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Delta will operate two Heathrow to JFK flights a day, one from Heathrow to Atlanta and one from Charles de Gaulle to Salt Lake City. Air France is to start a Los Angeles service from the London hub in April next year. Delta is also significantly increasing its French operation, with new services from Paris Orly to JFK, as well as a Charles de Gaulle to Salt Lake City.
Upper Class passengers or Flying Club Gold members not taking advantage of Virgin's limo service, will be able to check-in at T3's Zone A, before taking a priority lift straight to the security channel.
Upper Class passengers, who have already supplied check-in details to their limo driver, will be driven up a curved ramp onto a 22m wide arrival area. After being welcomed by a Virgin Atlantic host, check-in formalities will be completed before passengers walk through a new hotel-style lobby area and into the dedicated security channel, that is itself near to the airline's renowned Clubhouse lounge.
This will be the third long-haul route added this year by SAS, as in March the carrier introduced Stockholm-Beijing in addition to Copenhagen-Beijing
GB Airways currently operates services under the British Airways brand to Southern Europe and North Africa under a franchise agreement with BA. EasyJet will now acquire GB Airways' nine A320 and 6 A321 aircraft operating 39 routes - 28 from Gatwick, 6 from Manchester and five from Heathrow, although the purchase by Easyjet does not include the Heathrow take-off and landing slots.
BA says it will now start services to Faro and Malaga from Heathrow and from Gatwick to Faro, Gibraltar, Ibiza, Malaga, Palma and Tunis, many of which are classic GB Airways routes. GB Airways had four daily slots at Heathrow, but five routes as one rotation operated to Marrakesh via Casablanca.
A clear difference of opinion had emerged between BA and GB Airways. The franchise wanted passengers to pay for catering and extra legroom seats: a move that BA resisted.
The news came on a frenetic morning that also saw former British Airways franchise Loganair, depart the stable, while Bmed's exit to bmi is due to formally occur in two days time. FlyBE have already taken over most of the domestic routes, leaving BA with a small rump of international routes from Gatwick, and rather more from Heathrow.
The new aircraft will replace 20 of the airline's Boeing 747-400s and its14 long haul Boeing 767 fleet. There are options for a further seven Airbus A380s and18 Boeing 787s which still leaves a question mark for the future regarding the 37 remaining B747s, 13 B757s and seven B767s in BA's fleet.
The Rolls-Royce Trent 900 is launch engine for the Airbus A380 which enters service soon with Singapore Airlines. The Trent 1000 is the launch engine for all variants of the Boeing 787 and will power the aircraft's first flight later this year, before entering service in 2008.
With no orders for the Boeing 777 it will put pressure on Boeing to update the world's largest twin-engined aircraft as a replacement for the balance of the 747 fleet. With only Lufthansa ordering the updated Boeing 747-800 in passenger form a big question mark remains over the future of the 40-year old design.
The German airline will become the third flag-carrier after British Airways put back a service to London Gatwick it axed several years ago. Meanwhile Swiss has launched services from the West Country airport to Zurich.
The airport estimates that it will handle 400,000 passengers this year with airlines such as Flybe, bmibaby, Ryanair and Air Southwest offering a wide range of services.
Premium Economy, which Virgin Atlantic claims to have originated in 1992, doubled in passenger numbers during the first half of this decade. In the ten months since a £12m revamp, Virgin Atlantic has carried around 950,000 passengers in the cabin, a further 20% increase.
The new Premium Economy cabin combines a 38" seat pitch with a width of 21" leather seat which features enhanced ergonomics for improved comfort. It also features a dual position footrest, lumbar support, adjustable headrest with wings, and a redesigned tray table.
All seats provide passengers with lap top power. Other benefits include a dedicated check in and cabin crew, separate cabin, priority with boarding and luggage collection along with a three-choice meal service served on china dinnerware with stainless steel cutlery, and an amenity kit.
The long established national airline of Brazil, Varig went into bankruptcy protection last year, suspending its London services (which was taken over by its rival TAM) before being purchased by GOL, a successful domestic carrier quoted on the Brazilian stock market and which is retaining the name for international services.
Unlike the 14 hour non-stop flights to Sydney, the new thrice-weekly service operates via Singapore. The flights connect up with the UK services, twice daily out of Heathrow and a single operation from Manchester.
However, from Manchester, flights are two-class Airbus A330 operations rather than the three-cabin Airbus A340 out of Heathrow. The airline code-shares with bmi.
Etihad says that the Sydney service is performing exceptionally well since its launch in March. More than 40,000 passengers have flown on the route with a 68% seat factor in economy, 85% in business and 78% in first class.
The Scandinavian carrier says that its new A class ticket will be available up until departure and guarantees a seat in business class on routes between Copenhagen/Stockholm and Bangkok, Chicago, Dubai, New York, Seattle, Tokyo and Washington.
The new SAS Business Sleeper seat is now available on all the of the carrier's long-haul fleet, while passengers can opt to sleep longer on flights arriving in the morning and take a 'Grab & Go' breakfast bag, including coffee, when leaving.
Upgraded audio/video is also a new feature, with 30 audio and 46 video titles on board long-haul services.
Two aircraft will be fitted with the screens before they are introduced throughout the fleet as a testbed. The first aircraft with the new Entertainment on Demand system will begin operating as early as November 2007. And by April 2008 around 40% of the entire Lufthansa long-haul fleet will have been converted.
Aer Lingus will base three A320 aircraft at Belfast International airport and will primarily serve London Heathrow and Amsterdam Schiphol airports. Eight short-haul routes from Belfast would be launched and included flights to Barcelona, Geneva, Budapest and Malaga, together with London and Amsterdam.
Aer Lingus will transfer valuable Heathrow slots from Shannon airport in Ireland to Belfast -- which will be axed as a route, even though it is a high frequency connection used 4 times a day, with links to the US.
Qantas A380 economy inflight bar |
The most important announcement is that of Premium Economy. Although offered by BA for years, Qantas have finally caught up, and are offering something slightly better. The seats have a 42 inch pitch with a wide centre console with fixed cocktail table, in-arm dining table, literature pocket and waterbottle holder, in a 2-3-2 configuration. There is a large, in-arm, touch screen video monitor, a noise cancelling headset port, PC power, USB and RJ45 ports, and a dedicated separate checkin area. Premium Economy will be available gradually on 747 services to LHR/JNB/HKG from February 2008 with further routes available as the A380 is delivered.
All cabins, even economy, have a self-service bar (4 in economy) with refreshments, snacks & drinks. All seats will have AVOD, with 350 TV selections, 500 audio CDs, 30 PC style games, selection of audio books and radio channels.
Qantas A380 First Class Seat |
New dedicated domestic Business class lounges will be available in Brisbane, Melbourne and Sydney by mid-2008. The flying Roo tail logo is also being slightly tweaked, with a longer foot and a more head-down impression.
Virgin Blue has a firm order for six 777-300ER aircraft from Boeing and are leasing a seventh. The livery for V Australia trades heavily on the country's flag with a red tail bearing stars of the Southern Cross and a silver fuselage, while a large red 'V' preceding a lower case 'australia' and also embossed with stars, appears nearer the nose.
V Australia will be the fourth carrier in the Virgin Blue Group of airlines, including domestic operator, Virgin Blue, New Zealand-based Pacific Blue and Polynesian Blue, a joint venture with the Samoan government. V Australia will seriously open up competition on the transpacific routes between Australia and the west coast of the United States. Currently the Sydney - Los Angeles route is flown by Qantas and United Airlines (UA) with both American Airlines and Air New Zealand having a code share with UA. All use Boeing 747s.
Qantas damage to the QF 747 |
As a result Qantas are using 2 class 747-400s to Perth (with the newer seats & AVOD), considerably enhancing comfort for those in Business Class.
