Developments to Central and Eastern Europe

Published: 30/03/2006 - Filed under: News »

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Malev, CSA, Central Wings and SkyEurope are all improving their UK services this summer.

Hungary's Malev is doubling the number of flights between London and Budapest by adding a new B737 service from Gatwick. Flights will operate up to twice daily from May 1 with departures from Gatwick at 0840 and 1900 and with the inbound services from Budapest timed to leave at 0600 and 1635.

When Business Traveller checked fares on the route for a return flight out on May 2 and back on May 4 we were quoted an online fare of £176 return.Says Malev's UK country manager Doros Theodorou: "The new Gatwick flights will offer good connections at our Budapest hub for onward destinations in Central and Eastern Europe." Malev's existing twice daily flights from Heathrow continue as before.

Czech airline CSA is upgrading its London to Prague service by introducing brand new 162-seater Airbus A320s. CSA has 12 of these state-of-the-art planes on order and they set the Czech national carrier apart from regional rivals Malev and LOT who all use the ubiquitious B737.

The A320s feature a slightly wider cabin than the B737. The first plane to join the fleet will fly on CSA's flagship London Heathrow route. From April 1, you will (barring any last minute changes) encounter the A320s when taking flights OK651 at 1440 and OK649 at 2115 out of Heathrow and OK650 at 1235 and OK652 at 1845 from Prague.

CSA's third daily service on this route, namely OK653 from Heathrow at 0740 along with OK648 at 2110 from Prague is expected to be converted to A320 operation from May 1.

Meanwhile, Central Wings (a Polish budget airline backed by LOT) has just added its first B737 flights from Leeds and Edinburgh. On March 26 it began flying Leeds-Warsaw followed by Edinburgh-Gdansk on March 27 plus Edinburgh-Katowice (near Krakow in Southern Poland) on March 28. Flights on all these routes operate thrice weekly.

Slovakia's SkyEurope is poised to launch two new routes to Krakow using B737s. A twice weekly service from Birmingham will commence on April 12 followed by a thrice weekly link from Edinburgh on April 13.

For more information visit malev.com, csa.cz, centralwings.com, skyeurope.com.

Report by Alex McWhirter

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