Clear immigration for US in Dublin on Emirates and more airlines news!

Posted by- Neelam Mathews

Dec 30, 2011

Emirates starts flights to Dublin Airport in January 2012. The new route will expand direct links in the region and its onward connections into India, Africa, South East Asia, Australasia and China. It was the additional long-haul capacity provided by new boarding gates at Terminal 2 which clinched the deal, according to the Dublin Airport Authority (DAA). 

Starting January 9, 2012, Air Seychelles will suspend its routes to London, Milan, Rome and although it had initially planned to continue some flights to Paris, these have also now been cancelled. 
The carrier is looking at narrowbodies for its revised network strategy. The short-haul model will then form the backbone of an expansion in India, East Africa and the Indian Ocean.

As it builds its presence in the Middle East market, Ethiopian Airlines inaugurated a three times weekly new route between its Addis Ababa base and Muscat  using a B737-700 on December 27. Ethiopian Airlines expects to generate additional passengers wishing to fly onto other destinations in Africa and is providing connections to and from cities such as Johannesburg, Nairobi, Lagos, Accra, Dar es Salaam, Zanzibar, Entebbe and Lusaka.

Brussels Airlines is to launch its first ever flights to the U.S with a new daily link to New York JFK to be introduced from its Brussels Airport base from June 1, 2012.  An estimated 219,000 O&D passengers travelled on the route in the past year with up to daily flights already being operated by American Airlines (with a codeshare partnership with British Airways, Etihad Airways and Iberia), Delta Air Lines (with a codeshare partnership with KLM Royal Dutch Airlines) and Jet Airways of India which uses Brussels as a regional hub for connections between cities in India and the US. 

All Nipon Airways (ANA) has revealed that Seattle and San Jose are to become its first US destinations for B787 services - two cities is not does not currently operate to.

Tiger Airways is to launch direct flights from Singapore to Dhaka from March 2012.

Delta Air Lines is expanding its flight schedules for at New York's LaGuardia Airport by 60% and adding services to major destinations such as Miami, Dallas/Fort Worth, Denver and Houston as it seeks to make the gateway a new domestic hub.