KOREAN Air will resume services from Incheon, South Korea to Russia’s Saint Petersburg and Irkutsk starting April 21 and May 13 respectively.

The airline will operate three-weekly flights between Incheon and Saint Petersburg on the 218-seater Airbus A330.

Flights take approximately nine and a half hours, departing Incheon International Airport at 17.55 and returning from St Petersburg’s Pulkovo Airport at 23.00.

Seasonal flights between Incheon and Irkutsk will operate on a Boeing 737-900 seating 159 passengers in two classes.

Operating twice-weekly, the flights will take slightly over four hours and depart at 18.20 and 20.50 from Incheon International Airport and return at 23.55 and 2.30 from International Airport Irkutsk.

EVEN as Expedia’s business continues to bank heavily on the hotel and flight segments, they are making clear their “serious intention” in capturing a slice of the tours and activities pie.

While the travel giant had always offered tours and activities on their platform, it has recently introduced new investments as testament to its commitment to the sector.

Speaking to TTG Asia e-Daily on the sidelines of a panel discussion during Expedia’s global media tour last week, Brian Keffeler, principal global product manager, local expert and ground transportation, Expedia, said: “We recognise that activities are such a fundamental part of travel and it is not enough for us to just take our customers and send them somewhere with a flight. We want to help them build the entire trip.”

To leverage on the rise in mobile device usage, Keffeler pointed out that Expedia’s smartphone app now allows travellers to book tours immediately. To raise awareness of this, Expedia has spent an estimated US$6.4 million on national TV advertising in the US last September to promote the more than 11,000 tours and activities bookable through the app.

According to Keffeler, the tours and activities category has been expanding well across the US and Europe, but there is still a “huge growth area” present in Asia.

Last December, Expedia also announced its API for in-destination tours which would allow local activity suppliers to integrate reservation systems directly with the Expedia ecosystem.

When asked about competition posed by similar suppliers like Viator, Keffeler said: “There is a lot of space to go around and we do not focus too hard on the competitor.

“For Expedia, we are already offering the opportunities for people to buy a flight, a hotel and it makes sense for us to offer rental cars and activities. We want to provide customers with a one-stop place and not (have any) missed opportunities,” he explained.

THE Malaysian Department of Civil Aviation (DCA) is looking at doubling air navigation facility charges instead of a massive 10-fold hike proposed a week ago.

According to reports, the drastic decrease is a result of Malaysia’s transport minister Liow Tiong Lai’s belief that the much smaller hike will not then cause a rise in consumer airfare prices, a contentious point in the ongoing saga.

This comes in the wake of seven of Malaysia’s major carriers banding together in an effort to form a new airline association, the Association of Malaysian Air Carriers (AMAC), to leverage their bargaining power against the DCA.

The proposed fee increase is the first review by the DCA in 40 years, and is meant to help meet its increasing operating costs while at the same time have a reasonable return on assets in order improve and to serve the industry better.

Liow had also earlier said that the DCA was upgrading itself into a Civil Aviation Authority, and the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) will be conducting an audit on the DCA next month to vet the department.