The aircraft was patched up to fly to Avalon for more permanent repairs. After one abortive attempted transfer, when the aircraft was forced to return in the air to Melbourne, it is now in Avalon. Repairs are expected to take several weeks.
The carrier is ordering five extra Airbus A330s to join the three already in service, with the first deliveries due in spring 2008.
Following the recent acquisition of British Mediterranean Airways, bmi will also take delivery of five Airbus A321s to expand the airline's medium haul network. Bmi chief executive Nigel Turner said the group would announce network plans for long haul operations this year.
American's JFK-Stansted service will be flown with two-class (Business and Economy/Coach) Boeing 767-300 aircraft with 221 seats, including 30 Next Generation Business Class seats. It plans to use a generic lounge at Stansted. Flights leave JFK at 2000, arriving in the UK at 0815. It then has two hours to turn around, before leaving Stansted at 1015, arrving back in JFK at 1315.
American Air will also begin serving London's Heathrow Airport from both Dallas/Fort Worth (DFW) and Raleigh/Durham (RDU). It plans to switch one of its two daily DFW roundtrips to London Heathrow, while the other DFW roundtrip will retain its current service to London Gatwick. American's one daily Raleigh/Durham-to-London flight will also switch to Heathrow from Gatwick.
The new design means that the Clubhouse's entire space has been opened up to create one large area but with different sections within this to provide privacy. The increased seating capacity means that there are now two sunken lounges that provide comfortable banquet seating and a raised sun deck seating area which means passengers will be able to get the most out of the natural light that floods into the area as well as having good views of the airport. The Clubhouse has introduced a self-service snack station, which allows the passenger to have an increased choice of refreshments or the option to order from the kitchen if they prefer something more substantial.
There is also a new 'welcome system', which is being rolled out worldwide after its success at the flagship Heathrow Clubhouse, that informs passengers about the status of their flight before entering into the Clubhouse.
The lounge, Star Alliance's largest, has areas to unwind in the lounge areas with food and drinks, or take a shower or use the business centres in both the first and business class sections, which are equipped with free wifi internet connections. These lounges use the international, rather than the North America model, with free drinks and snacks.
The new facility replaces 12 former airline lounges used by individual airlines, which will be shut, including ANA, Asiana, Lufthansa, Singapore Airlines, Swiss and Thai. These six airlines offer 74 weekly international flights out of Los Angeles. Air New Zealand continues with its own facility at the airport.
Star Alliance already have joint lounges at Zurich and Nagoya. Its now developing two other lounges at Heathrow Airport Terminal 1 and at Paris Charles de Gaulle Terminal 1, both slated to open in 2008.
It follows the Irish flag carrier successfully fighting off a takeover bid from Ryanair thanks to a European Commission saying it would have the potential of a monopoly. With a headline single fare of just one Euro Aer Lingus is planning to fight a battle with Rynair.
Aer Lingus will use a A320 four-times daily on the route that the carrier left after 9/11, bringing the short-haul fleet to 32 aircraft, while the airline also recently announced ambitious plans to double its long-haul machines in a drive to increase US services.
Rewards4all replaces Flybe's previous Economy Plus FFP and the carrier is keen to emphasise that it now offers a full package for business and leisure travellers, with even twenty pound tickets qualifying for the scheme.
Economy Plus still remains as a business class, offering dedicated check-in, free seat assignment, lounge access, ticket flexibility and the FFP. Calculations are based on economy one way earning one point and return two points, while Economy Plus single earns two points and return four points.
A free return flight requires 16 points, while 20 points are needed to qualify for one year's free lounge access.
As BMI holds 12% of take-off and landing slots at Heathrow, this would be a very appealing prospect. It would mean Lufthansa would dramatically increase its market share to become the second-biggest airline after British Airways at Heathrow, just as transatlantic air travel is liberalised next spring.
However as Lufthansa have shown with other airlines they own, such as Austrian and Swiss, they would convert the bmi Frequent Flyer scheme (called Diamond Club) into it's own Miles&More system. Frequent Flyers would loose considerable benefits.
bmi are clearly much more concerned in finding suitable Airbus A330 aircraft. After a 25 year battle to obtain traffic rights from Heathrow to the United States the airline finds itself struggling to find suitable equipment in which to introduce new services. At the recent IATA conference in Vancouver chief executive Nigel Turner was confident that aircraft will be found. "We have three A330s on line," he said. "I am positive that we will be ready to expand our long haul Heathrow operation next spring".
Staying within the group are Scandinavian Airlines Danmark, Norge, Sverige and International, Blue 1, Widerøe, airBaltic and Estonian Air. Holdings in other airlines, Spanair, bmi and Air Greenland, will be sold.
The real novelty in First Class comes with a business-jet style table, where two people can dine comfortably in a suite. Each of the first class suites offers nearly 26 square feet of usable space that can be closed off with sliding doors. The suites feature a 23-inch flat-screen monitor, storage areas that include a personal hanging wardrobe and a 6' 11" flat bed.
Jet Airways has ordered 10 twin-engine 777-300ERs, all of which are configured in three classes, including eight first class suites, 30 Premiere seats and 274 economy seats.
Jet Airways operates the 777-300ER on a Mumbai to London route. In August, the airline will become the first private airline flying from India to the United States (New York (Newark)), operating the Boeing 777-300ER via Brussels, which it has designated as a new European hub. It also plans to operate to Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, Toronto, and San Francisco via Shanghai.
Most long haul carriers are now established in the North terminal. The South terminal is generally used for charter flights.
Continental BusinessFirst customers and Presidents Club members now have access to the new Emirates lounge at the North Terminal. The state-of-the-art lounge offers spacious seating for 255 passengers offering full dining and refreshment options to customers, along with a fully equipped business centre with free fixed and wireless internet access. There are showers and a smoking room.
BusinessFirst customers arriving at Gatwick on flights from the US will continue to be offered access to Continental's arrivals lounge at the South Terminal. The arrivals lounge features ten private shower rooms, a valet service for customers wishing to get their clothes pressed or steamed, four workstations, light snacks and refreshments and a lounge area.
Under open skies Continental is known to be exploring the possibility of transferring some services to Heathrow and also opening new routes.
There are Ricaro seats are fully flat seats, on cloth rather than leather. The seats can move forward from the set position, a real innovation, but perhaps the most important advancement is a three-position memory setting. There is also a double table, allowing for plenty of eating and working space, and there is a personal video-on-demand and audio system that can be mounted on the tray or seat back.
There is a cubby hole for a laptop, and a light in the back of the seat which makes for a nice bright area when the table trays are set up. The seats come in a two-person module and are not stepped, which does reduce access for the window passenger.
The Irish flag carrier will take delivery of the extra machines - six A350XWBs and six A330-300Es - in 2009 . There is an option for a further six A350XWB aircraft.
Expansion of Aer Lingus' long-haul fleet began in May 2007 with the arrival of a new A330-300E and a further example in June, bringing the number of long-range aircraft to nine. The new aircraft will bring the long-haul total to 14 by 2014 through the complex delivery of five extra aircraft and the replacement of three older machines - one in 2009 and two in 2011. A further four aircraft will be replaced in 2015 and 2016.
The airline will be offering services "by next summer", with the airline's Boeing 757s or 767s used in either a two-class or business class only layout. And following the success of Eos and Maxjet out of Stansted, and also Silverjet based at Luton, Heathrow might not be the London hub.
Initially a US mounted operation could serve European hubs It seems to work well for other airlines - Lufthansa has operated 50-seat Boeing and Airbus narrow bodied aircraft from both Dusseldorf and Munich to New York and Chicago since 2003, while KLM has a daily Amsterdam - Houston rotation using a Boeing 737-700 and featuring its World Business Class service.
Virgin Atlantic is also quickly moving forward with plans to introduce a similar operation also from the major continental centres to New York. However, Virgin does not have any suitable aircraft in its fleet.
