The ceremony was attended by more than 50 local dignitaries, VIPs and media, including Qatar’s Ambassador to Romania His Excellency Saad Mohamed Al-Kobaisi; Serbian State Secretary for Tourism, Mr. Goran Petković; and Chief Executive Officer of Airport Nikola Tesla Mr. Velimir Radosavljević.Al Baker said that the latest route marked yet another significant milestone for the award-winning airline that has now spread its international wings to 31 gateways across Europe and 11 new destinations so far this year.Serbia’s capital Belgrade is renowned across Europe for its buzzing nightlife and unique cultural attractions. With world-class entertainment and hospitality on offer, we are very proud to provide both our business and leisure travellers worldwide with new seamless connections to one of Europe’s most exciting and vibrant cities,” said Al Baker. “As a modern, democratic European country, and well on the path to membership of the European Union, visitors can enjoy numerous cultural, entertainment, traditional and sporting events held in Serbia all year round, demonstrating the creative power and spiritual vitality of this country. Similarly, with our new service, we also offer business and leisure travellers from Belgrade with greater connections via our Doha hub to diverse cities such as Johannesburg, Maputo, Kilimanjaro, Beijing, Singapore, Hong Kong, Bangkok, Melbourne, Perth and Dubai.”

“2012 has been a very exciting year for Qatar Airways and our ongoing commitment to serving Eastern Europe will be further strengthened when we launch new flights to the Polish capital Warsaw on December 5. Our presence in Europe was especially strengthened last year when we launched a record seven destinations to the continent alone, including Bucharest, Budapest, Brussels, Stuttgart, Venice, Sofia and Oslo. I sincerely thank the Serbian Government and the local airport authorities for warmly welcoming Qatar Airways to Serbia and we look forward to welcoming all of our new passengers from Belgrade onboard to experience our world renowned 5-star service,” added Al Baker.Qatar Airways is flying its Airbus A320 on the Belgrade route, featuring 144 seats in a two-class configuration of 12 Business Class seats and 132 in Economy. The aircraft offers seatback TV screens providing passengers with the next generation interactive onboard entertainment system with a choice of more than 800 audio and video on demand options, together with an SMS text messaging service from each seat.One of the world’s fastest growing airlines, Qatar Airways has seen rapid growth in just 15 years of operations, currently flying a modern fleet of 112 aircraft to 121 key business and leisure destinations across Europe, Middle East, Africa, Asia Pacific, North America and South America.

Since the beginning of 2012, Qatar Airways has launched flights to 11 new destinations – Baku (Azerbaijan); Tbilisi (Georgia); Kigali (Rwanda); Zagreb (Croatia), Erbil (Iraq), Baghdad (Iraq), Perth (Australia), Kilimanjaro (Tanzania); Yangon (Myanmar), Maputo (Mozambique) and now Belgrade (Serbia).Over the next few weeks, Qatar Airways will launch services to a diverse portfolio of new routes, including Warsaw, Poland (December 5), Gassim, Saudi Arabia (7 January 2013); Najaf, Iraq (January 23); Phnom Penh, Cambodia (February 20); Chicago, USA (April 10); and Salalah, Oman (May 22).

Fares and schedules will be announced soon, it said.Japan’s major airlines were behind global rivals in terms of entry into the low-cost sector, but ANA last year set up budget airline Peach Aviation with a Hong Kong investment fund. Flights are scheduled to start in March.ANA has also tied up with Malaysia’s AirAsia to launch AirAsia Japan in August.Peach will operate out of Osaka and Air Asia Japan will be based in Tokyo.Separately, Skymark Airlines has been operating low-cost domestic flights in Japan since 1998.
Jetstar Japan said it plans to offer short-haul international services to key Asian cities starting in 2013.Melbourne-based Jetstar operates routes throughout the Asia-Pacific region, including between Australia and Japan.

Serving the Japanese customer for the past five years with international services gives us a clear advantage in rolling out a domestic network,” said Jetstar Group Chief Executive Bruce Buchanan.Since the start of this year, the Jetstar Group has announced 36 additional weekly international flights to-and-from Japan.Jetstar Japan CEO Miyuki Suzuki said: In a country that?s never had a true low fares domestic network, the ability to travel for an average of 50 percent less will open up new places and opportunities.

Responding to already strong demand, the airline will double its capacity on the Melbourne – Brisbane route from next Tuesday 23 August with two daily return services, meaning that there will be an early morning flight from Melbourne to Brisbane returning mid morning from Brisbane to Melbourne as well as the afternoon/early evening option. Tiger Airways is earmarking a return to a number of other popular destinations soon and will announce further network developments in due course.

Since resuming Australian domestic services last week Tiger has enjoyed solid bookings and achieved a 100% departure and arrival performance to date.With safety underpinning the operation at all times, a key long term goal for Tiger Airways is to become the most popular and punctual airline operating in Australia,continued Ms Regan.Combined with our great value fares we believe that we have an offering many Australians will continue to embrace.

