Desk

Emirates is expanding its flight schedules for Eid Al Fitr – Business Traveller

7Apr

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Travel

Emirates is expanding its flight schedules for Eid Al Fitr – Business Traveller

Emirates will be expanding its schedules across the region for the upcoming Eid Al Fitr holiday period, with 19 additional flights to destinations including Jedda, Kuwait, Beirut, and Amman. The airline is expecting more than 150,000 customers to fly with them during the holiday period across the region. They will add an extra seven flights to Jeddah from 7-13 April, providing Emirates customers with more flexibility to venture out to popular destinations like Dubai, London, the Maldives, or visit family and friends in Colombo and Karachi, as well as six extra flights to Kuwait between 7-20 April, catering to the significant travel demand during that time to popular leisure gateways like Dubai, Bangkok, Osaka, as well as Chennai, Hyderabad, Sialkot and Peshawar. Emirates’ flight schedule...

Virgin Atlantic to fly 100 per cent SAF transatlantic flight – Business Traveller

29Nov

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Travel

Virgin Atlantic to fly 100 per cent SAF transatlantic flight – Business Traveller

Virgin Atlantic is set to operate the first transatlantic flight powered by 100 per cent sustainable aviation fuel (SAF). The airline’s Boeing 787 Dreamliner departed London Heathrow for New York JFK International at 1130, under the label ‘Flight100’. Commercial aircraft are currently limited to a maximum blend of 50 per cent SAF and 50 per cent conventional jet fuel, but this flight will mark the first time that a commercial airline has operated a 100 per cent SAF-fuelled transatlantic flight. Virgin aims to prove that SAF is a “safe drop-in replacement for fossil derived jet fuel”, meaning that it can be used on the current engines and aircraft. The SAF used on this flight will be a blend of 88 per cent hydroprocessed esters and fatty acids (HEFA) and 12 per cent synthetic aromatic ker...

After Air India, IndiGo launches AI-powered chat assistant for customers

27Nov

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Business

After Air India, IndiGo launches AI-powered chat assistant for customers

IndiGo on Monday said it has launched an Artificial Intelligence (AI)-powered chat assistant "6Eskai" to address customer queries in 10 different languages. India's largest airline has followed the footsteps of Air India, which launched its AI-powered chat assistant "Maharaja" on November 10. While Maharaja is powered by Microsoft's Azure OpenAI service, 6Eskai is powered by Microsoft's GPT-4 technology. 6Eskai is capable of performing a wide range of tasks, including booking tickets, applying promotional discounts, booking addons, performing web check-ins, helping in seat selection, planning trips, answering FAQs (frequently asked questions), and connecting customers with an agent, IndiGo noted. Moreover, the bot is not only capable of understanding written or...

Emirates becomes first airline to use 100 per cent SAF on an A380 flight – Business Traveller

24Nov

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Travel

Emirates becomes first airline to use 100 per cent SAF on an A380 flight – Business Traveller

On Wednesday, Emirates became the world’s first airline to operate an A380 demonstration flight using 100 per cent Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF). The flight was operated from Dubai International (DXB) with one of its four engines powered on 100 per cent SAF. That successful flight, Emirates says, helped demonstrate the potential of SAF “as a drop-in replacement that matches jet fuel’s technical and chemical requirements, while being a more sustainable alternative.” This is the first time that drop-in SAF has been used on an A380 aircraft. The 100 per cent SAF was used in one Engine Alliance GP7200 engine, while conventional jet fuel was used in the other three engines. The PW980 auxiliary power unit from Pratt & Whitney Canada also ran on 100 per cent SAF. The flight carried four t...

Singapore Airlines to resume fifth daily Sydney flight – Business Traveller

9Nov

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Travel

Singapore Airlines to resume fifth daily Sydney flight – Business Traveller

Singapore Airlines (SIA) has announced it will be offering a fifth daily service between its Singapore hub and Sydney. Starting 27 October next year, the Star Alliance carrier will add a new 0645 daily flight to its Singapore schedule. This will be available for the six-month Northern Winter season, subject to regulatory approvals, Sydney airport said. SIA will deploy a mix of Airbus A380, A350-900 and Boeing 777-300ER aircraft on its five daily Sydney frequencies. This new fifth flight means Sydney airport will become the largest port in the airline’s network from Changi Airport, with more than 12,000 seats available for passengers each week. Singapore Airlines is also offering the fifth daily supplementary service during the upcoming Christmas holiday peak from 2 December to 14 Jan...