The KLM/Northwest arrangement is a code share splitting costs and passengers might fly on a KLM or Northwest aircraft. Similar discussions are taking place between KLM's partner Air France and Delta. Delta has recently only just bought the rights to fly to New York from Gatwick.
Continental Airlines has also been in discussion with its European Skyteam partners and they are also likely to come into Heathrow. Presently the airline serves Newark and Houston from Gatwick.
Similar to the first Premium Economy expansion last October, the airline's fleet of eight 747 aircraft will be reconfigured to replace 15 standard economy seats on the lower deck with eight Premium Economy seats. The second expansion will increase the total number of Premium Economy seats on B747 flights to 39, up from 23 seats at launch. The work is scheduled for completion by the end of October 2007.
The New Zealand product probably offers the most in a fiercely competitive market. ANZ has a 40" seat pitch, as against British Airways 34", and 38" with Virgin. Both Virgin and ANZ offer a dedicated check-in and a superior meal service.
With Virgin Atlantic is to upgrade its own Premium Economy cabin and British Airways is likely to do the same with World Traveller Plus.
With the opening of the concourse, American has increased its number of gates from 18 to 28, with 15 able to handle arriving international flights. When the terminal is complete in early 2008, the facility will have 36 gates, with 19 capable of handling international arrivals.
The latest efforts are part of Phase II of the construction of American's state of the art terminal, the newest and largest airline terminal at JFK.
In June, American will unveil in Concourse B, a 11,200sq ft Admirals Club and a 7,000sq ft Flagship Lounge for international first class passengers, as well as other eligible first class passengers on certain domestic transcontinental flights.
Phase I of American's new terminal, which opened in August 2005, features a dramatic, 57,000sq ft ticketing lobby with a 65ft ceiling. A recently completed 397ft long mural by New York artist and architect Matteo Pericoli, adorns the east wall of the terminal and depicts a spectacular global skyline with famous buildings from New York and more than 70 other cities. That lobby is linked to Concourse C by a 250ft underground tunnel served by escalators and moving walkways.
The new services will double Virgin's capacity between London and Jamaica to 190,000 seats a year, with the Jamaican capital bringing the number of destinations worldwide served by Virgin to 30.
The new terminal, which is the biggest airport development in British history, will be used exclusively by British Airways customers. The first flight to take off from Terminal 5 will be BA302 to Paris and the first arriving flight will be BA026 from Hong Kong.
There is a new £60million British Airways' suite of lounges will be collectively known as the 'galleries'. Combined, they will cover 15,000 square metres - the world's largest airline lounge complex. Facilities will include space to relax, work, eat and drink and a new travel spa. They will host up to 2,500 people.
They wll have a 150 seat cinema, three spas, 170 workstations, six general bar areas, four wine bars, 40 coffee machines, 109 washrooms, five kitchens, seven dining rooms, 134 showers and bathrooms, screens and lighting that can change the mood from daytime to evening. The 500-seat Concorde Lounge will include fireplaces, separate ensuite bedrooms, and private dining facilities.
Terminal 3 will also benefit from investment in customer facilities, including a new dedicated British Airways lounge, which will also be used by Qantas.
Concord is there |
The old BA model has been donated to Brooklands Museum, at Weybridge in Surrey. The Concorde was retired from BA service in 2003.
Concord is missing |
Emirates Airways has signed a six-year deal to advertise on the site. It will replace the Concorde model with one of an Airbus A380 superjumbo. Passenger travelling by road to Terminals One, Two and Three pass the site, which is thought to have been seen by more than 400 million people in the last 16 years.
BA the inflight map |
The error, which affects the airline's entire 67-strong Airbus fleet, has not been replicated on pilots' navigation systems. New software must be installed to put the airport in the correct position. But BA said it first needed to find out whether those hired to produce the maps intended the village to be highlighted instead.
This change will align the domestic Business access policy with international Business where customers are able to access the Business Lounge. However customers in Business will not be able to invite a guest into the Qantas Club with them unless the Business customer is also a Platinum or Gold frequent flyer, or paid Qantas Club member.
The slots will allow it to add seven to eight more daily flights on top of its current schedule of about 270. The deal has boosted its share of the total Heathrow slots to 41.4 per cent. BMI has 11.4 per cent, Germany’s Lufthansa 4.3 per cent and Virgin Atlantic 3.4 per cent.
BA’s share of the slots at Heathrow is still far behind the holdings of most flag carriers at their main hubs – Lufthansa has 63 per cent at Frankfurt and Air France-KLM 59 per cent at Paris Charles de Gaulle and 54 per cent at Amsterdam Schiphol.
The deal with BMI rivals previous slot acquisitions made by BA from Swiss and SN Brussels in 2003 and 2002 respectively.
BA initially negotiated the BMI deal to support the long-term expansion of its Heathrow long-haul operations, that is due to take place in 2009/10, when it takes delivery of up to eight Boeing 777 widebody jets, ordered last month.
Its need for more slots at Heathrow has become much more urgent, however, as a result of the decision by the European Union to agree the “open skies” deal with the US to liberalise transatlantic air services.
It appears to show the future direction of bmi, with expansion into the medium-haul markets already operated by BMED. It operates to 17 destinations in 16 countries and there is no overlap of bmi's current routes. Many of the BMED destinations have restricted access to the market due to existing bi-lateral agreements that would have taken bmi a considerable amount of time to gain access to. There are also a number of clear business synergies between the two organisations. Like bmi, BMED is an established Heathrow-based carrier also operating Airbus A320 and A321 aircraft with IAE engines, however unlike bmi it has a two class cabin with free inflight catering.
In the main terminal building, T5A, there will be:
An 850-seat Business Class lounge for Business Class passengers (Club Europe or Club World), plus passengers with Silver British Airways Executive Club Cards.
A 556-seat First lounge, for First Class passengers, plus passengers with Gold British Airways Executive Club Cards.
A 156-seat lounge exclusively for BA’s most important customers (Premier British Airways Executive members, plus ticketed First class passengers with a Gold card).
A 156-seat landside arrivals lounge, complete with 100 shower cubicles.
A separate 440-seat domestic "Terraces" style lounge (by the UK domestics gate).
There will also be a single lounge in both T5B and the future T5C.
bmi started flying between Heathrow and Charles de Gaulle in 1990, initially operating seven daily flights, increasing to eight the following year. However, in recent years frequencies and the overall capacities have reduced as the total number of air passengers between London and Paris has declined.
Fourteen members of Paris-based bmi staff will be affected and social measures are being put in place and consultation with staff representatives has begun in line with French legal obligations. The Paris station will close at the end of the winter season though flights are expected to terminate on 25th February.
The lounge will include a business centre with meeting/training rooms, internet access, phone and fax facilities, as well as a shower suite, sushi snack selection and restaurant. Full valet service and personal shopping are also available, as well as a private room with access to all the facilities listed above.
Such a facility located landside that provides a single arrival and departure role under one facility is unique. Diamond Air is highlighting that it will become very useful to passengers who are extensively delayed.
With the implementation of this new policy, United Airlines is following the lead of other airlines which have similar policies already in place.
Whilst Etihad is being coy on details there can be little doubt that the new service will integrate with the airline's operations out of Gatwick, Heathrow and Manchester to Abu Dhabi. London to Sydney is extremely competitive. Amongst the airlines offering one stop services are British Airways, Cathay Pacific, Emirates, Gulf Air, Qantas and Virgin Atlantic. Etihad will probably use A340-500s for the operation, with a three class opertation. Its economy called (called Coral) has 10.4" seat back screens and full video on demand.
With the legacy carriers finding long haul international operations the only way to prosperity due to intense competition within the United States, American Airlines, Continental and Northwest each fought tenaciously to secure traffic rights.
Varig no longer operates as a complete network -- and looks pretty shakey - so it has been given the boot.
