Air China today will launch services to Seoul from Dalian (daily aboard an A319) and Tianjin (Saturdays on a 737). Northwest Airlines will expand its freighter service to Guangzhou to daily from thrice-weekly from March 25. Return flights will stop in Japan. NWA already serves Shanghai daily.
Niki will start a double-daily Vienna-Frankfurt service Oct. 30 using A320s. Niki and partner Air Berlin transported about 1 million passengers from Austria to six German cities last year, and Niki had a passenger increase of 15% across its network in the first half of 2006. It added the sixth A320 Wednesday. Founder Niki Lauda told this website that he will launch new Vienna-Moscow flights for the 2007 summer schedule.
Investigators examining Sunday's fatal crash of a Comair CRJ200 in Lexington, Ky., revealed yesterday that the lone air traffic controller on duty was operating on just 2 hr. of sleep and was completing the second of two 8-hr. shifts in a 24-hr. period.
BAA fought back against airline calls for its breakup, saying the lack of runway capacity in southeast England and not its control of London Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted airports is "the biggest problem" facing UK carriers and passengers.
Dublin Airport Authority announced yesterday details of the new €395 million ($505.7 million) Terminal 2 at Dublin Airport scheduled to begin construction in the second quarter of 2007 and open in the fall of 2009, at which point it will be capable of handling 15 million passengers annually. The three-story, 75,000-sq.-m.
Finnair's Asian traffic will grow in the latter part of this year and 2007 by 30% thanks in part to an investment in Helsinki Vantaa's Asian terminal announced Tuesday by Finavia, the country's civil aviation administration. Finnair will add thrice-weekly Delhi service in October, increasing to five-times-weekly next spring. It also will launch service to Kuala Lumpur and add frequencies on Japanese and Chinese routes. CEO Jukka Hienonen said the airline will carry 1 million passengers on Asian routes this year. He recently told ATWOnline that Seoul and Chengdu are on the radar.
Germanwings will increase its presence at each of its four bases for the 2007 summer schedule. It will base an additional aircraft in Stuttgart and launch services to Ankara, Athens, Ibiza, Korfu, Lamezia Terme and Malta. Cologne Bonn will see two A319s/A320s added with new routes to Corfu, Lamezia Terme, Malta, Mykonos and Rhodes. From Berlin Schoenefeld it will add Mykonos and from Hamburg it will open routes to Corfu and Split. It also will boost frequencies on existing routes from all bases.
AirTran Airways announced the cancellation of 31 flights yesterday and today into and out of Miami, West Palm Beach, Fort Lauderdale and Fort Myers as the area braces for Tropical Storm Ernesto. Other carriers announced revisions to rebooking and cancellation policies, and Delta Air Lines said it "proactively cancelled some flights." Separately, AirTran and the International Brotherhood of Teamsters announced the ratification of a five-year labor agreement covering approximately 40 ground support equipment mechanics and related employees in Atlanta, Baltimore and Orlando.
Air France flights to the US (except Detroit and Cincinnati) will be concentrated at Paris Charles de Gaulle's Terminal 2E from today. Flights that were handled at 2E, mainly to Africa, will be transferred elsewhere in T2. AF operates 22 daily flights to 13 US cities.
Copa Airlines said yesterday it will shift its alternate airport from Cartagena Rafael Nunez International to Panama's Howard AFB, which was turned over by the US to the Panamanian government in 1999 and has been certified as an international airport. Copa will begin using Howard in October. It said it will save fuel on flights into Panama and allow higher-capacity 737-800s to be used on several of its longer routes.
American Airlines will operate weekly New York JFK-San Jose del Cabo service from Dec. 16 through April 9 aboard a 757. Separately, AA introduced roundtrip Web-based check-in for return flights that leave within 24 hr. of departure.
US National Transportation Safety Board investigators and Lexington Blue Grass Airport officials confirmed yesterday that alterations had been made to the taxiway that a Comair CRJ200 used before taking off from the incorrect runway Sunday morning and that the lights on that shorter runway were out of service at the time.