Air France’s Paris CDG-New York JFK services to take on “iconic Concorde flight numbers” – Business Traveller

27Oct

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Travel

Air France’s Paris CDG-New York JFK services to take on “iconic Concorde flight numbers” – Business Traveller

Customers flying on Air France’s key Paris CDG-New York JFK route may note a change to the flight numbers from next week. The carrier has decided to reassign current flights AF015 (JFK to CDG) and AF022 (CDG to JFK) as AF001 and AF002 respectively. The iconic flight numbers were previously assigned to Concorde services until the supersonic aircraft was retired in 2003. The move takes effect from 29 October, as part of Air France’s 90th anniversary celebrations. Air France gears up for 90th anniversary Business Traveller recently reviewed the premium economy service on flight AF022, and the carrier’s new business class on flight AF015 – to read both reviews, see: British Airways previously assigned its all-business class London City-New York JFK route (which was cancelled in 2020) with ...

Flynas to begin new flight between Jeddah and Ankara – Business Traveller

21Oct

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Travel

Flynas to begin new flight between Jeddah and Ankara – Business Traveller

Saudi low-cost airline Flynas will launch a direct weekly flight between Jeddah and Ankara starting 7 November. The airline said that the decision to introduce the new flight was made to meet the objectives of the kingdom’s Pilgrims Experience Program (PEP) to facilitate access to the Two Holy Mosques and the National Civil Aviation Strategy to enable national air carriers to contribute to connecting Saudi with 250 international destinations and to reach 330 million passengers by 2030. As part of its network expansion plans, flynas has said that it will add seven new routes later this year. These routes will operate from its upcoming operations base at Madinah Airport starting from December 1, 2023. The announcement of flynas introducing a weekly flight from Jeddah to Türkiye comes as Sa...

5Oct

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Travel

Gatwick extends flight cap until 15 October – Business Traveller

Gatwick airport has extended its temporary cap on daily flight numbers until the middle of October, as it continues to work through issues caused by air traffic control staff absences. On 25 September the airport imposed a limit of 800 daily departing and arriving flights, which had originally been due to last until Sunday 1 October. At the time Gatwick said the decision had been made alongside NATS, which operates the airport’s air traffic control tower, with 30 per cent of tower staff “currently unavailable for a variety of medical reasons including Covid”. The airport has now confirmed that following discussions with NATS and airlines, the cap will remain in place until 15 October “as a precautionary measure”. In a statement provided to Business Traveller, a spokesperson for Gatwick s...

Gatwick caps flight numbers due to air traffic control sickness – Business Traveller

28Sep

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Travel

Gatwick caps flight numbers due to air traffic control sickness – Business Traveller

Gatwick airport has implemented a cap on daily flight numbers for the rest of the week, as it battles issues caused by air traffic control staff absences. A limit of 800 daily departing and arriving flights will be in force until Sunday 1 October. Gatwick said the decision had been made alongside NATS, which operates the airport’s air traffic control tower, with 30 per cent of tower staff “currently unavailable for a variety of medical reasons including Covid”. Friday 29 September is set to be the most disrupted day for cancellations, with the airport having expected 865 movements (arrivals and departures) before the limit was put in place. Under normal circumstances the airport would have welcomed 829 movements today (Wednesday 27 September), followed by 840 on Thursday 28 September, an...

UAE’s ADNEC Group launches charter flight services – Business Traveller

4Sep

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Travel

UAE’s ADNEC Group launches charter flight services – Business Traveller

ADNEC Group, through its tourism arm Tourism 365, has launched new charter flight services from multiple locations around the world to Abu Dhabi. The new service, available from Europe and central Asia, is poised to boost visitor arrivals to the UAE. Charter flights have been launched by Tourism 365 “from high demand and non-commercially operated international markets”, according to new agency WAM. These include Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Belarus, and Tajikistan through its Tour Operators Market like Easy Booking from Central Asia. This October, the German market will also see the launch of weekly charter operations to Abu Dhabi from airports including Leipzig, Nuremberg and Cologne through Capital Holidays. The charter flights will complement the existing direct com...