Ryanair shuts down website for maintenance

Ryanair announced the closure of their website during the next weekend (18-20/5):

The www.ryanair.com website will be closed for upgrade maintenance at the below times between  Fri. 18 May and Sun. 20 May. Passengers must ensure that they have booked tickets, checked in online and printed their boarding passes etc. prior to the below times.

1. Online Check-in - Not available from 16:00 hrs on Fri. 18 May until 12:00 hrs. Sun. 20 May

2. Bookings cannot be made on Ryanair.com from 22:00 hrs on Fri. 18 May until 22:00hrs Sat. 19 May

3. Flight Changes cannot be made from 22:00 hrs on Fri. 18 May until 22:00hrs Sat. 19 May

Ryanair wishes to apologise to all passengers who may be affected by our website closure which is unavoidable in order to upgrade the www.ryanair.com website.

Berlin new airport opening postponed

Today it was announced that Berlin new airport opening planned for 3 June 2012 will be postponed due to technical reasons. Airport officials stated that the opening will take place after the summer holiday period.

Airberlin, Condor, Easyjet and TUIfly are flying this summer from Berlin to Rhodes; Airberlin, Condor and TUI were supposed to move all operations to the new airport on June 3rd but most probably will remain on their current facilities in Schönefeld (Condor) and Tegel (airberlin, Tuifly). Easyjet's route on the other hand is a new service and was planned to commence on June 23rd from the new airport meaning that it will certainly move on Easyjet's current Berlin base at Schönefeld.

Update 9/5/2012

* Airberlin announced that they will continue flying from Tegel airport (link)
* Easyjet announced that they will continue flying from Schönefeld airport (link) 

Berlin Brandenburg official announcement
Picture retrieved from airport's official website.

Minoan Air: new greek regional startup airline

Crete's tradition on estbablishing airlines continues as Minoan Air are almost ready to commence operations.
Based at Heraklion, Minoan will connect the cretan capital with various destinations in the region both domestic and international. Moreover, their leaked initial routes schedule showed flights from Rhodes to Heraklion and Santorini. The airline will fly with Fokker-50s and have already received the first of a total of four. Early June have been set as a deadline for commencing flights so we expect during the next days the launch of their website. 
We would like to wish them all the best and see them landing here asap. 
Website 
Facebook page

Picture retrieved from Minoan Air facebook page.

April 2012 Traffic

Here are the updated stats of "Diagoras" for April 2012 traffic as released from airport authorities. The almost 50% loss of arrivals from Germany and Israel is impressive and couldn't be surpassed by a modest increase of arrivals from Sweden, Russia and England.

Arrivals Summary

	2012	2011	+/- %
Domestic Arrivals	27.108	29.475	-8.03
International Arrivals	63.124	67.692	-6.75
Total	90.232	97.167	- 7.14

International Arrivals by Country

Country	2012	2011	+/-%
England	11.930	9.963	+19.74
France	7.064	8.885	-20.5
Finland	5.931	6.513	-8.93
Sweden	5.565	3.994	+39.33
Israel	5.357	10.226	-47.61
Germany	4.612	8.206	-43.8
Italy	4.550	5.415	-15.97
Russia	3.325	1.943	+71.13
Belgium	2.970	2.505	+18.56
Denmark	2.481	1.703	+45.68
Netherlands	2.468	2.471	-0.12
Norway	1.409	605	+132.89
Lithuania	1.326	1.009	+31.42
Poland	1.272	925	+37.51
Cyprus	1.248	1.605	-22.24
Ukraine	488	297	+64.31
Luxemburg	356	484	-26.45
Albania	308	269	+14.5
Austria	307	248	+23.79
Romania	157	353	-55.52

Rossiya Routes - Summer 2012

Rossiya Airlines will fly thrice weekly from St Petersburg to Rhodes. Below is their schedule.

SAINT PETERSBURG (LED) - RHODES (valid 20/5 - 14/10)*

Outward Flight: LED-RHO

Fl. Nr.       Dep.-Arr.       A/C                  Frequency     Remarks

FV957     19:55-22:40     B763                 Th                  24/5-4/10

FV957     14:40-17:30     B763                 Su                  

FV967     23:55-03:05     A320                 Su                  27/5-7/10

Return Flight: RHO-LED

Fl. Nr.       Dep.-Arr.       A/C                  Frequency     Remarks

FV958     23:55-04:40     B763                 Th                  24/5-4/10

FV958     18:20-23:15     B763                 Su                 

FV968     04:05-09:15     A320                 Mo                27/5-7/10

For more information and/or reservations, please visit Rossiya website.

 

* Based on Rossiya official website on 28-29 April 2012.

