Qatar Airways said it will reschedule flight QR 169 which will depart Muscat at 10.20pm instead of 11.30pm and QR 173, which will depart Muscat at 12.20am instead of 6.45am.Qatar Airways is expanding its operations in Oman next summer with the launch of four flights each week to Salalah, the country’s second largest city, beginning May 22, taking weekly capacity to Oman up to 35 flights.Abu Dhabi will also have enhanced flight timings from the start of the New Year, the airline said.It has rescheduled flight QR 123, departing Abu Dhabi at 6.50am daily, instead of 10.40pm.Qatar Airways CEO Akbar Al Baker said “These new timings will significantly enhance our product offering, ensuring our passengers have more convenient flights and connections, part of our overall strategy to improve our service levels.Muscat and Abu Dhabi are among our most popular markets here in the Gulf and it was only fitting that we work with the respective airport authorities to improve our presence in these key cities,” he added.

A two-class A330-200 aircraft, with 22 business seats and 240 economy class seats will serve the flights between Abu Dhabi and Ho Chi Minh City.Etihad Airways president and chief executive officer James Hogan said they are pleased to introduce the city of Ho Chi Minh to the airlines network.The route will be ideal to carry passengers and cargo point to point from the United Arab Emirates, as well as from Etihad Airways destinations in the Middle East. Europe, and North and South America,” Mr Hogan said.Additionally, the new services will also support joint UAE and Vietnam government projects in areas of energy, infrastructure, tourism and civil construction.Etihad Airways has a strong South East Asian network and the addition of daily services to Ho Chi Minh City underlines our commitment to this region that continues to experience strong commercial growth across many industries, especially tourism, manufacturing and technology.HE Tran Ngoc Thach, Ambassador of Vietnam to the UAE said that the new service would strengthen the understanding between the people of Vietnam and the UAE as well as increase trade and tourism.

Complementing Etihad Airways’ existing four weekly services from Abu Dhabi to Mah?, March 12 will see Air Seychelles inaugurate two weekly return services on the route. Effectively, the new schedule will offer six direct services per week between Abu Dhabi and Mah?, increasing to seven per week from June 2012.These Air Seychelles flights will operate on a Boeing 767-300ER series aircraft, in a two-class configuration, offering a total of 844 seats each week.

A key benefit to travellers of the new Air Seychelles non-stop Mah?-Abu Dhabi service is convenient flight arrival and departure times and connectivity from Mah? with Etihad Airways’ codeshare flights through Abu Dhabi to the Far East, Australia, the Indian Subcontinent and the Gulf region.Etihad Airways guests, particularly from key feeder markets of Germany, France, Italy, Belgium and the United Kingdom, will also benefit from the increased connectivity options in travel to Mah? and onward destinations across the Air Seychelles network, such as Mauritius and Johannesburg.

Cramer Ball, Air Seychelles Chief Executive Officer, said: “The Seychelles have already proven to be a hugely popular holiday destination amongst Etihad Airways guests. With these additional two Air Seychelles weekly flights, we look forward to successfully serving the route, tourism and business at each end and beyond.Etihad Airways commenced services itself to the Seychelles on November 2, 2011.

Part of the new strategic partnership will see airberlin place its AB code on Etihad Airways flights from Düsseldorf, Frankfurt and Munich to Abu Dhabi and on Etihad Airways’ flights from Abu Dhabi to Bangkok, Malé and Singapore.Etihad Airways will in turn codeshare on airberlin flights to Basel, Berlin, Catania, Copenhagen, Hamburg, Hannover, Helsinki, Milan, Rome, Stuttgart, Venice and Zurich.

The chief executive Officer of Etihad Airways, James Hogan, said the new route had special significance as the first and only direct flight between Sichuan province and the UAE.This is a day of cele-bration for the airline and the communities at both ends of the route. The new services will open convenient new gateways for travel to and from Europe, the Middle East and North Africa and stimulate growth of trade between the UAE and China, already the Emirates’ third largest trading partner.

Both the Seychelles and Maldives have economies that are heavily dependent on tourism.The Maldives’ GDP last year totalled US$1.48 billion (Dh5.43bn), with tourism directly contributing 29 per cent.However, its indirect contribution was far higher, according to the bureau of South and Central Asian affairs at the US department of state.The Seychelles has a GDP of $750 million.At a time when the Maldives is recording its highest number of visitors and reaching new markets, this [Etihad service] is fundamental to our continued economic growth,said Simon Hawkins, the managing director of the Maldives Marketing and Public Relations Corporation.The Maldives is the lowest-lying country in the world, with a maximum natural height above sea level of less than 2.5 metres. It is made up of almost 1,200 islands grouped into atolls, which include 200 inhabited islands and 97 resort islands.

There are existing ties between Abu Dhabi and the two new destinations for Etihad.Abu Dhabi urban planners have agreed to help the Seychelles design the archipelago’s capital city, while Mubadala Development, a strategic investment company owned by the Abu Dhabi Government, is developing a Viceroy resort in the Maldives.Europe has long been one of the most important sources of tourists for the Maldives, with the UK and Italy sending the highest number, according to a recent report by Euromonitor International. But the country is increasingly tapping new markets.

In 2010, Chinese visitors increased by 18 per cent and arrivals from Sri Lanka grew by 32 per cent as the tourist board focused on promoting the Maldives in emerging markets, analysts at Euromonitor said.UAE travel agents said the destination was popular among their wealthy clients.Prices for a one-week holiday typically start from about Dh12,000 per person, said Sunil D’Souza, the regional travel director at Kanoo Travel.But there are lower options available. Typically it’s high net-worth individuals. The Etihad flights to the Maldives are daily, while the Seychelles service is four times a week to the capital Victoria on Mahe island.Etihad last month said it was confident it would achieve its break-even target for this year after revenues increased 39 per cent in the third quarter to $1.1bn.

