Samoa torpedoes Virgin, United’s longest flight and more

Samoa torpedoes Virgin’s Auckland service
The Samoan government left 6000 booked passengers in the lurch when it revoked Virgin Australia’s rights to fly between Apia and Auckland. This takes effect on November 13 and is fallout from Samoa’s decision to ditch its joint venture, Virgin Samoa, and launch its own airline, Samoa Airways, in conjunction with Fiji Airways.

The Apia-Auckland route will revert to a duopoly between Samoa Airways and Air New Zealand, which is putting Dreamliners and extra capacity on the route. Virgin Australia retains rights to flights between Apia and Australia. From November 13, these will be a twice-weekly return service from Sydney and a weekly return service from Brisbane.

Meanwhile, Virgin Australia says it will explore options with the Australian government to “encourage the Samoan government to reconsider its decision." Virgin says the Samoan decision breaches an air services agreement. New travel arrangements have had to be made for the 6000 passengers booked on the five weekly-return Auckland-Apia services that will no longer operate after November 12.

For its part, Samoan Prime Minister Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi is standing by his government’s decision, accusing the Australian airline of refusing to reduce fares, preferring to fly between Samoa and New Zealand rather than Australia, and accusing it of illegally selling ticket after the joint venture ended.

Aeroflot returns to Oceania
Aeroflot Russian Airlines has restored its presence in the New Zealand and Australian markets through an expanded codeshare agreement with Skyteam member China Southern. The codeshare applies to China Southern’s Guangzhou-Auckland, Guangzhou-Melbourne
 and Guangzhou-Sydney flights.

United flies longest for US carrier
United Airlines has launched the longest non-stop flight from the US mainland, Los Angeles-Singapore, with a scheduled flight time of 17 hours and 55 minutes. The return eastbound flight, thanks to tail winds, is shorter at 15 hours and 15 minutes. Seats on the route sold for as little as $US177 for immediate travel.

United's new B777 arrives in Auckland
United has resumed its seasonal San Francisco-Auckland service and upgraded from a Dreamliner to the world's largest and newest twin-engined jet, Boeing's 777-300ER. More than half of the aircraft's space is taken up with 60 Polaris business lie-flat seats (pictured). There are a further 102 seats in Economy Plus, which offers extra legroom, and 204 in basic economy. The route operates six days a week until December 17 and then switches to daily until March 22, 2018.

Since taking delivery of the new B777-300ERs in the past eight months, United has launched seven new long-haul flights – from San Francisco to Hong Kong, Tokyo. Taipei, Beijing and Frankfurt. Two others from New York/Newark are to Tel Aviv and Tokyo (this week).

Singapore’s new A380 seating unveiled
Singapore Airlines has unveiled all-new first class, business class, premium economy and economy seating for its Airbus A380 fleet.  The first-class suites are spacious apartment-style cabins with a swivelling leather armchair and a separate bed. They are larger than Etihad’s first-class suites and three of the six suites – located on the left side of the upper deck (1A, 2A and 3A) – have partitions that create a twin-bed arrangement (pictured).

The first A380 with the new seating will operate between Singapore and Sydney on December 18. In all, five new A380s have the new seating while the remaining 14 aircraft will be retro-fitted. Of the total 471 seats, the upper deck will have six suites and 78 business, while the lower deck will have 44 premium economy and 343 economy. The total cost for the changes is $US850 million.

Qatar to have fifth Thai destination
Qatar Airways will add its fifth destination in Thailand, the southeastern coastal resort of Pattaya (above), on January 28 with a four-times-a-week service. This is in addition to flights to Bangkok, Krabi, Phuket and Chiang Mai, which is scheduled to start on December 12. Meanwhile, Qatar has introduced the first Airbus A350 to the Maldives. The twice-daily flights from Doha previously used A330 aircraft.

Route news of the week
Lufthansa will introduce an Airbus A350-900 to its daily Munich-Tokyo Haneda route from December 1 to March 24, 2018. It will replace an A340-600. AirAsia X is launching two new daily routes to China and India. They are Kuala Lumpur-Jaipur and Kuala Lumpur-Zhengzhou. Both start on March 25. 

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