Delta Air Lines will begin four-times-weekly New York JFK-Georgetown, Guyana, on June 1, four-times-weekly JFK-Malaga on June 4 and five-times-weekly JFK-Lyon on July 17. Southwest Airlines announced the following new services from Denver: Twice-daily to Portland, Ore., and Indianapolis beginning June 4; an eighth daily flight to Las Vegas beginning June 4; new twice-daily to Sacramento, daily to Fort Lauderdale and New Orleans and a seventh daily flight to Phoenix from Aug. 4; a second daily flight to San Antonio from Aug. 23.
Air Berlin will switch its Milan service to Malpensa from Orio al Serio beginning July 16. It will continue to serve Berlin Tegel and Dusseldorf from MXP's Terminal 1 with 25 weekly flights.
JetBlue Airways suspended the startup of its Los Angeles International service indefinitely owing to rising fuel prices. It intended to launch thrice-daily New York JFK and daily Boston flights on May 21, but in a letter to employees CEO Dave Barger said the decision to serve LAX was made in December when fuel was $2.72 per gal. It has risen nearly 29% since. The remainder of the carrier's Southern California expansion is intact. On May 21 it will begin flights from Burbank to Las Vegas and Washington Dulles, from Long Beach to San Jose and Seattle and from San Diego to SEA.
Incheon International completed the second phase of its construction and will open the new facilities next month. Upgrades, which took six years to build at a cost of approximately $4 billion, include a new passenger terminal, a 4,000-m. runway that will accommodate the A380 and an automated passenger transport system. ICN now will be capable of handling 50 million passengers and 5 million tonnes of cargo per year.
Aviapartner was contracted by KLM to provide all ramp handling and traffic operations services in Marseille, Nice and Toulouse. Flights are operated with F70s and F100s.
Northwest Airlines will launch daily Detroit-Chattanooga aboard a Pinnacle Airlines CRJ200, daily DTW-Salt Lake City aboard an A319, daily Minneapolis/St. Paul-Fort Wayne on a Pinnacle CRJ200 and daily flights to both Iron Mountain and Escanaba, Mich., from DTW and MSP aboard a Mesaba Airlines Saab 340. All services begin June 5.
Air Berlin launched its China service last week with five-times-weekly A330 services from Dusseldorf to Beijing and Shanghai Pudong. AB will interline with Hainan Airlines on connecting flights to other Chinese destinations and will return the favor when Hainan launches its Beijing-Berlin flights on Sept. 5. From November, AB will upgrade its business class cabin on the routes to Premium Business Class with installation of 30 new lie-flat seats. Kenya Airways will launch services to Antananarivo and boost flights to West and Central Africa, Dubai and Guangzhou.
Korean Air is eyeing opportunities to expand its market share in North America using Incheon as a gateway hub to China, GM-North America Song Bo Young told ATWOnline in Seoul. KE currently serves 23 Chinese destinations and also will promote Incheon as a gateway from the US to Vietnam, Malaysia and Singapore. The proposed merger between Northwest Airlines and Delta Air Lines, which already are codeshare partners with KE through SkyTeam, will strengthen its North American market position, Song said. Last year, North American service added some $800 million to KE's bottom line.
European Commission VP-Transport Jacques Barrot issued a statement Friday signaling the governing body's "acceptance of secondary trading of airport slots." The buying, selling and trading of airport operating slots among airlines has been seen most recently at London Heathrow, a result of the EU-US open skies agreement, but the EC's stance on the practice had not been clear. "Today we are recognizing for the first time that secondary trading is an acceptable way of allowing slots to be swapped among airlines," Barrot said.
Air Arabia will open a third hub in Rabat in the second half of this year in order to connect to European destinations, the Arab Air Carriers Organization reported. The LCC has entered into a joint venture with privately held Regional Air Lines and Bahrain Ithmaar Bank. It launched a second hub in Kathmandu in January in partnership with Yeti Airlines ( ATWOnline, Jan. 15).
US Airways will launch daily Charlotte-Tucson, Charlotte-Sacramento and Philadelphia-Sacramento flights on June 3. Seasonal flights to Portland, Ore., from CLT (daily) and PHL (a second daily frequency) begin the same day. Northwest Airlines will launch daily Tokyo Narita-Taipei service Aug. 31 aboard a two-class 757-200. It also will offer seasonal daily Minneapolis/St. Paul-Lexington June 5-Aug. 18 aboard a Pinnacle Airlines CRJ200 AirTran Airways will start four-times-daily Atlanta-San Antonio on June 11 aboard a 717-200.
