American Airlines will launch new daily service from New York JFK to Barcelona and Milan Malpensa on May 1 and a second daily flight to London Stansted on April 7. All flights are on 221-seat 767-300s. Southwest Airlines yesterday launched service from San Francisco to Chicago Midway (thrice-daily), San Diego (eight-times-daily) and Las Vegas (seven-times-daily) and announced that it will start eight-times-daily SFO-Los Angeles service on Nov. 4.
Austrian Airlines suspended its four-times-weekly Vienna-Erbil service last Friday "until further notice" in light of the Aug. 8 incident in which a Nordic Airways aircraft was fired upon in Sulaimaniya ( ATWOnline, Aug. 14). "Our intention to reintegrate Erbil into Austrian's scheduled program as soon as the security situation improves is unbroken," CEO Alfred Oetsch said.
JetBlue Airways will operate daily flights from Fort Lauderdale to Charlotte, Raleigh-Durham (both from Jan. 10) and Richmond (from Nov. 1) through April 30. It also will launch daily Orlando International-Burlington service on Jan. 10. All flights will be aboard E-190s. Cargolux Airlines International will add a sixth weekly Luxembourg-Mexico City flight starting Oct. 18.
Bmi will postpone its planned services to the US from London Heathrow, which it expected to start when the EU-US open skies agreement takes effect, to at least 2009 owing to continuing operational difficulties at LHR that may be exacerbated by the reorganization scheduled to follow the March opening of the new Terminal 5, Chairman Michael Bishop told The Times. He said transfer traffic has declined at LHR as passengers look to avoid the long lines and delays plaguing the airport.
Delta Air Lines will launch daily Salt Lake City-Paris Charles de Gaulle service starting June 2, 2008. The 767-300ER flight will be the first transatlantic operation ever from the Utah capital, Delta said. The aircraft will have capacity for up to 214 passengers and 5 tons of cargo.
Norwegian will open its seventh base at the new airport in Rygge just south of Oslo. It initially will launch operations with a 737-800 on Feb. 14, with a second aircraft entering service March 13. It will serve Alicante, Athens, Barcelona, Belgrade, Bergen, Budapest, Istanbul Sabiha Gokcen, London Stansted, Malaga, Marrakech, Palanga, Szczecin, Valencia and Warsaw from the airport. "We expect further expansion, both in the form of new routes and more planes," CEO Bjorn Kjos said, adding that RYG will be "state of the art. .
Pacific Blue, the international arm of Australia's Virgin Blue, will launch domestic services in New Zealand on Nov. 15. Initially the carrier will dedicate two 737-800s to flights between Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch. It announced promotional fares from NZ$39 ($27.17), while normal fares will be equal to or above those of Air New Zealand, according to ANZ GM-Short-Haul Airlines Norm Thompson. ANZ is expected to announce a further refinement of its domestic product at its Aug.
Vatican partnered with Mistral Air, a small charter company based at Rome Ciampino, to offer low-cost flights to pilgrims, Italian media reported. The jets will have interiors decorated with sacred inscriptions and will travel to holy sites such as Fatima and Santiago de Compostela. Mistral eventually plans to offer long-haul flights to sites in Latin America or elsewhere. First flight is scheduled for Aug. 27 to Lourdes.
Emirates will launch a second daily Dubai-Shanghai service on Feb. 1. The flights will be operated with a 267-seat A340-300 six-times-weekly and a 237-seat A330-200 on Tuesdays. The carrier's current service is aboard a 364-seat 777-300ER. Air Canada announced the addition of the following new services from Ottawa: Five-times-weekly to Fredericton from Oct. 28 aboard 37-seat Dash 8s; daily to Moncton from Oct. 28 aboard 50-seat CRJs; daily to St. John's from Oct. 28 aboard 93-seat E-190s; Saturdays to Cancun and Montego Bay from Dec.
Ryanair said it suspended all bookings to/from its base at Brussels South Charleroi from Nov. 12 "pending the resolution of a number of issues which remain outstanding" since a wildcat strike by security staff closed the airport June 15-17 ( ATWOnline, June 18).
American Airlines will launch daily Chicago O'Hare-Buenos Aires service on Dec. 13 aboard a 221-seat 767-300. Ethiopian Airlines will begin daily Addis Ababa-Zanzibar flights on Oct. 28 using 737-700s. Wideroe launched thrice-weekly Kirkenes-Murmansk service this week. TAP Portugal will start a daily Porto-Brussels flight on Sept.15 with an F100. Route will be operated with an ERJ-145 from the winter schedule.