Gol said it received authorization to operate 14 weekly flights to Lima aboard 737-800s. It did not announce a launch date. It already flies to Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay and Bolivia and intends to start service to Chile this year. Emirates will operate five-times-weekly Dubai-Tripoli-Tunis service beginning Oct. 29 aboard an A330-200. Mesa Airlines will launch 12-times-weekly Albuquerque-Alamogordo Sept. 24.
US FAA is seeking to institute a new traffic control mechanism at New York LaGuardia that would eliminate the current slot system and encourage airlines to operate larger aircraft into the crowded airport. The agency's proposed rule, which would take effect on Jan. 1, maintains the current hourly limit of 75 scheduled flights, but instead of airlines using slots to operate those flights FAA would create "operating authorizations" that would be granted "based on historic usage." The authorizations could be taken away if carriers use too many regional jets.
Ryanair followed through on its threat Friday and submitted a claim for compensation worth just over £3 million ($5.7 million) to the UK Dept. for Transport.
Sterling Airlines will launch six-times-weekly London Gatwick-Aalborg service on Sept. 18 with 737-500s/-700s. Air Baltic will start thrice-weekly Riga-Zurich flights from Oct. 29 aboard 737-500s. It will be the 34th destination it serves directly from Riga.
Delta Air Lines said it received US Dept. of Transportation permission to begin selling seats on its daily New York JFK-London Gatwick service scheduled to begin Nov. 15. Delta purchased the route authority from United Airlines last month ( ATWOnline, July 31). Final government approval is expected "within the next few weeks," DL said. It plans to add a second daily flight May 1.
Ryanair and easyJet responded to proposals for low-fare services from the Maltese government. Ryanair proposed flights to the island nation from London Luton, Dublin and Pisa while easyJet offered flights from LTN and Basel-Mulhouse, according to press reports.
Lufthansa will launch services from Hamburg to Moscow Sheremetyevo (four-times-weekly from Oct. 30), Geneva (daily from Oct. 29), Innsbruck (twice-weekly from Dec. 21) and Palma (thrice-weekly from Feb. 17). Frontier Airlines will launch Saturday Kansas City-Cabo San Lucas service on Dec. 16. Germanwings will add a fourth daily Cologne-Berlin Schoenefeld flight on Oct. 30. Qantas and Air China reached a codeshare agreement effective Sept. 15 that will see Air China place its code on Qantas's thrice-weekly Sydney-Beijing flights.
EasyJet is launching a base at Madrid Barajas, its 17th, and said operations will start Feb. 16 with several new routes, details of which will be announced next month and will include domestic services. "Spain has been a key market for easyJet for the past 10 years and the new base will take our commitment to a completely new level. While Madrid is one of Europe's largest and most important capital cities, it is still underserved by low-fares airlines," CEO Andy Harrison said.
British Airways, Ryanair and easyJet yesterday called on the UK Office of Fair Trading to refer its study on the UK airports market to the Competition Commission, citing monopolistic conditions in the market and calling for the breakup of the airports operator.
KLM announced it will not reinstate service to Beirut, even after the airport is fully operational, as "the route was already loss-making." Partner Air France intends to resume flights from Paris Charles de Gaulle. WestJet will operate seasonal thrice-weekly Toronto-Nassau service Nov. 5-April 26. Air Sahara applied for approval from the Indian government to launch daily Delhi-Guangzhou flights from Nov. 7. The airline said it also plans to begin services to Maldives and Bangladesh this winter.
US FAA released a final albeit interim rule finalizing slot limits at Chicago O'Hare that originally were imposed on a temporary basis in 2004. The rule takes effect Oct. 29, 2006, and terminates Oct. 31, 2008, at which point it is expected that the opening of a new runway under the O'Hare Modernization Plan will allow the airfield to accommodate more than "50,000 additional forecast operations" annually.
