More Noise, More News

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• Responding to “Obama fervor”, AirTran Airways is adding more flights to Washington D.C. for the inauguration. On January 21st, following the inauguration, they will increase service from Baltimore Washington to Atlanta and Milwaukee and Washington Dulles to Atlanta.
• United is launching service from Washington-Dulles to Geneva and reinstating Denver to London service from March 29th through October 23rd of next year.
• Virgin America is also responding to Obama fervor, by adding more flights to and from Washington Dulles the week of January 20th. Three additional roundtrips will be added from San Francisco and Los Angeles to Dulles.from January 16th to the 23rd.
• Delta Air Lines and Alaska Air announced an agreement in principle to amend their marketing agreement to make the airlines preferred alliance partners on the West Coast. The agreement will offer important benefits to customers including supporting the launch of new Delta long-haul trans-Pacific and Latin American routes from the West Coast; expanded connecting opportunities to and from Alaska Airlines and Horizon Air hubs and focus cities; and enhanced worldwide frequent flier and lounge reciprocity agreements between Delta and Alaska. For more information, check out the press release. The Cranky Flier has some useful maps showing Delta’s gap in the Pacific Northwest and how Alaska helps it.
• Air Canada will introduce a year-round service between Montreal and Geneva, beginning daily June 1st, with service continuing on to/from Toronto.
• Delta Air Lines(which now includes Northwest Airlines) will be expanding into multiple markets in the New Year, divided into three regions. We’re not sure there is demand for some of these locations to have such frequent US service, but we assume Delta has done its homework. The increase in Asian flying marks the start of synergy between Northwest and Delta. The Cranky Flier(yes, we have been citing him a lot today. Kudos to him for being so thorough), comments here.
  • Trans-Pacific – three new nonstop trans-Pacific flights between the United States and Tokyo-Narita, Japan, including new nonstop flights from Salt Lake City(1,3) and New York- JFK, a second daily flight from Atlanta, and daily service connecting customers beyond Tokyo to Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. Many of these flights will be operated by former Northwest crews and planes.
  • Africa – new flights between Atlanta and Nairobi, Kenya and Cape Town, South Africa(via Dakar, Senegal); between Atlanta and Monrovia, Liberia; Abuja, Nigeria; Luanda, Angola; and Malabo, Equatorial Guinea (all via Sal Island, Cape Verde); and between New York-JFK and Lagos, Nigeria. Delta also will introduce its first daily nonstop service to South Africa with flights between Atlanta and Johannesburg. There will be no actual service to Sal Island, it will be used only as a refueling stop.
  • Europe/Middle East – Delta will add the only nonstop flights operated to Gothenberg, Sweden and Valencia, Spain from the US, both from New York-JFK. Delta also will expand its service at New York-JFK with nonstop service to Prague, Czech Republic( and Zurich, Switzerland (seasonal); as well as the addition of a second nonstop flight between New York-JFK and Tel Aviv.

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