Air India announced the appointment of Raghu Menon as chairman & MD. AirTran Airways welcomed Cynthia Tinsley-Douglas as corporate communications mgr. Alaska Air Group named Kris Kutchera VP-IT & strategy mgt., Wayne Newton MD-station operations-Alaska Airlines, Todd Sproul MD-operations support-Alaska Airlines, Peggy Willingham MD-strategy mgt., Andrew Harrison MD-planning and Joe Samudovsky sales dir.-Alaska Air Cargo. Alteon Training introduced Leonard Weber II as COO. Aviation Partners Boeing promoted Kathryn Crandell to VP-contracts.
PRAGUE RUZYNE INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT IS ONE OF the few midsized airports currently up for sale, and insiders expect the price tag could top CZK75 billion (€3 billion). The intent to privatize the Czech Republic's main gateway, which ranks 29th in passengers among airports in Europe, according to ACI, is certainly not new, but it got the ultimate go-ahead from the government in November.
Virgin America announced the following frequency additions effective through Jan. 6, 2009: A third daily Los Angeles-Washington Dulles beginning May 11, a third daily San Francisco-IAD from May 18, a fifth daily SFO-New York JFK beginning June 10, a fifth daily LAX-JFK from June 20, a fourth and fifth daily SFO-Seattle beginning June 26.
Air One will launch daily Milan Malpensa-Brussels on June 1 aboard a two-class CRJ900. EasyJet will launch four-times-weekly Manchester-Alicante on Sept. 29.
AirAsia launched flights to Ho Chi Minh City from Kuala Lumpur (daily) and Bangkok (four-times-weekly). Thrice-weekly Kuching-Macau becomes daily May 15 and a new daily KUL-Kuantan starts June 1. Kingfisher Airlines launched flights from Mumbai to Chandigarh (daily) and Ahmedabad (twice-daily) aboard A319s as well as daily service from Delhi to Chandigarh and Goa. Dniproavia launched daily Simferopol-Moscow Domodedovo aboard a 737.
Emirates will begin daily Dubai-San Francisco on Oct. 26 aboard a 777-200LR and six-times-weekly Dubai-Kozhikode on July 1 aboard 777-200s or A330-200s. CSA Czech Airlines will launch twice-weekly Prague-Almaty on May 1 using A319s.
Wizz Air will open at a base at Kiev Boryspil and launch service to seven destinations on July 11. A320 service will be to L'viv (four-times-weekly), Kharkov (four-times-weekly), Odessa (daily), Zaporyzhzhia (thrice-weekly) and Simferopol (10-times-weekly). It also will operate from Simferopol to Kharkov (thrice-weekly) and L'viv (four-times-weekly).
FAA removed two senior Dallas-area ATC managers from their positions yesterday following revelations in a government report that Dallas-Fort Worth Terminal Approach Control management "routinely and intentionally" misclassified ATC operational errors and deviations as pilot errors or nonevents.
British Airways is increasing operations of its London City-based BA CityFlyer subsidiary with a new thrice-daily to Dublin beginning June 1, a second daily to Nice and additional frequencies to Edinburgh in September. Expansion will be supported by the addition of two RJ85s, bringing its fleet to 12 and its schedule to/from LCY to more than 400 weekly flights. Hawaiian Airlines will launch daily Honolulu-Oakland on May 1 aboard a 264-seat 767. Clickair will launch thrice-weekly Vigo-London Gatwick on June 21 aboard an A320.
Menzies Aviation announced a deal with JetBlue Airways to provide ground handling services at Austin beginning May 1. Separately, MA said it won a three-year contract extension with Thai Airways for cargo handling at London Heathrow, which Thai serves twice-daily.
Frontier Airlines yesterday announced that it will terminate its codeshare agreement with Republic Airways and phase out the regional's 12 E-170s by mid-June. Frontier filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection this month but will continue operating as it reorganizes ( ATWOnline, April 14). "Unfortunately, with current economic conditions and other business changes, we have been forced to drastically rethink the use of regional aircraft in our mix," President and CEO Sean Menke said.
BAA's common ownership of seven UK airports comprising London's Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted along with Southampton, Edinburgh, Glasgow International and Aberdeen may not be serving the interests of either airlines or passengers, the UK Competition Commission said in an interim report.
