After a 3-year hiatus, Czech Airlines (OK) are again including their own long-haul flights in their flight schedule. A wide-body A330 will join the airline’s fleet, enabling OK to launch new scheduled service to Seoul, South Korea, and to initiate more intensive code-share cooperation with Korean Air (KE) in operating long-haul flights from Prague via Seoul to the East Asia, based on the model of cooperation being successfully employed with Etihad Airways (EY). The new agreement will also ensure better connections to OK flights from Prague to Europe for KE’s clients. In addition to Seoul, OK will introduce new service to Perm, Nice, Munich, Zurich and Florence in the 2013 summer season. In June 2013, a long-haul A330 hired on the basis of operative leasing will join the OK fleet. Among other flights, the aircraft will be deployed on OK's new scheduled long-haul service to Seoul. The flights will leave Prague every Saturday and Sunday, and Seoul every Sunday and Tuesday, supplementing the 4 weekly KE flights. The 2 airlines will share codes on the route. In addition to Seoul, OK plan to deploy the A330 on the most sought-after flights to existing destinations. For example, the airline is considering using the A330 on certain flights to/from the Commonwealth of Independent States. Seoul is not the only new destination in the OK flight schedule in the 2013 summer season. The airline will open regular service to Perm in Russia, as well as Nice, Munich, Zurich and Florence. To certain destinations, it is introducing a noon flight wave, and increasing the number of flights compared to the 2012 summer season. These destinations include Berlin, Düsseldorf, Hamburg, Copenhagen, Milan, Stockholm and Warsaw. In making a year-on-year comparison, the airline will also offer more weekly flights to Nizhny Novgorod, Rostov-on-Don and Ufa. OK will newly add Brisbane, Singapore and Nairobi to their flight schedule, which will be operated in cooperation with EY. Another innovation in the summer flight schedule is a change in the model of operation to Baltic destinations. Vilnius, Riga and Tallinn will remain in OK's offer, and will be operated by airBaltic Corp. (BT) on a code-share basis. In the 2013 summer season, only Airbus (A330, A320, A319) and ATR (ATR72 and ATR42) will be deployed on OK flights. The airline will have thereby complied with one of its last restructuring tasks : the transition to a fleet of just 2 aircraft makes. B737-500 will be retired from the fleet by the end of the current winter season. (AirTransportNews, December05th 2012).
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