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June 2003 Frequent Flyer Program News
News Center & Archives
Travel News
Airline NewsHEADLINE NEWS Airlines continue to restore services to the Asia/Pacific region following the decision by the World Health Organization to lift its final travel advisory--to Beijing--earlier this week. Korean Air today resumes its seven weekly flights between Seoul and Hong Kong. Cathay Pacific Airways will restore flights to Taipei on a "gradual" basis, operating eight daily flights from July 1 and 12 daily services from Aug. 1 2003. It currently plans to have resumed all 103 flights per week by Sept. 1. Finnair will restore its three weekly flights to Hong Kong from the start of July and return the Bangkok route to daily frequencies. It launched three weekly flights between Helsinki and Shanghai at the beginning of Sept. It also is adding a third frequency on its Beijing-Helsinki route from the beginning of Aug. and a fourth frequency at the beginning of September. Earlier this week, China Southern Airlines, All Nippon Airways and Japan Airlines said they are resuming or increasing services to China that had been reduced or suspended because of SARS.
Great Britain on Thursday lifted "with immediate effect" a ban on flights to Nairobi imposed last month owing to security fears. The Dept. of Transport said it made the decision "following an improvement in the security situation" in the city. "Work is now underway at Mombassa Airport with a view to the ban on UK air services there too being lifted at an early date," DOT added.
New international arriving passenger manifest information being sought from airlines by the US Immigration and Naturalization Service under a recent notice of proposed rulemaking is duplicative, of questionable value, and illegal in many countries, the International Air Transport Assn. charged. The proposal would create lengthy delays for both US and non-US citizens trying to board international flights to or from the US.
AeroMexico will begin four weekly services from Ft. Lauderdale to Mexico City July 17 2003.
Air Littoral and Royal Air Maroc started code sharing on three weekly services between Casablanca and Montpellier. There will be a fourth flight as of July 1 2003.
Air Mauritius will resume SARS suspended flights to Singapore and Kuala Lumpur starting Aug. 2 2003, said spokesperson Joel Toussaint. It is unclear when services to Hong Kong will take off again.
AirTran Airways will add two daily nonstop flights between Atlanta and Greensboro/High Point/Winston Salem's Piedmont Triad International Airport Aug. 5 2003.
AirTran Airways launched two daily nonstop flights between Milwaukee and Baltimore/Washington International Airport with continuing service to Boston using a 717.
AirTran Airways launched June 5 2003 two daily nonstop services between Los Angeles International Airport and Atlanta.
All Nippon Airways will double its service to twice-daily on the Osaka-Beijing route and Japan Airlines is expected to return China services gradually. Those plans will be bolstered by the news that key Japanese trading houses such as Marubeni Corp. have lifted travel bans to China.
Aloha Airlines launched four weekly nonstop services between Oakland and Kauai.
American Airlines and SN Brussels Airlines are extending their code share agreement. From July 1 2003, American will place its code on SN Brussels services to Douala and Yaounde, Cameroon; Kinshasa, Congo; Banjul, Gambia, and Dakar, Senegal, via Brussels. SN Brussels began code sharing on AA services to 17 destinations from the Chicago hub.
American Airlines introduced promotions that give members of their frequent-flier programs the opportunity to earn a free ticket after three paid trips. United Airlines launched a similar promotion. American's promotion gives its FFP members the chance to earn a free ticket by traveling on three eligible business trips on American, American Eagle or AmericanConnection between now and Sept. 30. The free ticket can be used for travel in the contiguous 48 US states from Sept. 2, 2003, to Dec. 31, 2004, as well.
American Eagle will launch a daily nonstop service between Northwest Arkansas Regional Airport and Los Angeles International Airport Aug. 5 2003 using a 70-seat CRJ700.
American Eagle deployed ERJ-140s on its four daily flights between Laredo and Dallas/Ft. Worth. In addition, it deployed ERJ-145s on its four daily flights between Midland and DFW.
America West Airlines resumed its daily nonstop service between Spokane and Las Vegas. In addition, the airline will launch a third daily nonstop flight between Phoenix and Spokane.