Beijing bound passengers and returning travellers to Beijing will be able to enjoy a stopover in Singapore to shop, or indulge in the myriad tastes of the city’s restaurants, generating an added source of tourism revenue.Jetstar Asia CEO, Ms Chong Phit Lian, said Chinese visitors to Singapore typically spend as much as 60% of their holiday budget on shopping excursions in the city – one of the world’s best retail havens.

“Singapore’s attractions such as Sentosa Island, the two new integrated resorts and the endless choices in local cuisines showcasing our multicultural city, are a strong draw for visitors,Ms Chong said.From Singapore, Jetstar now has three long haul services, to Melbourne, Auckland and Beijing – providing two different classes of comfort in Business and Economy.Beijing also presents visitors with many attractions, including the world heritage listed Forbidden City, Summer Palace and of course, the Great Wall of China. And from Beijing, with China’s growing network of high speed rails, short trips can be made conveniently to other major cities, allowing passengers to maximise their trips to China,Ms. Chong added.

Beijing will become Jetstar’s 9th Chinese destination joining Haikou, Shantou, Guilin, Hangzhou and Ningbo all of which were launched in the past 18 months.The new daily Singapore-Beijing service will connect with Jetstar’s existing Melbourne-Singapore service via Jetstar’s Singapore hub, with a stop-over in Singapore on the inbound Australian sector.

PR209 Manila-Melbourne-Sydney was canceled on Tuesday as a precautionary measure to ensure passenger safety after volcanic ash clouds from Chile reached some parts of Australia.The volcanic cloud traveled across the Pacific from Chile’s Puyehue-Cordon Caulle volcano, which erupted on June 5.

China Southern already flies from Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane to its hub in Guangzhou, just over 100 km from Hong Kong. Guangzhou is, of course, a key business class destination in its own right, and as China’s second-busiest airport it has extensive connections to other Chinese cities.
The WA government and China Southern inked a deal earlier in May to provide the regulatory backbone for the flights, but our well-placed Perth source tells Australian Business Traveller that the flights are likely to start in October or November this year, with the main holdup being airport capacity.

With Perth Airport already undergoing a three-year $515 million overhaul, China Southern could eventually use its Airbus A380 superjumbos on the route, since the airport upgrades will include A380-capable gates. But in the meantime, we’d expect the flights to kick off with smaller planes, most likely Airbus A330-200 aircraft. China Southern outfits its A330s with 264 seats in a two-class configuration. In business class passengers can expect a 1.9m angled-flat bed in a 2-2-2 cabin arrangement:At the back of the plane is the usual Airbus 2-4-2 economy class cabin layout.

The airline is also reputed to be one of Virgin Australia’s potential partners to connect into the Asian market.That would tie neatly in to Virgin Australia’s agreement with Western Australian regional airline Skywest, which will fly new Virgin Australia-branded planes between the lucrative WA resources sector hubs. An international hub-to-hub flight between Perth and Guangzhou would sweeten the deal for Virgin Australia CEO John Borghetti’s plans to be in Asia and I mean all of Asia.

Singapore-based Tiger has a chequered history in the Northern Territory.The airline first targeted Australia with a Singapore to Darwin service in 2005, before launching a daily Darwin to Melbourne operation in November 2007.The following August it announced it was pulling out of the Top End.Offered a territory taxpayer subsidy, Tiger returned to Darwin amid much fanfare in June last year, promising it would be there for the long haul.
In November, it said its Darwin to Melbourne flights would be cancelled between February and March and resume between the peak tourist season of March 31 to October 31.But Tiger services to Darwin did not resume as promised.

This means a range of more convenient travel options for Australians, more competition on key international routes and more opportunities for Virgin Blue and Etihad customers to earn frequent flyer points and status credits, he says.Etihad and V Australia will offer a combined 27 weekly flights between Australia (Brisbane, Melbourne and Sydney) and Abu Dhabi, with seamless connections then offered across the Middle Eastern carrier’s network.Since its launch in 2009, the award-winning V Australia service has changed the game for Australians travelling to the United States, providing a high-quality, competitive travel option. And that’s exactly what we’re looking to do with our new Abu-Dhabi service, Borghetti says.

IATA recently forecasted the Middle East as the top region for international passenger demand growth in the world at 9.4% over the next three years.Borghetti was joined on the inaugural flight by the Australian Ambassador to the United Arab Emirates, Doug Trappett, Virgin Blue Group’s new ambassador and Australian Olympian Ian Thorpe (who is training in Abu Dhabi in the lead-up to the 2012 Olympic trials) and Etihad CEO James Hogan.Etihad Airways and the emirate of Abu Dhabi eagerly await the arrival of the inaugural V Australia flight,Hogan says.Already, the response to our network partnership has been very positive. Forward bookings are strong and we are seeing increased strength in the market with the capability of round-the-world connectivity.

Etihad deploys more than 15 per cent of its entire global network seat kilometres to Australia and we are committed to driving long-term, incremental inbound tourism growth to this market, and to offering greater choice and competition for inbound and outbound travelers,he says.On the back of the Sydney launch, V Australia will inaugurate flights from Brisbane to Abu Dhabi in early 2012.