BA is to introduce new baggage allowances from 13 February, due to the move to Heathrow Terminal 5 and health and safety recommendations. The new limit per single item is 23kg or oversized items exceeding 2.5m x 1.00m x 0.80m (98in x 39in x 31in). For exceptional items that weigh between 23kg - 45kg (50 - 99lbs) and which cannot be repacked (e.g. musical instruments, electrical wheelchairs, some sporting items, TV news cameras and commercial spares) the airline says it must be notified a minimum of 24 hours before departure.
This will cause chaos for news organisations that need to move equipment at short notice.
First and Club World customers will be able to check three bags into the aircraft hold free of charge. For Club Europe and World Traveller Plus it is two bags, whilst for World Traveller, Euro Traveller, BA Connect and UK domestic the limit is one bag into the aircraft hold free of charge. Any extra bags must be paid for - and the charges are hefty. Long haul its £120 per bag or £96 per bag if paid on-line, short haul its £60/£48 and UK domestic £30/£24 per bag.
BA says that in the majority of cases the charges are cheaper than previously and emphasises the 20% discount for online payments. However if you are World Traveller customers travelling or connecting to or from the US, Canada, Caribbean, Nigeria, Brazil and Mexico you will continue to be allowed two checked bags in line with the local government regulations.
For round-trip Economy Saver redemption award, Singapore to Adelaide rises from 40,000 to 55,000 miles, while the rest of Australia (Sydney, Melbourne & Brisbane) & New Zealand rise from 50,000 to 55,000.
The previously good deal of Companion Awards have been axed.
Of course Saver awards are not often available, and so Unrestricted awards have to be used. These are available on all flights, and offer two free stopovers. These will rise from 1.25 times the number of miles to that of Saver awards, to 2 times in all classes.
Only Unrestricted awards will be available for redemption in First and Business Class on the new B777-300ER services, with the new improved seats. This effectively raises the price of a premium award by nearly double.
For conventional 777 and 747 premium seats, there will be some increase in availability, as unrestricted upgrade awards will become available. The number of miles required for these awards will be twice that of a Saver upgrade award.
Thai Airways is also in partnership talks with Alitalia, with Thai Airways keen to cash in on lucrative routes between Europe and Thailand
As a result, the airline is instead moving more capacity to South Africa. Virgin Atlantic is to ramp up Cape Town. From October 29, it will be flying four times a week from London Heathrow increasing to a daily frequency from next February.
In an effort to head off any complaints from fellow passengers about the use of mobiles, their airline will encourage people to use silent or vibrate modes on the phone. Cabin crew will also be able to control the system at any time, and select operating modes appropriate for certain flights - such as selecting text only operation mode for overnight flights.
Southampton, Bristol, Birmingham, Belfast, the Isle of Man and Luton will loose all their BA flights. BA Connect also operates from London City Airport and between Manchester and New York. These services will not form part of the proposed sale.
British Airways will have a 15 per cent investment in Flybe on completion of the disposal. It is envisaged that once the sale of the regional business of BA Connect to Flybe is completed, there will be a transition period until the start of the summer schedule on March 25, 2007 while the handover of responsibilities is undertaken.
The deal will significantly increase Flybe's route network both in the UK and continental Europe and give the company 159 routes, increasing from 101. The airline will operate from 23 UK and 36 European airports, up from the present total of 47 and hopes it will carry 10m passengers a year, up from 5m a year at the moment.
In style it mirrors that opened at Melbourne and Singapore. The lounge is located above Pier 6 in Terminal 3 and is spread over two levels, which means that when the A380 super jumbo enters service, premium passengers will be able to board the aircraft directly from the upper tier. The carrier has an order for 43 A380s.
Emirates has also launched its first transatlantic route, with a daily three-class B777-300 between Hamburg and New York JFK. This flight originates in Dubai.
bmi A330 landing gear - crack is arrowed |
Because the upgrade can no longer be waitlisted, you will have to keep calling SQ or keep checking on the website to see if there is any availability. If there is availability on a later flight or date, your original ticket must first be changed and confirmed on that later flight/date and then only can the agent apply the upgrade.
Full Economy, Business and First Saver awards are still unchanged. You can still waitlist on SQ flights for these awards.
A sizeable crack in the landing gear of one of bmi's three A330s means that the bmi will now be re accommodating passengers already holding reservations onto alternative services. The crack is actually in the Pintle Bearing Casting, and Airbus believe the crack is due water ingress into the bearing housing causing internal corrosion.
bmi is currently only saying that services are only suspended, however it has already axed all its staff at Mumbai, and removed all its check in equipment. Industry experts say that the airline couldn't make the route pay, as it was missing out on connecting flights to the US at LHR.
Singapore First cabin |
Business class gets a seat that the airline says is the widest in its class, with a 30" width and fully flat. Curiously, this is the similar to a seat BA had many years ago, but which was abandoned as passengers found it too wide to be comfortable. Other enhanced features include a 15.4" LCD monitor, enlarged dining table adjustable for height as well as a useful trolley bag stowage area under the seat.
The new first class seat, which is upholstered in leather, at 35" in width, is said to be the most spacious premium class product to be introduced by a commercial airline. Further added features include a 23" LCD screen with a business panel equipped with USB ports and in-seat power supply, as well as new noise reduction headsets. Other features include a private vanity area completed by furnishings and amenities designed by fashion house Givenchy.
Singapore economy cabin |
The airline’s schedule for the coming winter reflects the trend, with an increase in services, frequencies and capacity at regional airports. Lufthansa added services from Birmingham and Manchester to Frankfurt, Munich and Dusseldorf earlier this year, with 60% of its UK traffic flying beyond Germany from these hubs.
The regional expansion is partly driven by lack of capacity at Heathrow, where Lufthansa operates out of Terminal 2. The airline will consider launching from other UK airports, including Bristol, Cardiff and Southampton, next year.
Business class traffic is booming even on routes saturated by low-cost carriers. There was a 12.5% growth in business-class traffic in the six months to July, compared with the same period in 2005, possiblt because airlines such as BA Connect and BMI have given up their business class.
In business class Cathay are to launch fully flat beds. It is only five years since Cathy was the first Asian airline to install angled lie-flat style seating in business class. It will adopt the "herringbone" layout seen on Air New Zealand and Virgin Atlantic where seats are arranged at 45 degrees, rather than along the body of the aircraft as with Singapore Airlines and BA. The carrier will probably adopt a six across 1+2+1 configuration on its 747-400s and Boeing 777.
It is in Economy that the real revolution takes place, with Cathay adopting an entirely new "fixed back" shell design, similar to a mini-business class seatwhich allows a passenger to recline without intruding on those seated behind. The airline maintains that it will be the first economy class seat to provide a fixed living space and recline.
In First class it is more of an evolution, with accommodation in the style of a private suite. However to find room for the new first class layout, the number of seats is being slimmed down from 12 to just 9 seats.
Most of the redemption miles have been raised, however the biggest change is in the premium classes, which will also no longer be available as saver awards. In particular double the miles required for premium cabin awards on the A380.
For example an upgrade from economy to Raffles on LHR to SIN for the A380 is going to double from 45,000 to 90,000 miles
The original 23 zones have been consolidated into 14 zones, there is an increase of 5000 miles for an economy saver return between SIN and SYD, however you do save 5,000 miles on awards to South Africa.
The award changes did mistakenly appear briefly on the Krisflyer website, however it appears that the actually announcement of the changes has been postponed to allow for the exact schedule of the A380 to be announced.
It is around 3” wider than other airlines' similar products. The seat features enhanced ergonomics for improved comfort. It also features a dual position footrest, lumbar support, adjustable headrest with wings, and a redesigned tray table. All provide passengers with lap top power.
Premium Economy passengers benefit from their own check-in,separate cabin and toilet facilities, priority boarding, and quicker baggage reclaim. They also receive a pre-departure drink and post-dinner liqueur.
