Middle East - General Newsdesk
Route updates:
New colours to be seen in Dubai during the early part of 2006 incude the Shamrock of Aer Lingus and the Crayon Scroll of Virgin, both carriers planning to start services using Airbus Equipment. Dubai seems to remain as the "in" place and all carriers want a piece of the action. For the seasonal rush, British Airways has also re-introduced a Boeing 747-400 for the winter period on one of it's two daily flights, and KLM is also rumoured to increase capacity by the seasonal introduction of a B744.
Regionally, QR is minimising its use of the A320 on Dubai routes, with only two or three sectors per day being operated on the A320. All others will now use the A332, A333 and AB6.
QR's CEO is also "secretly" rumoured to be fuming at bmi British Midlands announcement that they wish to start daily flights to Doha from 26th March 2006, using an Airbus A330-200 from LHR, in competition to QR's own twice daily service. Made all the more humorous by some recent defections from QR to BD.
The above, in addition to the services planned by Lufthansa, will mean that foreign airlines operating to Doha will now be allocated ramp space at either Shoprite, Dasman Centre or LuLu Hypermarket car parks, as there is simply no parking space on the ground at the current airport.
And Britannia Airways (Thomsonfly.com) and FCA plan to operate to Dubai or Sharjah respectively starting next year, offering weekly charter flights on behalf of their respective parent company tour operators, TUI and First Choice. Thomson will be thrice weekly - FCA will be twice. B767-300 equipment will prevail in both cases though.