Arkia Israeli Airlines will inaugurate twice-weekly, two-class seasonal 757 flights between Tel Aviv and Copenhagen July 4, 2003.
Asiana Airlines and Korean Air are moving to restore flights suspended during the peak of the SARS scare. Korean Air started flights to Dubai this week and will commence service to Nagasaki Saturday. Asiana plans to reopen eight flights to China within four weeks.
Bmibaby will launch flights from its new base at Teesside Airport to Belfast International on a daily basis and Geneva and Malaga on a weekly basis from October 2003.
British Airways launched a morning flight the week of June 2 2003 to London Heathrow from Newark using a 777 in a four-class configuration. It is the airline's third daily nonstop flight between London and Newark.
Cathay Pacific plans to restore around 170 weekly flights to its network. From July the airline will operate 71% of its full schedule in anticipation of an expected rise in demand over the summer. Thirteen parked aircraft will be recalled to service to correspond with the increased number of flights; nine will remain idle. At the peak of the SARS outbreak, CX throttled its schedule by 45% owing to a steep drop in passenger numbers, "though stringent efforts were made to retain schedule integrity." Total weekly flights operated in July will number almost 700, up from around 530 in April 2003.
Cathay Pacific Airways said it welcomed the US Center for Disease Control's decision to relax travel notification on Hong Kong in light of no evidence of ongoing community transmission of SARS. Senior VP-Americas Tom Wright said the lifting of the advice against "nonessential travel" will help to increase business travel and the airline is hopeful tourists will be reassured by the news as well.
Chautauqua Airlines began US Airways Express service between Reagan Washington National Airport and Bangor and daily nonstop service between New York LaGuardia and Bangor. US Airways Express carrier Mesa Airlines launched service between Pittsburgh and Bangor and upgraded to an ERJ-145 on one of its three daily flights between Philadelphia and Bangor.
China Southern Airlines earlier had resumed twice-weekly service from Xiamen to Kuala Lumpur and from Guangzhou to Ho Chi Minh City. Yesterday it relaunched three weekly flights from Shantou to Hong Kong. Beginning July 1 it will resume twice-weekly service from Sanya to Hong Kong and from July 12 2003 it will relaunch twice-weekly flights from Shantou to Bangkok and five weekly flights from Guangzhou to Seoul.
Continental Airlines, Delta Air Lines and Northwest Airlines launched the code share portion of their marketing agreement. Delta and Northwest began placing their codes on each other's flights from Memphis and Salt Lake City June 21. Continental and Delta will begin placing their codes on each other's flights from Cleveland, Salt Lake City and Atlanta July 15 2003. Northwest and Continental have had an extensive code share arrangement in place since 1998.
Continental Airlines, Delta Air Lines and Northwest Airlines announced that their frequent-flier members will be able book and redeem reward travel on any of the three airlines beginning July 15 2003. Delta's Song and Delta Connection flights are not included in the redemption benefits.
Continental Airlines will resume its four weekly nonstop services between Newark and Hong Kong Aug. 1 2003 using a 777-200ER in a two-class configuration.
Continental Airlines, Delta Air Lines and US Airways matched other US Majors and introduced new promotions that give their frequent-flier program members the opportunity to earn a free roundtrip ticket after traveling on three qualifying paid flights.
Continental opened the first phase of its new 23 gate Terminal E at Houston Bush Intercontinental Airport.
CSA Czech Airlines will start code sharing with Aeroflot in June 2003 on flights between Prague and Moscow. Aeroflot is regarded as a potential candidate for membership in SkyTeam, to which CSA belongs.
Song will inaugurate service to Las Vegas from New York JFK and Boston Oct. 1 2003 with a single roundtrip in each city pair. The Delta Air Lines low-fare service will add a third daily Boston-Ft. Myers roundtrip on the same date.
Delta Air Lines introduced a new business fare promotion that discounts full walkup coach fares in Salt Lake City by up to 40% and allows customers to upgrade to first class for as little as $50. The new fares also do not require an advance purchase and are refundable, but they are capacity-controlled and blackout dates apply.
