JetBlue Airways continued its Northeast expansion yesterday with the announcement of a four-times-daily New York JFK-Pittsburgh service, a twice-daily Boston-Pittsburgh service and thrice-daily Boston-Buffalo flights beginning June 30 aboard its new Embraer 190s. It also will launch thrice-daily JFK-Jacksonville service on June 15 with A320s. Malev Hungarian Airlines is increasing weekly service to Romania. From March 26 it will operate up to four daily flights between Budapest and Bucharest, raising weekly frequencies from 15 to 26.
BAA said Friday that it had rejected a "pre-conditional" 810-pence-per-share, all-cash buyout offer from Spain's Grupo Ferrovial and its consortium partners. BAA shares closed at 839 pence Thursday. Ferrovial's offer valued BAA, which operates London Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted airports, among others, at £8.8 billion ($15.39 billion.).
Cargolux will add a third weekly frequency to its Hong Kong-Barcelona-Luxembourg service from March. Air Berlin will launch a 12-times-weekly Belfast-London Stansted service on May 2. Vueling Airlines will start a daily Barcelona-Santiago de Compostela flight aboard A320s from April 13. Jet2.com will launch daily Leeds-Dusseldorf service on May 8.
EasyJet said yesterday it was "forced" this week to cancel plans to operate daily Paris Orly-Ajaccio service from July ( ATWOnline, March 8) after being informed that French authorities "had granted a monopoly to Air France/CCM under a Public Service Obligation," according to the London-based LCC. Most PSO routes are operated by only one carrier, but EasyJet claims the route can support two airlines. "There is a huge demand for flights from Paris to Corsica, as we have seen over the past few weeks, and there is no justification for a monopoly.
Swiss International Air Lines and Lufthansa, continuing the integration of their schedules, will create minihubs in Sao Paulo and Bangkok from the start of the summer season on March 26, permitting passengers to transfer between the airlines for onward travel. For example, Swiss will extend its five weekly Zurich-Sao Paolo services to Santiago while Lufthansa will have a daily flight from Sao Paulo to Buenos Aires.
Lufthansa will resume service to Bahrain with a thrice-weekly Frankfurt-Manama flight beginning June 2 aboard an A330-300. The flight will continue to Abu Dhabi. Qatar Airways will launch a daily service to Hong Kong from March 26 aboard a two-class A330.
Swissport said its new 17,600-sq.-m. Air Freight Terminal at Singapore Changi officially opened for business March 15 with an initial capacity of 250,000 tons per year and future potential expansion to 400,000 tons.
British Airways is looking to strengthen its network to Eastern Europe, Area Commercial Manager-Central and Eastern Europe David Rousham told ATWOnline. New points will include Tirana and Varna, while flights to Izmir and Ankara will be operated by franchise partner GB Airways. Rostov and Gdansk also are to receive service. With Malev Hungarian Airlines set to join oneworld this year, Budapest could play a role as a hub to the Balkans. BA also is looking at additional destinations in the Ukraine beyond Kiev, Rousham said.
Delta Air Lines will launch daily Boston-Charleston, S.C., service from June 8 and daily Boston-Quebec City service from June 15. Comair will operate both flights.
SriLankan Airlines is preparing for possible changes to its ownership structure, with CEO Peter Hill telling ATWOnline, "In three to six months' time, the government, which holds 51% in SriLankan, will decide how it will go on with the carrier."
Tiger Airways of Singapore chalked up a major milestone yesterday, carrying its millionth passenger. CEO Tony Davis told media he was "absolutely delighted to hit the one millionth passenger mark so early in the second year of operations." He predicted that "the rapid expansion with our A320 aircraft and new routes this year will allow us to shorten the time it takes to hit our second millionth passenger." The LCC will take delivery of two A320s in April and an additional three by year end.
Japan Airlines and Korean Air are expanding their codeshare operations between the countries beginning March 26 when the number of routes and services will jump from seven routes and 104 flights per week to nine routes and 266 weekly flights. On a one-way basis, the two airlines will codeshare on an additional 84 weekly flights on the Tokyo Narita-Seoul route, 56 on the Kansai-Seoul route and 28 on the Nagoya Chubu-Seoul route. Separately, JAL will increase its 10-times-weekly Narita-Chicago O'Hare service to twice-daily from March 26. Flights are aboard 747-400s.
Oneworld and BAA signed an MOU ensuring consolidation of the alliance members' operations at London Heathrow's new Terminal 5, to be occupied by British Airways, and an upgraded Terminal 3. Currently, oneworld carriers are split across all four Heathrow terminals. They account for more than 50% of LHR's traffic, with 35 million passengers per year onboard around 700 departures and arrivals each day.
