Emirates flies into Chicago for first time

Emirates has as commenced a daily nonstop passenger service to Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport.

On-board the inaugural flight was a joint VIP delegation from the US and Dubai as well as international media.

The inaugural flight carried passengers from more than 20 different countries to Chicago, demonstrating just how Emirates connects people across the globe.

“The Chicago route extends our passenger network to America’s third-largest city and complements our existing dedicated freighter service that operates to O’Hare,” said Adel Al Redha, Emirates chief operations officer.

“The launch of this route, will allow us to offer Emirates’ unique product and award-winning service to passengers flying to and from the Midwest to our home in Dubai or onwards to more than 140 global destinations including the Far East, Africa and India.”

“Launching Chicago-Dubai nonstop passenger service is another important step in establishing Chicago as one of the top tourism destinations in the world and achieving our goal of hosting 55 million visitors by 2020,” said Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel.

“Increased connectivity with Dubai will expose more international guests to the world-class hospitality, shopping districts, cultural attractions and architectural achievements that make Chicago one of the greatest cities in the world.”

The new service will operate as flight EK235, departing from Dubai International airport at 09:45 and arriving at O’Hare at 15:25.

The return flight, EK236, will depart O’Hare at 20:35 and arrive in Dubai at 19:10 the next day.

The route will be served by the US-built Boeing 777-200LR aircraft powered by GE90 engines.

In addition to passenger service, the Chicago-Dubai flight will carry up to 17 tons of cargo per flight and increase trade links between the two cities.

Emirates began operating cargo service to Chicago in 2013.

Currently, Emirates SkyCargo flies a twice-weekly, dedicated freight service out of O’Hare that carried nearly 12,000 tons of cargo last year.

Emirates began passenger services to the US in 2004 with services to New York.

The airline has steadily added more US routes over the past decade.

Chicago is the ninth US gateway to join the Emirates network, following the launch of the Boston service in March.

Fastjet commences flights between Tanzania and Zimbabwe

Fastjet has announce that its inaugural flight between Dar es Salaam in Tanzania and Harare in Zimbabwe took place earlier,  marking the launch of the low-cost airline’s third international route in Africa, and the only direct air link between the two African capital cities.

Forward bookings for the twice-weekly flights are well ahead of management expectations and with the first flights from Zimbabwe already operating to full capacity, fastjet has decided to add a third rotation which will go on sale today.

“fastjet has responded to requests from Zimbabweans and Tanzanians asking for a direct route connecting these two cities with affordable, reliable flights,” said Ed Winter, chief executive of fastjet.

“The flight from Harare was fully booked.

“With future bookings also looking strong we’ve decided to add a third rotation each Thursday which we expect to commence at the end of next month.”

EK785 New Emirates flight to Nigerian capital, Abuja

Emirates has now connected Abuja to its worldwide network, making the Nigerian capital the airline’s 26th destination in Africa and its 144th worldwide.

Emirates flight EK785 landed at Abuja’s Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport earlier, marking the start of the airline’s daily service to its second destination in Nigeria.

Services to Lagos were launched just over ten years ago.

“This new daily flight provides a convenient point to point service for our customers between Abuja and Dubai, and it will meet and further stimulate a vibrant market demand between the two cities.

“It will also serve our customers in Nigeria and around the network with additional connectivity and daily frequency.

“Our leisure and business passengers from Nigeria can now better connect to the Middle East, Europe, the United States and Asia via our hub in Dubai.

“Customers in Abuja can experience our A380 flagship aircraft to 29 destinations around the world, including popular ones like Beijing, Hong Kong, Mumbai, New York, Jeddah and London,” said Adil Al Ghaith, Emirates vice president commercial operations, Northern and Western Africa.

“With a fast growing economy, Nigeria is a key market for Emirates.

“We started operations to Nigeria on 2nd January 2004, with four flights a week from Dubai to Lagos.

“Since then, our operations have steadily grown with increases in both frequency and capacity between Lagos and Dubai.

“Today, we fly twice daily to Lagos and now we have added Abuja, giving us a total of more than 12,200 seats a week, which will further stimulate business and leisure travel, as well as trade,” he added.

Emirates flight EK785 departs Dubai daily at 10:50hrs and arrives in Abuja at 15:10hrs.

The return flight, EK 786 departs Abuja at 19:35hrs and arrives in Dubai at 05:50hrs the next morning.

Ethiopian Airlines upgrades Dreamliner fleet

Ethiopian Airlines has added its ninth Boeing 787 Dreamliner to its expanding fleet.

The new aircraft which was received earlier and has been named ‘Great Wall of China’.

This latest additional aircraft will support the route to Hong Kong from Addis Ababa.

Ethiopian was the first airline in the world outside Japan to receive the ultramodern Dreamliner in August 2012 and was the first airline to bring the new jet to London’s largest hub airport Heathrow.

In addition, it currently operates the largest 787 fleet in Africa.

The Boeing 787 Dreamliner serves as Ethiopian’s core fleet on its fast expanding mid and long range routes between Africa, China, India, Brazil, the USA and Europe.

In July, the eighth B787 was added to the fleet to support the increased frequency of flights between London Heathrow and Addis Ababa as the airline increased to a daily schedule on July 8th.

Group chief executive officer of Ethiopian Airlines Group, Tewolde Gebremariam commented: “For almost seven decades, Ethiopian has been playing a pioneering role in African aviation by providing its esteemed customers the most technologically advanced aircraft the industry has to offer.

“Going forward, we will continue to expand our 787 destinations with the aim of providing our esteemed customers with the ultimate in on-board comfort.”