Delta Connection will add a Saturday nonstop roundtrip in each of four markets out of Cincinnati from Aug 2 2003. Destinations are Washington Dulles, Nashville, Dayton and Ft. Walton Beach. Delta Connection also will add an extra Saturday service between Atlanta and Ft. Walton Beach. All flights will be operated by Comair using CRJs.
Delta Air Lines will begin daily nonstop service between Cincinnati and Honolulu from Nov. 1 using a 767-400 and will begin additional weekend service from Atlanta to Myrtle Beach using an MD-88 July 3 2003.
Delta Air Lines 's new low-fare product Song will launch two daily flights between Los Angeles and Orlando and between Los Angeles and Tampa Sept. 9 2003.
Emirates will launch a third daily service from Dubai to London Gatwick Aug. 1 2003 using an A330-200 in a three-class configuration and will add another daily service from Dubai to Muscat July 1 2003.
Emirates announced plans to extend its network by launching flights between Australia and New Zealand only weeks after securing the rights from the Australian government. The carrier will take up competition against Qantas and Air New Zealand on the Tasman from Aug. 1 2004 when it begins operating daily services to Auckland from Sydney and Melbourne, providing NZ links for passengers traveling to and from Australia to Dubai. Emirates will expand further with addition of a daily Brisbane-Auckland service Oct. 26 2003. Its entry into the transtasman market will complement its wide-ranging Australian services and offer an alternate route to Europe via the Middle East for passengers from New Zealand.
Finnair is introducing new code share destinations and connections in Europe with partners Air France, Swiss and SN Brussels Airlines. Effective June 12 2003 there will be connections from all four daily Helsinki-Paris return flights to Lyon, Marseilles, Bordeaux and Nice with AF. Six domestic destinations in Finland will receive AF route numbers via Helsinki: Turku, Tampere, Oulu, Kuopio, Jyvaskyla and Vaasa. Finnair and Swiss will expand their cooperation from June 16 by adding new code share destinations Graz and Luxembourg via Zurich. Swiss will code share with Finnair to Jyvaskyla via Helsinki and frequencies will be added on other routes. Finnair and SN Brussels have added more code share destinations via Brussels to Spain and the UK.
Finnair will operate two weekly nonstop flights from Helsinki to Miami from Oct. 23 to March 28 2004 using an MD-11.
Gulf Air will increase its A330 flights between London Heathrow and Muscat from daily to 13 times weekly effective July 1 2003. Flights will operate via either Abu Dhabi or Bahrain using the same aircraft for the entire journey.
Horizon Air will begin three daily nonstop flights between Idaho Falls and Seattle and two daily one-stop direct services between Pocatello and Seattle Sept. 7 2003 using Q400s. The airline also said it immediately is cutting business fares on the routes by as much as 26%.
Hapag Lloyd Express will stop its Cologne/Bonn-London Luton service July 1 2003, citing too much competition on the route.
Iberia Regional/Air Nostrum will operate services from Madrid to Faro and Olbia during July and Aug. 2003 using 50-seat CRJs. The carrier also will add another daily flight linking Madrid and Edinburgh.
Japan Airlines Group made further adjustments to its international flight schedule that "reflect the changes in passenger demand following the Iraq war and the outbreak of SARS and are based on the planned 2003 summer schedule released in January." From July 1 2003, Tokyo-Hong Kong flights will be increased from seven to 28 per week and Nagoya-Bangkok flights from two to four per week. Beginning July 15, Tokyo-Los Angeles frequencies will increase from seven to eight per week, Tokyo-Honolulu from 14 to 21 per week and Osaka-Honolulu from seven to 14 per week. From June 28, Tokyo-Zurich services, which were suspended, will operate seven times per week and the carrier will operate three weekly flights from Nagoya and one from Tokyo to Sao Paulo from July 1 to Aug. 31. In addition, the company reduced frequencies from July 15 to Aug. 31 between Tokyo and London, Paris, Shanghai and Seoul and between Nagoya and Shanghai. From July 1 to Aug. 31, frequencies will be reduced on Osaka-London and Osaka-Paris and from July 1 to July 14 on the Osaka-Ho Chi Minh route. From July 15 to Aug. 31, Tokyo-Shanghai, Tokyo-Xian, Osaka-Guangzhou, Osaka-Kunming, Osaka-Guam, Osaka-Saipan, Fukuoka-Hong Kong, Fukuoka-Shanghai and Nagoya-Beijing services will be suspended. The Osaka-Beijing service will be suspended from July 1 to July 14 2003. The company also made changes to its code share flights with Vietnam Airlines and Cathay Pacific Airways.