The additional services include Premium Economy cabin crew, a redesigned meal service and amenity kit. Passengers will also receive a soft fleece blanket and a fruit bowl service, where they can help themselves to fruit throughout the flight. What they don’t get is the Virgin Clubhouse, but use of the facility is purchasable at a charge of £60. The fee includes dining, an unlimited bar service, shoe shine and spa facilities, as well as other amenities.
Finnair will fly three times a week from Helsinki to Kuala Lumpur International Airport, with the option of increasing the frequencies if demand is satisfactory.
The Malaysian Transport Minister has also held talks with Finnish officials on the possibility of an open-sky agreement, which would mean their airlines could fly to other destinations in each other's nations.
Some 50 foreign airlines currently fly to Kuala Lumpur, which has been trying to become a regional travel hub to rival other Southeast Asian cities such as Bangkok and Singapore, however the new Kuala Lumpur International Airport still remains underused.
The flights, which begin at the start of the winter season, feature the airline's new Airbus A340-500 with a three-class layout that includes an airborne lounge for Diamond Zone guests.
Departure from JFK T4 is 2310 arriving 2125 the following day - a virtual 22 hours later. In the other direction a 1415 schedule means that passengers arrive 2125 the same day. The new service will compete with the already established Emirates Dubai operation which is going up to three times a day.
Panasonic is now reported to be considering taking the operation over and develop it itself. Panasonic is putting up funding for the project - and airlines are expecting to receive cancellation fees from Boeing which will help towards it.
Lufthansa has over 60 aircraft with Connexion and SAS with about 20. Etihad was an early customer and has equipped its new Boeing 777s, but warns it will be switched off in December. However for its equally new A340-500s, the system has not been completed.
It is believed that Panasonic's 'Son of Connexion' is likely to be wireless only, a major saving on the early wired system.
However lounges for premium and elite passengers are not yet ready - as a result airlines have been forced to take some drastic temporary measures.
The new Qantas & British Airways joint First and Business Lounges will not be ready until December 2006 - Passengers ticketed in First and Business can use the temporary generic Miracle Grand Lounge. There is no access to Gold and Silver elite members who will be given vouchers for use in the airport bar.
Business Class passengers and Finnair Plus Platinum, Gold and Silver members may use the Louis Tavern lounge -- in December, all will be able to use the Qantas Club lounge.
Cathay Pacific will have a Business class lounge open from the 28th, however its First lounge will not open until next year.
Thai Airways is building a series of lounges on Level 3, some of which will be ready by the 28th. They will be twice the size of lounges at Don Muang airport. There is a large common lounge, a spa lounge with a massage room, an arrival lounge, two transit passenger lounges, a domestic lounge and two lounges for partner airlines. The common lounge has slumber rooms with full-size flat beds, a video box, and shower rooms.
Lufthansa, United, SAS, and Singapore Airlines loose their dedicated lounges and use the Thai facilities.
Air Canada's Edmonton - London flights will operate three times weekly starting in October 2006 on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays, ramping up to daily service in April 2007. The airline will fly a 212-seat Boeing 767 offering a choice of Executive First and economy service. The Boeing 767 fleet is being refurbished to feature Air Canada's new personal entertainment system with 8.9-inch wide digital in-seat monitors and touch-screen controls offering audio and video on demand programming at every seat plus lie-flat beds in the premium class.
The high-speed wireless internet system is currently offered on more than 180 routes daily worldwide by a number of airlines including Air China, ANA, Asiana, El Al, Etihad, Singapore and SAS.
Lufthansa, another operator, is clearly miffed, reports indicating that the service has been well received by customers, with as many as 40 people using the service at one time on long haul flights. The client airlines are thought to be looking at lternative suppliers.
British Airways has recently dropped Melbourne (again, after only restarting the route in 2002) and Virgin are struggling to maintain viable loads. The pair will however soon be the only European carriers flying direct to Australia. Star Alliance loyalty members will lose a direct link with Australia. But there are plenty of indirect flight alternatives operated by Singapore Thai and ANA.
Austrian will suspend all routes by the end of March 2007 and are currently looking for alternative long-haul destinations that will provide adequate contribution to its European network.
The service from Vienna was originally started by independent carrier Lauda Air some years ago which was later acquired by Austrian. The original service was very successful because Lauda brought stylish service to the route along with keenly priced tickets and it appealed to passengers from all over Europe who would make connections at Vienna.
But fares to Australia have fallen in real terms over the years thanks to increasing competition from the Gulf and Asian carriers and it is increasingly difficult for Western carriers to make a profit.
BA Connect has also suspended Belfast - Birmingham and Isle of Man - Luton.
There will be a fee of €4 per bag if booked in advance on the web, but €8 per bag at checkin at the airport. Changes in baggage allowance are effective for bookings made after 8 August for travel after 5 September.
Passengers will be able to pay for this facility on-line from early December, and will also be able to make seat reservations from that time. The new baggage policy does not apply to premier class passengers.
American Airlines is to introduce widebody service from Shannon later this year dropping its existing, single-class daily Boeing 757 service to Boston and replacing it with a daily, two-class Boeing 767 operation to Chicago. This will operate in conjunction with American's existing Dublin - Chicago route. The aircraft routes Shannon - Chicago - Dublin and back to Shannon, although it will not be possible to book seats for the short Dublin to Shannon hop.
AA is also to drop its Glasgow - Chicago service. Continental the only airline serving New York, from both Edinburgh and Glasgow.
During the check-In process, customers will be offered the passes at a cost of US$50 (around 27GBP). If you then buy an Admirals Club lounge membership within 30 days of using a one-day pass you get some cash back. In the US the Admirals Club offers much the same facilities as those abroad but not free alcoholic drinks.
Up until now operators within the EU don't have this option on any flights less than four hours (except for a short lived experiment on bmi), even though it is common in the US and Australia. Heathrow to Luqa is 3 hours 30 minutes. The airline will show feature films, light entertainment shows and documentaries on-board.
The Bermuda II air treaty remains the most restrictive in world aviation. Only four carriers, British Airways and Virgin Atlantic from the UK and American Airlines and United Airlines from the US are allowed to operate direct services between Heathrow and the US. In a higly complex deal Delta has bought only the London to New York route authority but remains unable to operate from Heathrow under the terms of the Bermuda II treaty, and will instead launch its service between New York JFK and London Gatwick (LGW).
Delta has paid United an initial fee of seven million pounds (7mGDP) for the London/New York route authority and will make further payments of a million pounds a year for four years, as long as there is no open skies deal between Europe and the US. Delta says that the airline's service will be enhanced from Gatwick with free meals, and one complimentary beer or wine during the main inflight meal service.
Meanwhile United has agreed to transfer its surplus slot pair at Heathrow to Air Canada in a three-year lease deal - however the deal looks unusual, with Air Canada using the slot for tiny A319 plane, equiped for transatlantic flight to the obscure St. John's International Airport in Newfoundland.
British Airways in response will launch an eighth daily service from London Heathrow to New York JFK on December 1st
There are ongoing Open Skies negotiations which would axe the Bermuda II agreement, however these are being blocked by UK and EU insistence that the US allow foreign ownership of up to 49% of a US carrier. The US insist this would have security implications.
Air Canada's service to London will operate three times weekly on Wednesday, Friday and Sunday in April 2007, increasing to five times a week in May 2007, and to daily service from mid-June to September 2007. The flight will leave St. John's at 12:55, arriving in London at 21:25, and flight AC831 will leave London at 22:40 arriving in St. John's at 00:40.
The carrier will operate the route using newly refurbished 120-seat Airbus A319 aircraft in a two-cabin configuration offering a choice of Executive Class and Economy service. The A319 jets to be deployed on this route feature Air Canada's new personal entertainment system currently being introduced fleet-wide with 8.9-inch wide digital in-seat monitors and touch- screen controls offering audio and video on demand programming at every seat. Other features include Air Canada's new seating and cabin design with in-seat power within reach of every customer.