US National Transportation Safety Board said yesterday it has launched an investigation into last week's high-profile runway incursion at Los Angeles International ( ATWOnline, Aug. 20). The board provided further details on the incident, reporting that a landing WestJet 737NG and a Northwest Airlines A320 taking off "almost collided." The 737 "held between. .
Aviapartner signed a three-year "network contract" with Vueling Airlines for the provision of ground handling services at Milan Malpensa, Rome Fiumicino, Venice, Brussels and Amsterdam. Aviapartner valued the contract at around €20 million ($27 million). It already handles Vueling in Milan, Rome, and Venice. Aviapartner Handling will provide ramp handling in Munich for South African Airways' new MUC-Johannesburg route, which commenced operations last month with an A340.
Air New Zealand struck back at Auckland International Airport's proposed landing charge hike ( ATWOnline, July 3) by announcing that it intends to move some domestic flights to Whenuapai Airbase in West Auckland. Plans call for a move within five years, but the current occupier, the Royal New Zealand Air Force, said it plans to stay at the base for eight. Whenuapai has three runways but only one, at 2,031 m., suitable for commercial flights.
Grupo Aeroportuario del Sureste, the Mexican airport operator, said Cancun, Cozumel and Merida airports closed Monday night due to Hurricane Dean, the intense storm that moved across the Yucatan Peninsula. ASUR said yesterday that "as of now, the airports' infrastructures have not experienced any significant damage." Flights resumed yesterday at Montego Bay and Kingston airports, which had closed earlier this week when the storm passed near Jamaica.
Los Angeles International Airport's new 10-gate international satellite ( ATWOnline, Aug. 17) will be connected to the Bradley International Terminal by an underground people-mover. It will have gate lounges and passenger services, but ticketing, federal inspection and bag claim for the new gates will be handled in the main terminal. The $1.2 billion facility, scheduled to go into service by 2012, will accommodate A380s as well as smaller aircraft.
Fraport CEO Wilhelm Bender said the company would be interested in buying a major UK airport if the UK Competition Commission investigation into BAA forces selloffs. The CC is conducting a formal antitrust inquiry into BAA to examine how the airport operator's control of seven UK airports, including London Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted, affects its ability to invest in infrastructure and whether the common ownership hurts consumers ( ATWOnline, Aug. 10).
Air Canada yesterday said it will launch weekly seasonal service from Vancouver to San Jose del Cabo and Ixtapa Dec. 21-22 aboard A319s. The move follows rival WestJet's announcement last week that it will start seasonal flights to Mexico for the first time, including a Vancouver-San Jose del Cabo route ( ATWOnline, Aug. 16). WestJet has authority to operate to Ixtapa but has not announced service there. Separately, AC said it will boost its thrice-weekly Edmonton-London Heathrow service to daily.
Aviapartner Handling was contracted by South African Airways to provide ramp handling services in Munich for SAA's new MUC-Johannesburg route. The carrier operates three flights per week aboard A340-300s and will increase service to daily for the winter schedule.
A high-profile runway incursion at Los Angeles International last Thursday brought further attention to a problem to which US FAA has promised serious scrutiny in the immediate future.
Ethiopian Airlines CEO Girma Wake told ATWOnline that the carrier is trying to get permission to fly to Toronto and hopes to fly to New York JFK, Chicago O'Hare and Atlanta. ET's current North American service comprises six-times-weekly flights to Washington Dulles. Wake said the carrier also is considering two more destinations in India and China, where it currently serves five markets combined. Back in Africa, Ethiopian plans to open its new hub in Lome by October. "We will lease two 737-300s or -400s for this operation and try to fly from Lome to five stations," he said.
US FAA, citing "recent close calls at some of our nation's busiest airports," said urgent action is needed "to reduce the risk of runway incursions and wrong runway departures" and announced a short-term plan to tackle the problem.
Los Angeles City Council this week approved construction of 10 new gates to handle international traffic at Los Angeles International. The gates are expected to cost $1.2 billion and would be the first built at LAX in more than 20 years, the Los Angeles Times reported. They all will accommodate the A380 and will be built on a site currently occupied by hangars, the paper said. An airport official said the facility should be ready by 2012.
Ryanair will base two new 737-800s at Dublin from November, bringing its fleet at the airport to 22 aircraft. It will invest $140 million, launch six new routes and increase frequencies on a further 12. New routes starting in October will be Budapest (daily), Szczecin (twice-weekly) and Basel (thrice-weekly). New November destinations will be Nice (daily), Prague (daily) and Katowice (thrice-weekly). Frequencies will increase to Birmingham, Bournemouth, Bratislava, Edinburgh, Gdansk, Kaunas, Krakow, Manchester, Riga, Rzeszow, Tenerife and Wroclaw.