JetBlue Airways launched service between New York JFK and San Diego. It will operate one daily nonstop and add a second on July 14 2003.
KLM has made the decision to join the SkyTeam alliance, according to senior European sources close to the negotiations. An announcement is set to occur within the next 2-6 weeks. Entry into SkyTeam means that KLM's US partners, Northwest Airlines and Continental Airlines, will be joining the group as well. Continental and NWA already are closely aligned with SkyTeam founding partner Delta Air Lines in a three-way domestic US code sharing alliance.
KLM will launch two weekly services to Malabo in Equatorial Guinea and Douala in Cameroon July 23 2003 using a 767-300ER.
Korean Air will begin code sharing on Alitalia's Rome-Milan flights this month.
Lufthansa is ramping up to 19 weekly services to mainland China and Hong Kong after WHO ruled SARS is under control in the region. The carrier will offer daily flights from July to both Hong Kong and Shanghai, while Beijing will be served five times a week. From Aug. 2003 all three cities again will have daily connections from Germany. LH currently offers three flights a week to Beijing and Hong Kong and daily flights to Shanghai.
Lufthansa will increase capacity 60% on its daily nonstop Frankfurt-Denver service effective July 1 2003 by replacing A340-300s with 747-400s on the route.
Lufthansa will launch an entirely revamped long-haul business class in Oct. 2003 when its first A340-600 joins the fleet. Details are being closely held but the product, not to be regarded as a substitute for LH's first-class service, is known to include new Recaro seats with widely expanded pitch and a new IFE system.
Malaysia Airlines and Garuda agreed to extend their code share agreement to include flights to Europe and Australia. The previous agreement covered flights from Kuala Lumpur to Jakarta, Surabaya, Denpasar and Medan. From July, Garuda will code share on MAS flights from Kuala Lumpur to London and Frankfurt while MAS will code share on Garuda's Denpasar-Darwin service.
Midwest Airlines will expand its low-fare operation to three new destinations in Florida from Milwaukee, with weekend-only service to Ft. Lauderdale, Ft. Myers and Tampa beginning Nov. 22 2003, moving to single daily in each market Dec. 18 to April 25 2004.
Midwest Airlines will launch nonstop service between Kansas City and John Wayne Airport Oct. 1. It will operate two flights each weekday and one daily flight on Saturday and Sunday. In addition, Midwest will begin two daily weekday services and one daily flight on Saturdays and Sundays between Milwaukee and John Wayne Airport via Kansas City Oct. 1 2003.
Northwest Airlines introduced promotions that give members of their frequent-flier programs the opportunity to earn a free ticket after three paid trips. United Airlines launched a similar promotion. Under Northwest's promotion, members can earn a free ticket in the contiguous 48 US states after flying three roundtrips on select fare types to any of the airline's destinations between now and Oct. 7. The carrier said travelers can earn a total of two free tickets during the promotion and they can be redeemed between Sept. 2, 2003, and Dec. 31, 2004.
Northwest Airlines will launch two daily services between Minneapolis/St. Paul and Fayetteville Oct. 26 2003 using 50-seat CRJs.
Northwest Airlines said its usage tracking reports revealed that 50.3% of eligible customers used self-service check-in in May 2003 through either its website or one of its e-Service Center kiosks.
Pinnacle Airlines, a Northwest Airlink carrier, will replace one of its four Saab 340 flights on Sundays with a CRJ beginning Aug. 3 2003. Effective Sept. 2 the flight will become daily.
