Sky news: Air Transat, Saratov Arilines, Finnair, Singapore Airlines, Cathay Dragon, easyJet, etc.

The Russian airline company Saratov Arilines announced yesterday Monday that it has decided to suspend the operation of its six Antonov An-148s following the crash of one of these aircraft near Moscow with 71 people on board.

London-City Airport, the closest to the centre of the British capital, was closed yesterday Monday following the discovery of a half-ton bomb from the Second World War. All flights were cancelled, affecting 16,000 passengers, and some were diverted to other London airports.

Air Transat announces the new 2018 summer menu by Chef Daniel Vézina. This collaboration, begun almost a year ago, continues with this 3rd edition. To be discovered from May 1st: two new exclusive dishes as well as the return of four dishes among travellers’ favourites and two breakfasts. The new dishes, Quebec blueberry pork filet mignon and cordon-blue corded chicken breasts garnished with smoked meat, as well as the other options of this summer 2018 menu, are now available in pre-order.

The Cathay Dragon company will be serving the capital of Shandong Province, known as the « Spring City », starting next March. It is the 28th destination in mainland China served by Cathay Pacific and Cathay Dragon.

JingKai Wong is the new Managing Director of Singapore Airlines (SIA) for France. He succeeds Andrew Budiman, who is expected to take up a new position at the company’s headquarters in Singapore.

The airline Turkish Airlines will now connect the capital of the Comoros, Moroni, via its hub in Istanbul during the European summer period from 17 June to 14 September 2018.
Turkish Airlines will operate three flights a week from Istanbul: Mondays, Wednesdays and Saturdays. From France, from the airports of Paris CDG Terminal 1, Lyon, Nice, Marseille, Toulouse and Bordeaux, passengers will have to leave on Sundays, Tuesdays and Fridays with a connection at 01:40 am to the Comoros and an arrival in Moroni at 1:30 pm.

easyJet revealed statistics related to its passenger traffic for the month of January 2018: With 5,159,860 passengers carried, it is 8.7% more than in January 2017. The load factor was 88.4%, compared with 86.2% last year at the same time. The cumulative total for the last 12 months was 82,048,573 passengers compared to 74,921,296 last January.

Finnair does not need a paperweight. From now on, passengers on Finnair’s long-haul flights will have a wide selection of newspapers in digital form available to them. More than 50 international newspapers and magazines are available in PDF format via the Nordic Sky portal. The latter is accessible on board the Finnish airline A330 and A350.

Bordeaux Airport registered 388,000 passengers and an increase of +3.2% compared to January 2017. International traffic continued to show exceptional growth with +24%. National traffic decreased by 8.2%. Excluding Parisian flights, the airport grew by 16% on the rest of domestic flights. Low-cost flights confirmed their dynamism with growth of +23.6% and 179,300 passengers per month. It should be noted that aircraft movements were down 1.4%, with growth still largely driven by larger capacity aircraft.

The Square’s shops are being revamped at Lyon-Saint Exupéry-Strong> Lyon-Saint Exupéry Airport. After the opening of a 10,000 m² shopping and leisure area in the new Terminal 1B, it is now the turn of the Square (commercial area at the entrance to Terminal 2) to introduce a new shopping offer.
The old pharmacy (now at Terminal 1B) and the O’ Picnic catering point will be replaced before the summer by two new stores: FNAC with a leisure-culture offer dedicated to travelers on the move, Travel & Co by RELAY, a new concept of boutique specialising in travel comfort.

Star Alliance has launched a digital services platform (PSN), a first step towards an overall improvement in the digital and mobile services offered to passengers travelling on the Star Alliance network, which has 28 member airlines. The platform has been developed
and implemented in collaboration with Accenture as part of the alliance’s strategy to improve passenger travel.