Transaero Routes - Summer 2012

Russian carrier Transaero seems to be moving from charter-only operations to Rhodes as they have uploaded for the first time on their systems flights from Ekaterinburg, Moscow (Sheremetyevo) and St Petersburg.

EKATERINBURG (SVX) - RHODES (valid 1/5 - 28/9)*

Outward Flight: SVX-RHO

Fl. Nr.       Dep.-Arr.       A/C                  Frequency     Remarks

UN947    06:45-08:40    Tu214                 Tu              

UN947    10:15-12:00    Tu214                 Fr             

Return Flight: RHO-SVX

Fl. Nr.       Dep.-Arr.       A/C                  Frequency     Remarks

UN948    09:40-17:45    Tu214                 Tu              

UN948    13:00-20:35    Tu214                 Fr               

MOSCOW/DOMODEDOVO (DME) - RHODES (valid 5/5 - 20/10)*

Outward Flight: DME-RHO

Fl. Nr.       Dep.-Arr.       A/C                  Frequency     Remarks

UN547    13:50-16:30     B772                 Sa               

Return Flight: RHO-DME

Fl. Nr.       Dep.-Arr.       A/C                  Frequency     Remarks

UN548    18:30-22:55     B772                 Sa              

MOSCOW/SHEREMETYEVO (SVO) - RHODES (valid 1/4 - 16/10)*

Outward Flight: SVO-RHO

Fl. Nr.       Dep.-Arr.       A/C                  Frequency     Remarks

UN647    11:30-14:00     B744                 Th-Su              

UN647    09:00-11:30     B744                 Tu                   29/5-16/10

UN647    17:20-19:50     B744                 Fr                    25/5-12/10

Return Flight: RHO-SVO

Fl. Nr.       Dep.-Arr.       A/C                  Frequency     Remarks

UN648    16:00-20:30     B744                 Th-Su              

UN648    14:00-18:30     B744                 Tu                   29/5-16/10

UN648    21:50-02:25     B744                 Fr                    25/5-12/10

SAINT PETERSBURG (LED) - RHODES (valid 6/5 - 4/10)*

Outward Flight: LED-RHO

Fl. Nr.       Dep.-Arr.       A/C                  Frequency     Remarks

UN447    09:20-12:45     B733                 Th              

UN447    12:30-16:15     B743                 Su                   24/5-4/10

Return Flight: RHO-LED

Fl. Nr.       Dep.-Arr.       A/C                  Frequency     Remarks

UN448    14:45-20:00     B733                Th              

UN448    18:15-23:20     B743                Su                    24/5-4/10   

For more information and/or reservations, please visit Transaero website.

 

* Based on Transaero official website and Amadeus on 28-29 April 2012.

Rhodes-Athens by Ryanair???

UPDATE 25/5/2012

Since Ryanair's website refurbishment, the Rhodes-Athens route pair vanished from the booking engine so maybe afterall it was a candy for local officials to sign the then negotiated deal.

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Below you can see a capture from Ryanair's inner booking engine in which Athens is clearly listed as a destination offered from Rhodes although flights are not yet available for bookings.

So, how possible is a domestic route flown from Ryanair?

Well, it seems rather difficult as firstly they avoid expensive airports such as Athens and secondly they do not operate a base at Rhodes. Moreover, they were in dispute with local officials regarding the amount of subsidy they asked for flying to Rhodes and Kos.

On the other hand, Athens airport fees might be expensive but Rhodes is the 3rd most popular domestic destination with strong year round traffic. The lack of a domestic base could be overcome by flying here from nearby countries (for example Italy) so as crew working hours are not violated or even basing crews here.

There could also be three more possibilities for the appearance of the route on their booking engine; first is that they may operate charter flights for the upcoming national elections moving voters to their voting region, second that they may have reach to a yet undisclosed agreement with local officials and finally there's always the possibility of a mistake on their website.

As we try to verify the subject we will also keep an eye and let you know of any developments.

March 2012 Traffic

March traffic was published and as expected was way below than 2011 March due to lower international traffic. Domestic traffic on the other hand seems to be stabilizing although if compared to 2010 March is 30% down.

Arrivals Summary

	2012	2011	+/- %
Domestic Arrivals	20.312	20.925	- 2.9%
International Arrivals	3.380	5.146	- 34.3%
Total	23.692	26.071	- 9.1%

International Arrivals by Country

Country	2012	2011	+/-%
England	1.108	272	+307
Cyprus	590	535	+10.2
Italy	497	2.603	-80.9
Germany	345	0	+
Lithuania	298	0	+
Albania	162	284	-42.9
Sweden	147	0	+
Israel	123	1.452	-91.5
Belgium	110	0	+