Earmarked initially for the transatlantic services as well as on select routes within the United States and to Latin America the new Boeing 767-300 business class is designed to give passengers more comfort, flexibility and privacy. It features fairly standard lie-flat seats in a 2-2-2 configuration, a personal in-flight entertainment system with AVOD (audio and video on demand), some fancy lighting and - a great selling point - ergonomically designed overhead bins.
Beginning in 2007, American will also install its new Next-Generation Business Class on its Boeing 777 fleet. At the same time American will install its award-winning Flagship Suite First Class seats on all of its Boeing 777 aircraft that do not currently feature the product.
The airline already has a three times a week service to Toronto, via Brussels. Flight time is around 14 hours, the service one of a series of introductions from the Gulf area bypassing Heathrow. The new route will be flown by a three-class Airbus A340-500. ANZ is also downsizing from a 747 to a 777 on the London route via LAX except for the busy Christmas period.
The airline has installed onboard satellite television on selected long haul Airbus A330 aircraft to service flights both within and between the Middle East and Europe. Distributed through Showtime Arabia via the Rockwell Collins Tailwind 560 system, BBC World will be seen on 17 aircraft by end of 2006 and on 15 more in 2007.
BBC World is the most popular international channel, watched by more viewers each day than any other English language channel across eight Middle Eastern countries.
Previously Transareo flew from Gatwick. bmi will gain valuable connections with Transaero's large domestic operation and the Russian airline will benefit from both the bmi domestic network and its membership of Star Alliance.
The 'Diamond Seats' feature on new Airbus A340-500 aircraft introduced on the Heathrow-Abu Dhabi route this week. The seat can swivel around to allow passengers in the first class cabin to hold meetings, dine and talk to each other.
The seats feature 23-inch personal LCD video screens. Each seat is fitted with a 'privacy shell' with direct access to the aisles. The seat has a six-way movement headrest and a built-in massage facility. It reclines into a flat bed and has an adjoining mini bar and coat room. First class passengers also have access to an in-flight alcove lounge.
The aircraft's first class cabin carries 12 Diamond Seats as part of a configuration which includes 28 'Pearl' business class seats and 200 in 'Coral' economy. The business class seats also recline into flat beds and feature 15-inch video screens.
Heathrow is the first of Etihad's 34 destinations to be served by the new A340, part of an 5 billion pound order for 29 new Airbus and Boeing aircraft.
Flying from London's Gatwick airport, the airline will offer free meals, a printed menu; and one complimentary cocktail, beer or wine during the main inflight meal service. There will also be a mid-flight snack, and a personal amenity kit including eyeshades and ear plugs.
Most other airlines have never removed these frills, as Delta did: British Airways, Lufthansa, and Air France all offer free alcoholic drinks throughout the flight, even on short haul, and other airlines that have removed this perk, such as KLM, have brought it back.
There will be 81 business class seats, with 278 people in the economy section. There will be a very basic free economy meal on board, but passengers can pay for an "upgraded" meal.
With the airline being set to take delivery of more Boeing 777-200ERs, by cancelling its daily Auckland-to-Singapore service in October and its seasonal flights from Christchurch to Los Angeles, Mr Fyfe said Air NZ would be left with a spare 747. The 747 may be leased out. Yesterday's changes come on top of the recent cancellation of Air NZ services to Nagoya and Taipei.
But Air NZ will start flying two daily flights to London via Hong Kong,reflecting Qantas's moves in recent years to exit low-yielding long-haul routes, such as Rome and Paris, and concentrate on more profitable ones. The introduction of double daily services comes after the NZ and British governments agreed last year to remove the daily flight cap on Air NZ into Heathrow. Air NZ added it had been encouraged by the strong forward bookings for the November launch of its three-weekly services to Shanghai, signalling it could soon boost services to the Chinese city.
From 25th March 2007, Singapore Airlines SQ231, is rescheduled to leave Singapore at 0105, arriving in Sydney at 1140, with a total travel time of 8 hours 35. Before this date SQ231 left at 0020 and arrived at 1055, taking an hour less in the air.
The opposing schedule for SQ220 has been retimed, so that from the 26th March 2007 the Sydney flight leaves at 0815, returning to Singapore at 14:20 - again, an hour longer than other flights between the two cities.
The flights are however still listed as being operated by a 747-400s, however this is believed to hide commercially important data from its competitors, and to avoid further embarrassment should the A380 schedule slip further. When you make a booking for these flights, online seating maps are not available from some sites, leading to further suspicions that the aircraft type on this flight is being changed to the A380, although Airreview has been unable to obtain official confirmation from Singapore Airlines.
No other flights between Singapore and Sydney are being retimed.
Note: Although the flights have been retimed, the aircraft used may still be a 747. You are advised not to book travel until there has been an offical announcement from SIA
Negotiations with jet leasing companies are continuing as the airline tries to restructure its debt-laden business and pay off creditors, however most jets are been grounded.
The airline has promised to provide alternative arrangements for people affected by the cancellations but some travellers said they had been unable to get on other flights and had been stranded.
At least 5,000 Brazilians are in Germany watching the World Cup and there is increasing concern about the airline's ability to ferry them home despite Varig's pledge that it will do so. The only two airports in Europe which are still operating Varig flights are London's Heathrow and Frankfurt, which have been inundated with desperate passengers.
A380 First cabin |
There are separate cabins with enclosed suites on the forward upper deck, which features a large aisle that is occupied by two curved sofas and tables. Each cabin has a reclining chair and a sofa, which can be turned into a bed.
A380 breakout zone |
The cabins have sliding doors and are large enough to accommodate three or four people. On the A380 they can be installed three abreast, and also on the main deck of other Airbus widebodies. The side panel does not rise to the top of the cabin roof panel to ensure that air circulates well.
A380 business class seats |
The forward section of the upper deck adjacent to the staircase is also utilised, with what is called a break-out zone featuring a sofa on one side and a "kingsize bathroom" on the other which could incorporate a shower unit.
Airbus has also revealed it's new business class seats, with pod-type lie-flat seats in a six abreast configuration.
SQ A380 Raffles seats: an early mock up of one of the designs that Singapore considered for what the business class seats may look like |
Customers for the A380-800F freighter version will not be affected by the delays, which are believed to be due to wiring problems for the inflight entertainment systems.
Under the original program schedule, SQ expected to take its first A380 last month. In May 2005, however, Airbus said the program would slip several months. Tuesday's announcement is the first time it formally confirmed that SQ will not be able to place the A380 into service in 2006. The carrier is taking the first five aircraft, followed by four to Emirates and two to Qantas. Singapore Airlines has made much of it's "First to Fly in 2006" campaign. It it now believed to be rapidly changing it's logo to just say "First to fly".
Singapore will use it's first A380 on it's service from Singapore to Sydney, although it is as yet unclear which of it's three daily services it will be used on, however insiders at Sydney airport report that it is likely to be the heavily booked SQ222 from Sydney (the only flight which allows a staightforward connection to LHR). This in turn would mean the aircraft would return as the SQ231 from Singapore.
The new terminal is five times the size of Terminal 4 (British Airways' current main longhaul base), and will have five levels in the main building, each the size of 10 full size football pitches. Terminal 5 will eventually consist of a main terminal building (T5A) and two satellite terminals (T5B and T5C) linked by underground shuttle trains. T5A and T5B are scheduled to open in March 2008 with T5C opening in 2011.
Customers will also notice a different layout to the check-in level of the terminal. They will move forward through the building in a logical manner eliminating the types of confusing doubling back and cross flow queues in the old Terminal 1 and Terminal 4 buildings.