Qatar Airways launched two nonstop flights per week from Doha to Rome with continuing service to Milan. In addition, the airline will operate two nonstop flights per week from Doha to Milan with continuing service to Rome. Qatar will use A300-600s on the flights.
Qatar Airways will launch two weekly services between Doha and Basra June 10 2003.
Qantas is suspending its service to Rome after 55 years and taking up a code sharing deal with oneworld partner Cathay Pacific Airways. The Australian airline announced Thursday it will replace its twice-weekly direct service to the Italian capital via Singapore with a four-times-weekly operation in tandem with Cathay through Hong Kong from Sept. 9 2003.
Qantas will increase services between Australia and Los Angeles from 25 to 28 flights a week effective June 30 2003 and to 30 a week from early Aug. as the market continues to recover. It also plans to introduce additional capacity between New Zealand and Queensland.
Singapore Airlines completed installation of the Raffles Class flat Spacebed in all of its 777ER business-class cabins. It said cost of the changeover was $100 million.
Singapore Airlines moved its New York JFK operation from Terminal 1 to Terminal 4 the week of June 2 2003.
SkyWest Airlines, a Delta Connection carrier, will operate one additional daily flight each between Salt Lake City and Phoenix, Colorado Springs and Orange County beginning July 1 2003.
SN Brussels Airlines concluded a new code share agreement with Croatian Airlines. From June 3 2003, SN Brussels will add its flight code on Croatian's services between Brussels and Zagreb and Split, which are operated respectively five times weekly and twice weekly using A319s or BAe 146s in a two-class configuration.
Swiss International Air Lines will announce after a June 22 2003 board meeting initial details of a new business plan that calls for shedding 400 cabin staff and introducing charges for economy-class catering. A Swiss spokesperson declined to confirm the report in the Zurich daily Tages-Anzeiger that the airline plans to drop one cabin attendant per flight from long-haul and European flights in a move to curb costs. Loss-making Swiss is expected to park an additional 4-8 long-haul aircraft as it further downsizes its fleet.
Swiss Skies, a new Switzerland-based air transportation company, in conjunction with World Airways will launch two weekly direct flights from Washington to Kabul via Geneva using MD-11s in a two-class configuration beginning July 14 2003.
United will reinstate service on July 1 2003 between San Francisco and Hong Kong. In addition, flights between San Francisco and Shanghai will increase from three to five per week.
United Airlines launched a new promotion that will allow members of its frequent-flier program the opportunity to earn a free roundtrip ticket by flying three business trips on United and United Express between June 5 and Sept. 30. The airline said the promotion, Fly Three, Fly Free, was designed to "benefit business travelers and help promote the company's world-class travel services."
United Airlines initiated daily nonstop service, the week of June 2 2003, between San Francisco and Seoul using a 777 in a three-class configuration.
US Airways formally was approved to join the Star Alliance by a unanimous vote of the alliance's chief executive board. "US Airways offers Star Alliance business and leisure passengers significant advantages," Star CEO Jaan Albrecht said. "For business travelers, the addition of US Airways means unparalleled access to the most extensive airline network in the eastern US; for leisure travelers, the expanded network also means more destinations in the Caribbean and Florida from which to choose."
US Airways entered into a marketing agreement with Caribbean Sun Airlines with the first code share flights to begin June 15 2003, offering daily connecting service between San Juan and Antigua, St. Maarten, St. Kitts and Tortola. The agreement also includes network expansion and affiliation through US Airways' frequent-flier program.
Vietnam Airlines introduced thrice-weekly 767-300ER services between Hanoi and Paris, cutting flight time to 12.5 hr., 4 hr. less than previous flights via Saigon. Thrice-weekly nonstops between Saigon and Paris start June 30 2003.
VLM Airlines will increase the frequency of its express link between London City Airport and Manchester from five to eight return flights per weekday. It also operates two Sunday return flights. A ninth weekday return service is scheduled to begin in September 2003.
WestJet began three weekly flights between Gander and Moncton.
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Sources: Airlines, Airports, Air & Business Travel News, Airliners.net, Prnewswire.com and Travelocity.com
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