Norwegian started a thrice-weekly Oslo-St. Petersburg service on March 3. Sterling launched thrice-weekly Copenhagen-Edinburgh service yesterday. Frequency will increase to six-times-weekly from March 27. It also will launch twice-weekly Edinburgh-Helsinki service beginning March 27 aboard 737s.
Royal Jordanian will transfer its Paris operations from Orly to Charles de Gaulle on March 26, allowing it to join its future oneworld partners in Terminal 1 when it becomes a full member of the alliance later this year. RJ operates five weekly flights to Paris aboard A320s.
Air Canada will launch daily Toronto-Salt Lake City service from June 2 aboard Air Canada Jazz CRJ705s and daily mainline flights from Toronto to San Diego beginning July 1 aboard A319s. SAS Scandinavian Airlines will codeshare with Swiss International Air Lines on its Bangkok-Singapore service Aloha Airlines will launch six-times-weekly Sacramento-Orange County service from May 2. Indonesia AirAsia began daily Medan-Penang service Friday.
EasyJet opened its 16th base at Milan Malpensa yesterday and said it expects to handle more than 1.2 million passengers there in the next 12 months flying three domestic and nine international routes. Three A319s will be based permanently at the airport, creating 100 pilot and cabin crew jobs and an additional 1,200 jobs in the Milan area, the carrier said. It already flies to Berlin, London Gatwick and Dortmund from Malpensa and also operates from Milan Linate serving Gatwick and Paris Orly. Italy is one of its fastest-growing markets and now accounts for 5% of its total network.
United Airlines and United Express will offer regional jet service on the following routes from June 8: Denver to Toronto and Cincinnati (daily), Washington Dulles to Cincinnati and Halifax (daily) and Chicago O'Hare to Bozeman (seasonal daily), Missoula and Billings (both seasonal weekend). On May 4 UA will expand its Los Angeles-Boise service to twice-daily aboard United Express and its mainline Dulles-Vancouver flight to daily.
AirTran Airways launched thrice-daily Chicago Midway-Newark service yesterday aboard 717s. Wizz Air will operate thrice-weekly Warsaw-Gothenburg service from June 18.
Ryanair is reducing its Cork-Liverpool service from seven flights per week to four following recent cost increases at Cork Airport, which according to the LCC will raise its costs there by more than €30,000 ($35,849) per year. Among the fee increases is a 300% hike in rental rates for check-in and ticket desks, Ryanair said. It will start a new thrice-weekly Kerry-Liverpool service "as a much cheaper alternative to Cork."
Delta Air Lines announced a significant summer expansion at New York JFK comprising 46 daily mainline and Delta Connection flights to 17 destinations. The vast majority of the flights will be operated to cities in the Northeast US by Delta Connection carriers Comair and Freedom Airlines, the latter a wholly owned subsidiary of Mesa Air Group. New mainline services are a daily flight to Las Vegas and an additional daily frequency to San Diego.
EasyJet announced yesterday the addition of 10 new routes and five new destinations: London Gatwick-Split four-times-weekly from May 2, London Luton-Bordeaux daily from June 29, Luton-Rimini four-times-weekly from June 29, Edinburgh-Alicante weekly from May 20, Bristol-Toulouse daily from July 21, Bristol-Krakow four-times-weekly from July 21, Bristol-La Rochelle four-times-weekly from July 21, Bristol-Marseille thrice-weekly from July 22, Bristol-Rijeka thrice-weekly from July 22 and Paris Orly-Ajaccio daily from July 14.
Zurich Airport was forced to cancel 72 flights Saturday owing to heavy snowfall. One day later it was Munich's turn as that airport reported 90 cancellations while 120 flights were delayed an average of 60 min. According to media reports, Europe is facing its toughest winter season in the past 150 years.
Delta Air Lines and Delta Connection will continue to expand in Salt Lake City with seven new routes beginning June 8. The carriers will operate service to Aspen (daily aboard SkyWest Airlines CRJ700s), Bellingham, Wash. (twice-daily aboard SkyWest CRJ200s), Des Moines (daily aboard SkyWest CRJ200s), Fargo (twice-daily aboard SkyWest CRJ200s), Sioux Falls (daily aboard SkyWest CRJ200s), Toronto (daily aboard Delta MD-90s) and Victoria, BC (daily aboard SkyWest CRJ200s). The Aspen and Victoria flights are seasonal ending Sept. 2.
US FAA announced yesterday that Wide Area Augmentation System use is being extended from the current 250 ft. above an airport's surface down to 200 ft. for instrument approaches for all users equipped with "appropriate" avionics. As a result, "WAAS-equipped commercial operators will gain access to Category I equivalent approach services at qualifying airports where there are no instrument landing systems." FAA will expand the application of these lower minima approaches beyond current ILS airports. The first procedures that allow operations down to 200 ft. will be published in 2007.