The airline said in a statement it was managing to ensure the operation of around 80 percent of some 1,000 daily flights, short- and long-haul, at the two major Paris airports, Orly and Charles de Gaulle on Sunday.Several unions are urging cabin staff to strike until the end of Wednesday, raising the prospect of serious disruption during what is a busy travel period. One of their grievances is a plan to reduce staffing on long-haul trips.Tuesday, November 1 is a public holiday in France and many people take Monday off to extend the weekend break. It also falls during the mid-term school holidays.

Transport Minister Thierry Mariani denounced the strikers, saying they were shooting themselves in the foot by disrupting air traffic in a peak period.Management has been very clear. There is no threat of job cuts,” he told LCI television. “If the company has problems, it’s not a five-day strike at a big exodus time that will improve its image and competitiveness.Air France’s Michel Emeyriat, executive president of ground operations, said the unions’ grievances were pure fantasy and accused them of irresponsibly insinuating that the airline was running flights with fewer cabin staff than required under safety regulations.

“This strike has no reason to exist,he said on BFM TV, adding that there had been few last-minute flight cancellations but that the airline was delivering on a forecast to run an 80 percent service.The airline offered refunds for cancellations or delays of more than five hours in advisories on its website, www.airfrance.fr.Air France issued a statement last Thursday saying it could not understand union demands and was in fact considering recruiting rather than shedding staff.But the unions are unhappy with reorganization of flight staffing and say the carrier is adopting the policies of low-cost operators.Shares in Air France-KLM, which is due to publish financial results on November 9, took a hit this week when a media outlet said it was preparing to issue a profit warning. The carrier said last Tuesday, in response to that media report, that it would not publish any financial information before November 9.

Air France-KLM, Europe’s largest airline when measured by revenue, was formed by the merger in 2004 of Air France and Dutch carrier KLM. The industrial action concerns only the French side of the operation.Another major world airline, Australia’s Qantas Airways, grounded its entire fleet on Saturday in a bitter labor dispute.

Eastern Express, a joint venture between the two local aviation firms Abu Alhoul (Sphinx) and Hajjar Airlines, will launch the service in the first quarter of 2012 at an initial rate of two flights a day, ‘Emarat Al Youm’ Arabic language daily said.The service will begin in the first quarter of next year and will facilitate the travel of passengers to Abu Dhabi, regional countries and other airports, the paper said, quoting a statement by Eastern Express.It said the new company had just been created by those two airlines, which are owned by businessmen from Dubai and Abu Dhabi.

This new route will allow Etihad to tap into large traffic flows between East Africa, North Asia, and the Indian Subcontinent,the airline‘s Chief Executive Officer, Mr James Hogan, said.Our strategy is to target areas of strong growth in emerging economies such as North, East and Central Africa and we have a number of other destinations under active consideration.Nairobi is an ideal addition to Etihad’s global footprint. There are 38,000 Kenyan nationals residing in the UAE and there are large and established point-to-point traffic flows between the two countries.

Also, Abu Dhabi and Kenya have much in common economically. Both have 2030 plans in which tourism plays a vital role and the UAE is one of the largest exporters to the country.In 2010 more than two million tourists visited Kenya, including some 295,000 from the Middle East.This new route will also service the considerable and growing flow of people and capital between Kenya and North Asia, with major Chinese investment in Africa generating passenger demand in both directions.

The managing director of the Kenya Airports Authority, Eng. Stephen Gichuki said: “Kenya Airports Authority has enjoyed a good relationship with Etihad Airways throughout its three years of operations to Jomo Kenyatta International Airport, and I would like to congratulate the airline on the positive growth of its operations to Nairobi. We are confident Etihad will continue to prosper serving this route. Our airport is currently undergoing an expansion and upgrading of its facilities which includes the construction of a new terminal. This will have the capacity to handle 20 million passengers, and construction is expected to begin in January 2012.Etihad began dedicated cargo services to Nairobi in March, 2009 and now operates five freighter flights with a total capacity of 340 tonnes each week. This will increase by five per cent from April 1.

It will be connected to the airline’s hub and home base in Abu Dhabi initially by four non-stop return services per week, rising to a daily service in mid-April 2012, the carrier said in a statement.James Hogan, CEO of Etihad Airways, said: The new Dusseldorf services will connect the capital of the UAE with the Dusseldorf catchment area the second largest in Europe outside of London  which also includes the eastern part of the Netherlands.He added: Dusseldorf was the logical next step in growing our European passenger operations. By growing direct point to point traffic between the two cities, we look forward to strengthening ties between the capital of the UAE and Germany.

Christoph Blume, CEO of Dusseldorf International Airport said: “We’re delighted to welcome Etihad Airways to Dusseldorf International Airport. Due to the economic power and the central location of both destinations in two major regions of the world, we are certain of the potential and the long-term nature of the new connection between Abu Dhabi and Dusseldorf.In May, Emirates Airline said it was planning to launch extra flights to Frankfurt and upgrade one of its Munich services to an A380 superjumbo.

The announcement comes just days after the Dubai carrier reportedly received a snub from the German government over talks to secure extra landing rights in Berlin and Stuttgart.The daily Frankfurt flight will take effect during the next winter schedule, making the city a triple daily service, Emirates said.From January 1 2012, the airline’s morning service to Munich will be upgraded to a superjumbo, it added, one of two daily flights.