On the top level (departures) there will be 96 self service check-in kiosks. Once the customer has checked in via self service, they will make their way forward to the baggage drop off area, and bags will be loaded into lifts and lowered down into the highly sophisticated baggage system which will deliver them to their specific flight.
British Airways will open five new lounges for premium customers to use. There is considerable press speculation as to what lounges these will be, however as domestic flights will be integrated into the main terminal, there will not be a separate domestic lounge. There will definately be a very large Terraces lounge, a First Lounge (with associated Molton Brown room) and a landside arrivals lounge. It is believed that there may also be a Terraces in the Satellite although the Concorde Room concept may be axed.
British Airways' full operation will not immediately fit into Terminal 5. A number of services (around 10 per cent) will be co-located on the other side of the airport in Terminal 3, with flights to Australia, Italy and Spain, with codeshares with BA's oneworld partners Qantas and Iberia. Flights to Spain and Italy will be operated by Boeing 757 aircraft. Keeping these particular aircraft out of Terminal 5 it will reduce complexity and increase efficiency.
As well as shedding the jobs, the group will also shake up its operations and reduce its marketing spend. The group has already axed 20,000 jobs and cut costs by £4bn as it struggled out of bankruptcy, but last month said its costs were still too high.
For checked baggage from 11 October 2006, in First, Club World, Club Europe and World Traveller Plus you will be allowed to check in two bags, and World Traveller, Euro Traveller and UK Domestic passengers there is a limit of one bag (except to the US where you are always permitted two bags). A maximum bag weight of 23kgs (50lbs) will apply to all bags.
Advance notification is required 24 hours before departure for exceptional items that weigh between 23kgs - 45Kgs, such as TV news cameras, which has caused considerable concern for UK broadcasting organisations, which often have to send cameramen on last minute sends. First class passengers have also voiced their concern that they get no more luggage allowance than premium economy passengers.
This move is the completion of one of the alliance's most ambitious co-location projects, which now has the carriers sharing the largest dedicated Star Alliance branded terminal in Asia. The South Wing of Narita Terminal 1, along with Satellites 3, 4 and 5, will be the new home for Star Alliance member carriers ANA, Air Canada, Asiana Airlines, Austrian, Lufthansa, Scandinavian Airlines, Swiss, Singapore Airlines, Thai and United Airlines - but not Air New Zealand.
In what the alliance says is a first in the airline industry, the check-in area has been arranged in zones according to class of travel, with Star Alliance Gold Card holders gaining special privileges. Airside there are four ANA lounges and two United lounges (United First International and Red Carpet Club).
The court ruled that there was no legal basis for a 2004 deal between Brussels and Washington under which European airlines hand over details of every passenger to authorities in the US. Airlines have to hand over 34 pieces of information on passengers flying into or over the US, including name, address, credit card details, telephone numbers, no show information, frequent flier status, and number of miles obtained.
The uncertainty has irritated British airlines. Virgin Atlantic is warning of "an extraordinary situation" in which airlines face the choice of breaking US law or breaching European law. British Airways says "In flying to the USA, British Airways has a legal obligation to provide passenger information to US customs and border protection and we wish to meet the data protection laws of the UK."
On numerous occasions, European aircraft have had to turn back halfway across the Atlantic because the US homeland security department has "red flagged" a passenger on board after studying data provided by airlines. In many instances, this has been a result of mistaken identity - in some cases caused by spelling or other errors on the US authorities' watchlists.
Nearly half of all tickets sold are in electronic form but only five companies have switched entirely to electronic tickets and more than 50 have so far done nothing.
Aer Lingus' strategy has changed fundamentally since it joined the alliance six years ago and is no longer convergent with oneworld's full service strategy. The alliance's key target market is the multi-sector, premium, frequent international traveller, while Aer Lingus has repositioned itself as a point-to-point carrier, with no inflight meals, no premium cabins (except for some long haul routes) and no European cargo operation.
The full withdrawal is likely to be in early 2007, when three new airlines join - Japan Airlines, Malev Hungarian and Royal Jordanian.
The global network has also extended an invitation to Shanghai Airlines to join. This unusual dual-hub approach will allow the alliance to offer a unique network from Beijing and Shanghai. Once Air China and Shanghai Airlines become full members of the alliance, the Star Alliance network will grow to 20 members, offering more than 16,500 daily fights to 912 destinations in 160 countries.
The decision to launch from Southampton seems an unusual one. The airline has no links with the airport, and the route is already well serviced by Scot Air. The announcement follows several other routes that bmi has announced this year, only to drop then shortly before the launch, or to never obtain permission to fly.
Investigations by Airreview have revealed that agencies such as Expedia have dropped all bookings from Varig, and are cutting links with the airline.
A novel change is that one-way tickets now become fully flexible. Up to a point that is. You can't change on the day of departure, and there's a change fee of £30, plus the extra cost of the ticket you want. Now if you change near to the date of the flight, chances are all the cheap tickets will have gone, and as a result you'll still have to several times the original cost of your ticket to change your flight. Changes will not be allowed on the day of departure from the UK or from Spain but is available from other destinations - so it can pay to book two single flights, allowing a change on the day of departure from an ex-EU destination.
Another hassle for many passengers is that the cheapest business class returns are not in any way changeable.
This is an unusual move for what is essentially a long haul budget carrier. Jetstar domestic continues as a low cost carrier with its only international routes connecting Christchurch with Melbourne and Australia's major east coast cities.
With the new runway airlines should be able to offer far more distant overseas destinations. It will also replace an existing runway, which is not suitable for large, heavy aircraft. Dublin also boasts a third runway which is a crosswind strip and measures only 2,072m in length.
Food in the the SilverKris lounges has been improved, with a two-year contract given to catering experts Baxter and Platts who have re-invented both the first and business class lounges, which now offer a taste of Singapore fusion food influenced by its Malay, Chinese, and Indian cultures. In the first class lounge, diners can enjoy a sit down meal from a new a la carte menu. They can also try local Singapore dishes.
The business class lounge has also had some new furniture, even though it is moving to Terminal 1 in two years time. The SilverKris Lounge welcomes almost 57,000 passengers annually.
When the slip was noticed yesterday, Orbitz notified the airline. Alitalia have agreed to honour the fare for all customers to whom it had already e-mailed ticket confirmations, and to whom paper tickets have already been posted. This is believed to be only a few dozen people who booked early on in the booking process, which occurred in the middle of the night, US time.
This move has been widely anticipated since a draconian new immigration policy in the US forced all passengers from Auckland to London Heathrow to deplane and pass through immigration & customs. Other countries allow transit passengers to waiting on the plane, or just pass through a transit lounge. Those passengers who weren't able to qualify for a visa waver were also forced to queue for up to 2 days outside the US embassy in London, and book an interview. This new policy lead to a significant decline in traffic, particularly as Singapore Airlines and Emirates also offer flights from London to Auckland, with a much easier transit, picking up on an increase in demand for travel between the UK and New Zealand.
Fares will start from £628 plus taxes. Air New Zealand will be using Boeing 747-400 aircraft on the route, which has just been newly refurbished aircraft with Air Nz's new classes. This have 46 lie-flat Business seats, in 23 Premium Economy and 324 seats in Economy. All seats have seatback TVs with Films & TV on demand.
The departure times are good for those who like double night flights: Outbound it leaves LHR at 2115, in HKG at 1700 (the next day) leaving 2 hours later, and arriving in Hong Kong 2 days later at 1045 in the morning. On the return it leave Air NZ's home base at 2359, getting into Hong Kong at 0615 (the next day), and arriving into LHR at 1330, allowing a true "morning after the night before" arrival. An extra benefit for passengers in the Star Alliance is that this flight gives a direct Alliance flight from London to Hong Kong for the first time.
