AMADEUS has acquired Frankfurt-based Airconomy, an international strategy consultancy that supplies data on air passenger demand, a move that will see the latter developing new market intelligence products which Amadeus will market.

Amadeus’ acquisition comes on the heels of its partnership with Airconomy last year, which led to the joint introduction of Total Demand, a business intelligence tool which delivers detailed key performance indicators on passenger demand to help benchmark network strengths and weaknesses.

David Doctor, director distribution marketing, Amadeus, said: “Increasingly, companies are relying on hard data to make business decisions but in the travel industry, the proliferation of travel booking channels makes it ever more difficult to get a consolidated view of a seemingly simple question: how many people want to fly between A and B and how much will they spend? This is the question which Airconomy will help us answer.”

Based on advanced computational intelligence, sources for Airconomy’s calculations include low-cost carriers, airline direct online sales as well as the GDS distribution channel.

Airconomy will continue to run independently after the acquisition.

BANGKOK’s Don Mueang International Airport is set to re-open for commercial flights on March 6, following its closure last year due to extensive flooding (TTG Asia e-Daily, October 25, 2011).

Only one of two runways at Don Mueang will be open to traffic.

Nok Air, the LCC subsidiary of Thai Airways International, has decided to shift operations from Suvarnabhumi Airport back to Don Mueang, but Orient Thai Airlines remains hesitant about such a move.

Airports of Thailand is scheduled to conduct a 60-day routine maintenance exercise of the operational runway in April, and has given assurances that this will not affect normal services

MALAYSIA Airlines (MAS) will reintroduce direct flights between Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) and Sandakan from February 18, with a frequency of 11 flights a week.

The reinstated service fills a void created when MAS axed its subsidiary Firefly’s flights between the two points on December 4 (TTG Asia e-Daily, October 21, 2011), leaving AirAsia as the sole carrier on the route.

MAS explained in a statement that the service was reintroduced due to strong demand for premium direct full-service connectivity between Sabah’s second largest city and the KLIA main terminal, and would provide much needed links to MAS’ international destinations.

Borneo Trails Tours & Travel general manager, Tan Kok Liang, said: “Sandakan is popular with the UK, Europe and Australian markets. Now these tourists can fly all the way through to Sandakan via KLIA. Transiting through Kota Kinabalu incurs more time.”

“Using AirAsia from Kuala Lumpur to Sandakan is also not an option because of the need to change airports from KLIA to the LCCT (low cost carrier terminal), and the different flight timings,” he added.

Perceived fare differences between MAS and the less expensive Firefly would not be an issue, said Sandakan-based Sepilok Tropical Wildlife Adventure sales & marketing manager, Jessie Chin.

“Firstly, MAS also gives good offers. Secondly, European tourists are more comfortable travelling on MAS,” she explained.

By N. Nithiyananthan

MÖVENPICK Hotels & Resorts will open nine new hotels across Asia by 2014, adding to existing properties in Thailand (two in Phuket), Vietnam (Hanoi & Ho Chi Minh City) and one each in India (Bangalore), the Philippines (Cebu) and Singapore.

In Thailand, the 286-key Mӧvenpick Suriwongse Hotel Chiang Mai and 81-pool villa Mӧvenpick Resort & Spa Mae Nam Beach Koh Samui will open in third quarter 2012. The 250-room Mövenpick White Sand Beach Resort will open in Jomtien, close to Pattaya in mid-2013, while Mövenpick Hotel & Residences Bangkok will open with 266 rooms and suites, and 100 residences by end-2013.

Indonesia will get its first-ever Mӧvenpick in 2014, overlooking Jimbaran Bay in the south of Bali. The Mövenpick Resort & Spa Jimbaran will offer 270 rooms including 70 suites, and an additional 70 branded residences. Facilities will include a 500m2 ballroom, a business centre, and several meeting rooms.