Ethiopian’s Boeing 787 offers unique features, which enhance passenger comfort such as greatly reduced noise, higher cabin humidity, the largest windows in the sky, unique lighting adaptable to the outside environment, wider aisles, more headroom and more seating flexibility.

Ethiopian’s B787s offer a two-class configuration with 24 business class/Cloud Nine seats and 246 seats in economy.

Ethiopian is a Pan-African global carrier with the youngest fleet in the continent with an average age of less than seven years and currently serves 82 international destinations across five continents with over 200 daily departures.

W3 Launches operations into Benin Republic

BY LOUIS IBA 

Trade and diplomatic relations between Nigeria and Benin Republic received a big boost  recently as Arik Air commenced direct flight services from Lagos into Cotonou, Benin Republic on Monday.

Businesses, diplomatic, tourism and even academic relationship between the two neighbouring countries have spanned decades, but sadly have been conducted largely by road due to the absence of direct flight services linking the two countries together.  Up until three years ago, it used to be a smooth and pleasant journey going into and out of the two countries by road through the Lagos-Badagry expressway up to the Seme boarder. But the state of the road got so terrible that a journey through that route which lasted less than one hour was stretched into several hours.

Trevor Henry, manager sales and distribution for Arik Air said in the last two years there had been a pressure based on public demand to open up direct air services between the two countries.

Henry said besides taking passengers from Lagos to Cotonou, Arik Air also got the permit from Benin Republic to fly out passengers from Cotonou to Douala, Cameroon .

Arik Air yielded to the demand of the market and had a flight W3 557 fly into the Cotonou international airport from the Murtala International Airport Lagos.

Said Henry, “We were the first to develop that route but left it over a year ago. But with more demand we had to go back. So what we do now is that  we do a daily service in the morning or afternoon we can take passengers from Nigeria to Benin Republic, and in Cotonou we can also fly out to Douala in Cameroon and do the same return trip Douala-Cotonou-Lagos by evening of the same day.”

Siddharth Bale, an Indian businessman who was on the flight said it was one of the best things that had happened to business relationship between the two countries.

“You can see that the aircraft was almost full with all the seats taken up,” he said. “A lot of people prefer the 15 minutes flight by air from Lagos to Cotonou than the discomfort of going by road. Time is money,” he added.

Olusola Arowolusoye, a Nigerian bilingual (speaking English and French) and who described himself as a Human Resource expert expressed great delight with the fact that he could go in and out of the two countries by air.

“I do a lot of business shuttling Benin Republic and Nigeria as a human resource expert. I am so happy between i had a meeting this afternoon in Cotonou and i could come in, do my work, and catch the returning flight from Cotonou in the evening back to Lagos. I am convinced this will do a lot of good to trade and business relationship between Nigeria and Benin Republic,” he added.

Arik Air said through the new route it also planned to ease air travellers’ movement within the West and Central African sub-regions using the Lagos international airport as a hub.

“We have created a network and now passengers can buy direct air tickets to London, South Africa and New York from  any of these countries, either Cameroon, Benin Republic, Togo,  and Senegal, and we can fly them to these destinations out of Lagos as a hub,” Henry said.

He added that Arik Air was proud to assist Nigeria economically fulfil its ambition of serving as a hub of travellers within the West African sub-region because passengers could now come in with Arik Air flights from any of its neighbouring countries and then fly out overseas out of Nigeria as is done in Kenya, Ethiopia, Dubai, Qatar, and other European countries.

Direct Johannesburg-New York flights resumes on SAA

South African Airways has announced that it is resuming its popular non-stop flights between Johannesburg and New York – JFK International Airport.

The non-stop flight will resume on March 9th, nearly three weeks ahead of its original schedule of March 28th.

While SAA’s New York-Johannesburg flight has continued to operate on a non-stop daily basis, the return flight has been temporarily making a one hour refuelling stop in Dakar, Senegal, due in part to lower travel demand during the winter months.

The non-stop flight will be timed to arrive in New York in the early morning, allowing customers to quickly connect on flights to points throughout North America.

“We are pleased to be able to resume the northbound non-stop flight ahead of schedule,” said Marc Cavaliere, executive vice president, North America, South African Airways.

“Over the years, this service has become exceptionally popular, with our customers praising the combination of its schedule, the ease of connections both throughout the African continent and in the United States, as well as the unique South African hospitality on board.”

Arik 2 London

Please be advised that W3 has introduced new Promotional Published fares ex-NG to LON in economy and business class. Please see below for details:

Economy class Published Promo Fare Details (In all modes of sale)
Class: Economy
Routing : NG to LON
RBD : N
Fare Class : NRPNG (ROUND TRIP)
Base fare ex LOS : USD 225.00 (excl. TFC & YQ)
Travel Period : Between 05Feb’14 and 31Mar’14 for outbound travel
Sales Period : Effective immediately until 28Feb’14
Cancellations : Ticket is Non-Refundable for cancel/refund
Changes : Permitted at a fee of USD 150.00 for reissue/revalidation
No Show: Penalty of USD 150.00 will apply



Business class Published Promo Fare Details (In all modes of sale)

Class: Business
Routing : NG to LON
RBD : I
Fare Class : IRPNG (ROUND TRIP)
Base fare ex LOS : USD 1581.00 (excl. TFC & YQ)
Travel Period : Between 05Feb’14 and 31Mar’14 for outbound travel
Sales Period : Effective immediately until 28Feb’14
Cancellations : Ticket is Non-Refundable for cancel/refund
Changes : Permitted at a fee of USD 150.00 for reissue/revalidation
No Show: Penalty of USD 150.00 will apply

Call your IATA Travel Agent to book.