This year’s summer charter season has brought changes at several Czech and Slovak airports. At smaller airports this year we will not meet with the carrier Smartwings and that is what various companies from abroad represent.
Up to four carriers from Turkey will fly from Poprad to Antalya during the summer. After yesterday’s AtlasGlobal with Airbus A321, this morning before 8am Pegasus arrived, which deployed only two weeks old Airbus A320NEO. This is the first visit of this type in Slovakia. An hour after arrival in Poprad, NEO of the same company showed up in Košice.
The A320NEO first took off in 2014 and was put into operation a year and a half later. The biggest difference from the older versions of the A320 family is the new PW1100G engines or, as in this case, the CFM Leap with a nearly two-meter diameter. The aircraft is already standard with sharklets at the wing tips and other minor changes, which together with the new engines, according to the manufacturer, ensure fuel savings of up to 15%. To date, more than 6500 A320NEO aircraft have been ordered by the companies, with over 800 delivered by the end of May. The Boeing 737MAX is still considered to be the biggest competitor.
In Poprad, the Airbus registration TC-NCE delivered on May 30, 2019 showed up. This is the latest addition to the company’s fleet of 78 Boeing 737s and Airbus A320s, of which 26 are NEOs. The company will fly to the Tatras until mid-September, so we will certainly meet NEO on one of the early Thursday flights.
Foto: D. Dolinay/D. Watycha