Carry On: Niue's new holiday options, Emirates expands network, hotel group rebrands and more

Holiday options in Niue have increased with Air New Zealand adding a mid-week service from May to October. From May 21, outbound services will leave Auckland on Wednesday and Saturday mornings, cross the dateline and arrive in Niue around 2pm the previous day. Return services are Tuesday and Friday afternoons, re-crossing the dateline to return late on Wednesdays and Saturdays.

The additional service runs through until October 22, giving visitors the new choices of three- or four-night stays or longer 10-night holidays to complement the existing one-week offering. Details of accommodation and attractions are at www.niueisland.com

Emirates connects Boston, Oslo
A new daily service to Boston from Dubai is Emirates’ eighth US destination and the 142nd on its global network. The Norwegian capital of Oslo will be added from September 22. Both services use variants of the Boeing 777 in three classes.

Boston will be served by a Boeing 777-200LR with eight seats in first class, 42 in business and 216 in economy. A Boeing 777-300ER will have the same offering in first class and business but an extra 94 in economy, making a total of 310.
310 seats in Economy Class.

Both flights connect with all four daily Emirates flights from New Zealand. The Oslo flight will depart Dubai as EK159 at 07.00am and arrives at Oslo Airport Gardermoen at 12.10pm. The return flight, EK160, will depart at 13.55 and arrives at Dubai International Airport at 22.50. Flight EK237 will depart Dubai at 09:45am and arrive in Boston at 15.15.

Other new route announcements
• Cathay Pacific’s Dragonair will commence a twice-weekly service to Denpasar, Bali, from Hong Kong starting from April 27. It will be Dragonair’s first destination in Indonesia and the 15th to have been launched or resumed by the airline since April 2012. Dragonair will fly an Airbus A330-300 aircraft in a two-class configuration on the route. Cathay Pacific already operates a daily service between Hong Kong and Bali. Together, the airlines will operate a total of nine weekly flights .

• Jetstar is adding a Melbourne-Osaka wide-body service from March 30, just weeks before it starts another new direct Japan route from Melbourne to Tokyo, which gets underway on April 28. The new Melbourne-Osaka service will operate via Cairns on a twice-weekly basis.

Frankfurt claims mobile check-in lead
Passengers at Frankfurt Airport are the world’s highest users of online check-in and mobile boarding passes, a SITA/Air Transport World Passenger IT Trends Survey shows. Two-thirds of Frankfurt passengers regularly check-in online at home or in the office, and nearly one-fifth of the airport’s 58 million passengers regularly use mobile boarding passes.

The survey, conducted in six leading airports around the world, also reports 37% of Frankfurt passengers use kiosks to check-in, a rate that is 23% higher than the global average. An overwhelming 91% of Frankfurt passengers would like the ability to search for ticket and fare information using mobile apps but purchasing tickets using mobile devices is not a priority.

BA puts first class in Dreamliner
British Airways will be the first European airline to install first class on its new B787-9 Dreamliner aircraft, which will start arriving next year. BA’s B787-8 are fitted with three cabins – Club World, World Traveller Plus and World Traveller. But the forthcoming B787-9, which is slightly larger and can fly longer sectors, will have a four-class configuration. China Southern is the first airline worldwide to have first class on the Dreamliner.

Toga rebrands after joint venture
Toga Hotels has rebranded to TFE Hotels (Toga Far East Hotels) to reflect the joint venture between Toga Group and Far East Hospitality. The moves increases TFE Hotels’ portfolio in Australia and New Zealand with the inclusion of six Rendezvous Hotels, which it manages in Australia. TFE also provides consultancy services for five hotels in Australia and New Zealand.