fly Ocean Adjusts Business Model for Benefit of Long Haul Services

www.fly-ocean.net MADRID, SEPTEMBER 3, 2011 - FLY OCEAN announced today, that the airline will adjust its current business model for the benefit of the long haul services. “This is a significant step in order to keep the airline aligned to the current market situation,” said an airline official on Tuesday, August 30th, 2011. The airline justified this step with the large offer of services on the European regional market and that further expansions within Europe would make no sense. Recent statistics shows, that Europe has become one of the global hot spots for inter-regional long distance air travel. By an early expansion, fly Ocean tries to strengthen its own position in the market. The airline announced recently, that it will receive another two B777-300ER series aircraft by the end of this year. “The Triple Seven is an excellent aircraft and we are deeply contented with it. By the end of 2011, we will operate a total of 18 B777-300ER to over 20 destinations around the world,” said fly Ocean CEO Michael Stempfle. Cuts, Codeshare and (Hub)-Changes Following the realignment, fly Ocean will cease some of the current intra-European routes and store some aircraft of the Europe-fleet. Which of the European routes will no longer be served, will be decided within the next weeks. Not affected from the cuts are the routes from Madrid and Barcelona to political and economic centers, such as Brussels, Frankfurt and London. Simultaneously with the cuts on intra-European routes, fly Ocean does initiate a change in the hub-strategy. The airline switches stepwise from Madrid to Barcelona as its largest intercontinental- and long haul hub. “Barcelona El Prat is Europe´s fastest growing major airport. But more importantly, the region around Barcelona is the economical center of Spain. Therefore we will relocate the majority of our long haul fleet to Barcelona,” explained Michael Stempfle. Besides the realignment, fly Ocean enlarges its codeshare offers with a yet not named Australian carrier, which will offer connection flights to fly Ocean´s new service from Santiago de Chile to Melbourne. fly Ocean already offers codeshare flights from Brussels to selected destinations in Northern and Central Africa with its GlobalOne Alliance partner airline EuroBelgian Airlines. Looking for A330 and 777 Captains As part of the realignment, fly Ocean is currently looking for new pilots, especially Captains, for the A330 and B777 fleets. In order to help new pilots getting started, the airline introduced a flight hour transfer system. New pilots can transfer their flight hours from other airlines or online networks to their fly Ocean pilot career. Ab initio pilots need at least 100 verifiable hours of flight experience, in order to command fly Ocean´s long haul aircraft. viento Systems enhances Flight Operations System fly Ocean´s subsidiary viento Systems will update the currently used system with its new developed «Infinity One» add on within the next month. The system extension comes with advanced Pilot Briefing pages, including a full flight dispatch, load sheets and an ATC flight plan. For more information about fly Ocean, please visit our website or our twitter feed @fly_Ocean