Emirates airline produced a net profit of Dhs 752 million (US$205 million), for the first six months of its current financial year ending 30 September 2009. This represents a 165 per cent improvement compared to Dhs 284 million (US$77 million) net profit for the same period in 2008. During this period Emirates SkyCargo carried 700,000 tonnes of cargo, which it said was “in line with last year”. Emirates carried a total of 13 million passengers. In the first-half of its … [Read more...] about MIDDLE EAST: Emirates posts 1H net profit of US$200M

Emirates is to launch passenger flights to Amsterdam from 1 May 2010. The daily, non-stop service from Dubai will be operated with a combination of B777-200LR and B777-300ER aircraft. Emirates has served The Netherlands as a freighter destination for 15 years and currently offers six B747-400 freighter flights a week between Dubai and Amsterdam. … [Read more...] about MIDDLE EAST: Emirates to launch pax flights to Amsterdam

El Al Israel Airlines posted thirdquarter net profit of US$12.3 million, compared with profit of US$31 million a year earlier. Revenues fell 18 per cent to US$496.1 million for the third quarter from US$606.9 million for the corresponding quarter. The carrier’s cargo load factor increased 6 percentage points in the third quarter to 85 per cent in spite of higher capacity from foreign carriers, it said. El Al said its market share at Ben-Gurion International Airport rose to 35 per cent … [Read more...] about MIDDLE EAST: El Al profit down 18%, but in black

Dubai-based Emirates will begin a five times a week service to Tokyo from 28 March 2010 using B777-300ER aircraft. Emirates’ long-standing partnership with Japan Airlines will be expanded to include a code share on the new Dubai- Tokyo-Dubai services. … [Read more...] about MIDDLE EAST: Emirates to add Dubai- Tokyo service

Qatar Airways has launched a new service to Amritsar in India which was followed by another new India service to Goa. With Amritsar and Goa both served four-times-a-week from the airline’s Doha hub, Qatar Airways has increased capacity to India to 64 flights a week spread across 10 cities. These include daily non-stop flights between Doha and Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad, Trivandrum, Cochin and Kozhikode. “Our new Amritsar flights will greatly help commerce and … [Read more...] about MIDDLE EAST: Qatar Airways opens two new Indian routes

Israel’s Antitrust Authority has given the go-ahead for CAL Cargo Air Lines to purchase cargo space on Arkia Israel Airline’s flights to Western Europe and Asia for two years. A review by the competition authority found no grounds for harm to competition because, in addition to CAL and Arkia, there are numerous airlines that carry cargo in their passenger planes to destinations worldwide, as well as on designated cargo flights. … [Read more...] about MIDDLE EAST: Regulator okays CAL cargo deal with Arkia