The top airline stories from this week include the world's busiest flight routes, more opportunities to get to Iran, a new budget flight from an Icelandic airline and a way to learn in the sky.
Hong Kong-Taipei is the world’s busiest international air route, with more than five million passengers passing between the cities. The busiest flight route in Europe – and second worldwide – is between Dublin and London, where nearly 4.5 million people flew in 2015. It marked a 9% increase in air traffic over the previous year on the short-haul flight, or by 370,000 passengers. With many people heading between the cities for business, flights to London accounted for almost 18% of Dublin Airport’s total flights last year.
After a four-year hiatus, British Airways is looking at reinstating flights to Tehran. As the West begins to lift sanctions, Iran has seen an increase in enthusiasm in the country for tourism. Interest has taken off since the Foreign Office reopened its embassy in Tehran.
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As BA looks at launching flights into Iran, the country is also looking to promote inbound and outbound tourism after announcing the purchase of 114 new Airbus planes. The planes will replace its current aging fleet and the first new aircraft are expected to arrive in mid-March.
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The Icelandic budget airline WOW air has announced that it will add a daily flight between Baltimore and Iceland starting this June. WOW has recently been adding more and more flights between the US and Iceland as tourism booms in the small Nordic nation.
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Virgin Australia is looking to give its passengers an intellectual boost by offering in-flight education courses. The airline will offer short courses catered to travellers on topics like photography and financial planning.
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