oneworld

Finnair plans to increase capacity by 14% on popular European and Asian routes from summer 2018, according to CCO Juha Järvinen. The Finnish flag carrier will begin Helsinki-Nanjing (China) services from May 13, 2018. The new route will use Airbus A330s, 3X-weekly during the summer and 2X-weekly in the winter season. Järvinen said Nanjing is the airline’s seventh destination in Greater China. From summer 2018, the oneworld member will offer 38X-weekly flights from Helsinki to Nanjing, Beijing, Shanghai Pudong, Chongqing, Guangzhou, Xi’an and Hong Kong. Finnair will add capacity on other long-haul routes next summer. Story has details.<br/>

Qantas will return to flying its flagship Sydney-London route via Singapore rather than Dubai from Mar 25 next year, it announced on Thursday. Qantas flights from Australia to London and Europe via Singapore were dropped five years ago when the airline began its alliance with Middle Eastern carrier Emirates and re-routed these flights to Dubai. Australia's largest airline announced that it would be extending its partnership with Emirates for another five years but would be making changes to shift capacity to the fast-growing Asia market. "Our partnership has evolved to a point where Qantas no longer needs to fly its own aircraft through Dubai, and that means we can redirect some of our A380 flying into Singapore and meet the strong demand we’re seeing in Asia," Qantas CEO Alan Joyce said. The service flying from Sydney to London via Singapore will replace one of the existing Sydney-Singapore A330 services, while the second Sydney-Singapore daily service continues to be operated by an A330 aircraft. Qantas will also upgrade one existing daily Melbourne-Singapore flight from an A330 to an A380 from Mar 25 next year, with a second thrice-weekly Melbourne-Singapore service increased to a daily A330 service, the airline said. Meanwhile, Qantas’ existing Melbourne-Dubai-London service will be replaced with its Dreamliner service flying Melbourne-Perth-London, it added.<br/>