Air Canada will introduce daily nonstop service from Vancouver to Yellowknife with seasonal service from December 1st through April with a 50-seat CRJ. Flights are timed to connect with service to Tokyo, Osaka, and points within British Columbia.
Airtran launched service today from Portland, Maine to BWI. The first flight from BWI brought a delegation of Maryland officials with Chesapeake Bay crabs. They returned with Maine lobsters.
Continental Airlines began twice-weekly service today from Houston to Loreto, Mexico. Service is operated using ERJ-145XR 50-seater jet.
Frontier launched service from Dallas/Ft. Worth to Mazatlan, Mexico today with flights three times a week operated by an Airbus 319.
United launched daily service from San Francisco to Taipei operated by a three-class Boeing 777 aircraft.
Airtran announced the arrival of its 2000th flight attendant. In 2002, Airtran had less than 1000 flight attendants, but has expanded greatly in the last five years.
The Coalition for Luggage Security is once again trying to get us to not check luggage on basis of Henry C. Woods Jr, who attempted to check a loaded gun on a flight from Miami to Honduras.
Continental launched today nonstop flights from Newark to Athens, Greece using 174-seat Boeing 767-200ER aircraft. Service will be daily, and be reduced for the fall/winter.
Regional Aviation Partners, an advocacy group that represents those who depend on regional aviation, say that the Senate FAA Reauthorization Bill could harm turboprop service and eliminate service to small communities. The bill includes a $25 user fee, which they assert would reduce expansion plans by carriers who still serve cities on an unsubsidized basis. Essentially…the $25 fee would cause more operators of small turboprops in commercial service to claim funds under the Essential Air Service subsidies…We are unsure of the financial details of EAS subsidies vs. $25 user fee in terms of numbers and will look into further analysis…we welcome comments.
Southwest is considering slowing its expansion if profits continue to fail to meet targeted goals. Southwest expands approximately 8 percent per year.
Airlines raised fares on Tuesday by $5 one-way for advance purchases and $10 for walk-up and business fares. The hike was launched in some markets by Airtran and matched by Continental, Delta, Northwest, United, and US Airways. Not all fare hikes succeed.
Air Canada introduced two new flight passes this week, allowing unlimited flying in Ontario or Quebec during July or August for $999. Passes are available for sale between now and the 26th. Passes allow unlimited travel with certain exceptions, complimentary seat selection, 5000 Aeroplan status miles, and other advantages.
Jetblue has partnered with Google Maps to provide real-time flight tracking. Google Maps replaces Mapquest on Channel 13, and we will see if it is an improvement. It is newer, and may incorporate more and better technology. We will wait to see.
Airbus has gotten another customer for the A350, with Aer Lingus announcing an order for them, as well as several Airbus 330s. We are unsure of how much Airbus had to give the airline in incentives to take the plan, which has yet to leave the drawing board and on it has been completely redesigned several times.
Delta Airlines has achieved record May load factors. For details, check out their press release.
The 747 Dreamlifter, the specially modified 747-400 used to transport the major assemblies of the Boeing 787 Dreamliner, was granted type certification from the FAA.
Mesaba has received FAA certification to fly the CRJ-900. Mesaba is now a subsidiary of Northwest, and operates as Northwest Airlink. The CRJ900 should have entered revenue service today for Northwest.
Delta started nonstop service to Seoul from Atlanta and Bucharest from New York on Monday.
Varig has launched a second daily flight to Frankfurt from Rio de Janiero, starting June 16th. Varig service is now operated by VRG Linhas Aereas, controlled by GOL. VRG is launching routes formerly served by Varig as part of its expansion.
Canada’s Airport are enthused about talks with the EU about Open Skies, scheduled for this fall. Canada recently signed an Open Skies agreement with Ireland and has agreements with other EU member nations. This would liberalize and supersede these local agreements in one shot.
Virgin is planning all-business flights with a fleet of up to 15 new planes to compete with EOS, MAXJet, and Silverjet, who operate all-business service to London’s Stansted airport. Virgin plans flights to New York from various cities in Europe now that Open Skies is coming. We applad the idea of more established carriers getting into all-business class service on these high-volume routes that they can merge with their two-class service.