IN THE AIR – THIS MONTH’S NEWS

ROUTES

British Isles: South-east Airports

AMERICAN AIRLINES is pulling off the Stansted-New York route on 2nd July, after just nine months.

BMI has decided put its second daily Heathrow-Moscow (Domodedovo) service on hold as it failed to acquire traffic rights from the Russian authorities. The service was originally planned for launch in March, then postponed to 30th June.

VIRGIN ATLANTIC will start a second service between Heathrow and Hong Kong on 28th October, building to daily by 1st December.

ZOOM launches a Winnipeg-Gatwick service on 27th September. Meanwhile its Gatwick-Fort Lauderdale service is being simplified to a one-stop operation with both weekly services routing via Bermuda. Its Gatwick-San Diego service was launched at the end of June.

British Isles: Other Airports

BMIBABY has launched a thrice-weekly Birmingham-Warsaw service.

FLYBE is shelving the newly launched service between Glasgow and Newquay. Flights only took off in April, but will come end on 2nd August.

LOGANAIR (Franchisee for Flybe) has launched two services from Dundee, to Belfast and Birmingham.

PAKISTAN INTERNATIONAL AIRLINES is launching a twice-weekly service between Leeds/Bradford and Islamabad on 2nd July.

RYANAIR is launching services to nine new destinations from Birmingham this winter, going head to head against other budget carriers such as Bmibaby and Monarch on four of the new routes: Alicante, Malaga, Murcia and Palma. The other destinations are Fuerteventura, Katowice, Kaunas, Krakow and Londonderry. The airline is also launching thrice weekly services from Bournemouth to Bergamo and Beauvais, and from Prestwick to Faro and Tenerife South (twice a week), and Malaga (thrice weekly). All services will commence at the end of October.

Rest-of-World Developments

AEROLINEAS ARGENTINAS resumes services from Buenos Aires to Cordoba and Florianopolis on 1st November, and to New York (JFK), four times a week, on 8th December.

AIR CHINA is reducing services from Beijing to Paris and Munich during July and August.

DELTA will launch a five-times weekly New York (JFK)-Buenos Aires service on 18th December.

EMIRATES will launch its Airbus A380 service on the Dubai-New York (JFK) route on 1st August. It is also increasing its Indian services this summer. Dubai-Delhi frequencies increase from 11 to 18 weekly, Dubai-Bangalore from 8 to 10, and Dubai-Shamshabad (Hyderabad) from 11 to 16, from 1st July.

ETIHAD launches a twice-weekly Abu Dhabi-Minsk service on 5th August.

MEXICANA will cancel services from Mexico City and Guadalajara to Portland on 2nd September.

QANTAS has announced its route plans for its first two Airbus A380 aircraft. The first will operate one weekly Melbourne-Los Angeles and one weekly Sydney-Los Angeles rotation from 20th October. Frequency on these routes will increase in November when the second A380 is delivered.

OTHER NEWS

Continental and United Airlines have jointly announced a comprehensive global partnership plan, which eventually will see Continental leaving Skyteam and joining United/Lufthansa-led Star Alliance.

Silverjet has gone into administration after financial problems forced it to suspend all its flights, leaving passengers stranded. The cancellations left almost 10,000 customers needing to make alternative plans at short notice. Subsequent reports of rescue bids have so far come to nought.

The Civil Air Administration of China has announced slot designations for the first non-stop services between China and Taiwan. From the PRC side, Air China, China Southern, China Eastern, Hainan Airlines, Shanghai Airlines and Xiamen Airlines have all been awarded flights to Taiwan.

The USA is to tighten visa restrictions to allow it to screen all short-term visitors from Japan and Western Europe. Visitors to the US who do not need visas will be required to register with the government online. The security regulation, set to begin next year, will require visitors to register three days before they visit. The online registration will remain valid for a two-year period. The changes - which will affect citizens of the 27 countries currently listed under the US visa waiver programme - will allow the US to screen visitors before they travel. The new measures will contain provisions for last-minute travel. The new programme will be rolled out from August, and will be mandatory for all visa-free travel from 12th January 2009. A Homeland Security spokesman said the new registrations would require the same information as the I-94 card, which is currently filled out by visitors to the US and turned in to customs on arrival in the country.

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©Wentworth Publishing Ltd 2008