Further inaugural openings will take place in 2014 in Sri Lanka (Mövenpick Hotel Colombo), China (Mövenpick Hotel Shanghai), and Malaysia (Mövenpick Hotel & Convention Centre KLIA, Kuala Lumpur), while the Mövenpick Resort & Spa Dharamshala will open in Northern India the same year.

In addition to these nine scheduled openings, further properties have been earmarked for Malaysia (Terengganu) and China (Sanya & Chifeng).

Speaking to TTG Asia e-Daily during last month’s ATF 2012 in Manado, Markus Mueller, Mövenpick Hotels & Resorts vice president sales and markeing–Asia, attributed the group’s regional expansion spree to a realisation that Asian markets were showing the most promise in terms of growth potential.

“Nowadays, we are seeing more and more Asians than European customers (in our Asian properties)…(the clientele mix) has completely flipped around. Business from European markets is either stagnant or slowing down,” he said.

According to Mueller, a growing number of Mövenpick’s guests are coming from South-east Asia, as well as South Korea and India, where the group plans to ramp up its marketing efforts covering social media channels, as well as its partnerships with local travel consultants.

CEBU Pacific will launch thrice-weekly direct flights from Manila to Siem Reap starting April 19, representing a breakthrough on the monopoly on transit services to the destination.

Travellers from Manila usually access Siem Reap via Bangkok or Hanoi/Ho Chi Minh City, with connecting flights offered by Bangkok Airways and Vietnam Airlines, respectively.

Manila-based Goldlink Travel & Tours operations manager, Allan Sze, said: “The ‘obstacle’ (previously was) the flight to Siem Reap, which from Manila is accessed by flying through Vietnam or Bangkok. That would cost you about US$500-600.”

“Cebu Pacific’s new flight will reduce flight costs by about half, to about US$300,” said Simon Ang, operations manager at Celebrate Life TLC Corp, a Manila-based travel firm that focuses on outbound to Indochina.

Ang is already blocking off group bookings in response to the new route. “I’m looking at three or four groups in April, and maybe six to seven groups in May. We foresee huge demand in the near future, and hopefully Cebu Pacific will increase the flight frequencies to Cambodia after a few months,” he said.

Meanwhile, Cebu Pacific is looking to lease up to eight Airbus A330-300 aircraft to launch longhaul flights of up to 11 hours in third quarter 2013.

Cebu Pacific’s president & CEO, Lance Gokongwei, said: “We are exploring serving cities where large Filipino communities reside – Europe, the Middle East, Oceania and the US.”

“Data indicates that more than half of Filipinos deployed in these regions take multiple stops and connecting flights, because no home carrier can fly them there non-stop,” he added.

The LCC is scheduled to launch two other routes on March 23, Manila-Xiamen (TTG Asia e-Daily, January 3, 2012) and Hong Kong-Kalibo (Boracay), both operated thrice-weekly.

FOLLOWING the collapse of Spanair, Singapore Airlines’ (SIA) codeshare partner on the Singapore-Barcelona-Sao Paulo route (TTG Asia e-Daily, January 30, 2012), the Singapore flag carrier is remaining steadfast in operating the thrice-weekly services.

SIA spokesperson Nicholas Ionides said: “We remain very committed to the Singapore-Barcelona-Sao Paulo route. We are discussing the matter with the relevant parties and for now, there is no change to our three-times-weekly operations on the route.”

Back when the Spanish government first granted fifth-freedom traffic rights between Barcelona and Sao Paulo to SIA, it was reported that SIA’s prerogative to ferry passengers from Barcelona to Sao Paulo were contingent on a codeshare arrangement with Spanair.

When SIA launched this service last March, it cited the greater catchment of South-east Asia (especially Indonesia) and China, as well as Brazil’s hosting of more than 90,000 events annually – including a Formula One Grand Prix, the 2014 FIFA World Cup and 2016 Summer Olympic Games – as key attractions for the route.

Singapore signed an open skies agreement with Brazil in 2010.