The first of Singapore's routes will be the airline's signature long-haul routes, Singapore to Sydney, and not to London as expected - this route will follow as more planes come into service. In September, Singapore will unveil an A380 cabin design that stresses "convenience and comfort, as well as an enhanced ability to do some of the things people need to do on long-haul travel, like work, relax, sleep and get in shape," he said, adding, "We want to emphasize the space."
The new business- and first-class seats will be introduced around the time British Airways shows off it's makeover of its own Club World flat-bed seats.
This is however trival compared to bmi's new enhanced £4.95 fee - this is wavied for bmi credit card holders, and those who pay by debit card, however paying this way would not offer the usual protection in the light of the airline failing - something that is now assuming importance for frequent travellers in the light of the airlines dramatically decreasing passengers numbers.
Terminal 2, which caters for European short-haul passengers, will go when the new Terminal 5 opens in March 2008. The T5 opening will mean a number of airline will be moving into different terminals and this will reduce Terminal 2's annual passenger number from nine million to less than 1.5 million. BAA argues that this low level of passenger traffic makes the continued operation of Terminal 2 unsustainable.
Terminal 2 is Heathrow's first and oldest terminal. BAA had already announced that under its £1.5 billion Heathrow East plan, Terminal 2 - which opened in 1955 - would be replaced by a new terminal capable of carrying 30 million people.
The company hoped to have planning permission for the Heathrow East project by the end of this year. The new announcement means that Terminal 2 will close whatever the future for the Heathrow East plan.
Routes between London and Scotland suffered the most dramatic slump in popularity, with passenger numbers on Glasgow flights down by 24% while travellers on Edinburgh flights fell by 17%. The drop can partly be explained by other Star Alliance airlines refusing to code-share on bmi flights, due to the lack of service.
The figures are expected to raise increasingly embarasing questions for bmi about its strategy, launched last May, which involved axing free food and business-class cabins on many of its flights. The airline also introduced a complex pricing structure with three types of ticket depending on the level of service required.
bmi has reduced its capacity at LHR by 7% over the past year, as passengers increasingly turn away from the airline.
Now, the only flights that include free newspapers are those from London Heathrow.
There is "The Office and Library" with a private room with eight business stations, fax machines, telephones, printers, photocopiers plus a library with an antique refectory table. It originally came from Sir Richard's house.
Customers who check-in on ba.com can print their boarding pass from their home or office printer, up to 24 hours before their first flight (or first flight in a sequence - allowing checkin at up to T+36 in some cases), so you can proceed immediately to the boarding gate on arrival at the airport (or, in the case of LHR, stand in the security queue for an hour or two).
Economy passengers will notice the cuts most. The airline provides 34inches of legroom for it's cheapest seats - and that means its Boeing 777s only seat 247 passengers as against 293 with Singapore Airlines. It is planning to heavily cut back on this perk, and make a similar change to the business class cabin. Insiders report a consultation on making most short haul flights no-frills, with paid for food and drinks.
Routes are also likely to be axed. Of its 114 international routes (covering Asia, Australasia, the Middle East, Europe plus North and South America) only 48 make a profit. Out of 118 domestic routes only four are in the black. From Kuala Lumpur there are MAS services to 12 cities in Europe including LHR and Manchester in the UK, along with the hubs at Amsterdam, Paris, Frankfurt and Munich. Many of these are believed to be unprofitable.
Meanwhile at the Qatar hub there's a separate check in, a BMW 7 Series to take you to the plane's gate, and plans for a business and first class terminal for passengers.
The Copenhagen-Bangkok service will remain, however as most passengers from Scandinavia want to head to Thailand, the carrier has been forced to see the seats onward to Singapore at a heavy discount. Last year the airline cut it's summer service from Stockholm to Bangkok for the same reason.
There isn't even room for some of BA's flights - and so these are to be tied into the Oneworld Hub terminal, Terminal 3. This is closest to Terminal 5, allowing a bus connection directly across the tarmac. Iberia are to move here, so BA are also moving over their flights to Madrid.
Qantas are also to move in, allowing an easy connection to American and Cathay Pacific flights, which are already at this terminal. Accordingly BA flights to Hong Kong, Singapore and Bangkok (some of which carry on to Sydney) will also move over.
AA and Cathay already have lounges in this terminal, however it is not yet clear if BA will share with them. When asked for clarification from Airreview, a Qantas spokeswoman said "It is still early days and we have made no decisions yet on lounge arrangements for our T3 operations".
The new seats come from German manufacturer Recaro, and are only "lie-flat style" rather than the flat bed version offered by BA and Air New Zealand. Oddly, they will first be installed on American's fleet of B767-300s, configured as 2+2+2 with 59 inches of legroom - but not flat. There will be a nine degree angle of recline. They will operate transatlantic flights out of Manchester. However every flight from Heathrow and most from Gatwick are Boeing 777, and these will not be refitted for some years.
Ministers have concluded that they should refuse a waiver because they are not satisfied that bmi has demonstrated a genuine commercial requirement for the aircraft within its own operations.
This announcement has come as no surprise to airline analysts, who had criticised the deal which effectively rented out a slot at LHR to Qatar, who were very keen to get another flight linking with their longhaul services. The only shock seems to come to those who had already booked a seat on the non-existent service, and to bmi which had axed other services to free up a slot to give to Qatar.
The terminal, due to open in April 2008, has been designed by Lord Rogers, whose other buildings include the Millennium Dome and the Pompidou Centre, a modernist landmark in Paris. The centrepiece of the new scheme will be an open-air plaza between the passenger arrival points and the terminal. The plaza will be 400 yards long, with mature plane trees, fountains and cafes. At each end there will be glass artworks by Ben Langlands and Nikki Bell, inscribed with the three-letter codes of the world’s airports, such as JFK and CDG.
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DOMESTIC ABZ/EDI/GLA Breakfast Up to 09:59 Full English breakfast on tray Late morning 10:00-11:59 Drinks service Lunch 12:00-13:59 Sandwich & biscuit Afternoon 14:00-16:30 Drinks service Evening After 16:30 Salad on a tray MAN/NCL Breakfast Up to 09:59 Warm panini Late morning 10:00-11:59 Drinks service Lunch 12:00-13:59 Sandwich & biscuit Afternoon 14:00-16:30 Drinks service Evening After 16:30 Sandwich & biscuit
EUROPE BAND 1 & 2 CDG/BRU/AMS/CGN/DUS/LUX/ FRA/HAJ/HAM/BOD/LYS/STR/GVA/BSL/TXL/ZRH/MUC/TLS Breakfast Up to 09.29 Warm panini & orange juice Late morning 09.30-11.29 Drinks service Lunch 11.30-13.59 Sandwich & dessert Afternoon 14.00-16.29 Drinks service Evening After 16.30 Sandwich & dessert EUROPE BAND 3 CPH/TRN/PRG/MRS/MXP/BIO/LIN/NCE/BCN/OSL/GOA/ VCE/VRN/PSA/BLQ/VIE/MAD/WAW/ARN/BUD/FCO/LIS/ KRK/NAP/BEG/DBV/RIX/VNO/SPU Breakfast Up to 10:59 Warm Panini fruit pot & muffin Rest of day 11:00 onwards Sandwich & dessert |
| Catering in ET/DOM from Feb 16 |
On longer domestic routes there will be a Full English breakfast on a tray for flights leaving before 10am. This is the same for short European flights up to 9.30am, and longer ones up to 11am.
Club Europe, flights over 2.5 hours, and regional destinations served by the new BA service BA connect are not affected by the U-turn. On these flights a buy on board menu has already been announced.
Cathay Pacific had announced that a non-stop Manchester-Hong Kong would not have been profitable, and so to get a sufficient load, would have had to fly via the Russian Capital.
The new service would have been Manchester's sole direct link with Moscow and Hong Kong, however insiders report it had to delay the route launch because Cathay Pacific hasn't been able to obtain traffic rights between Manchester and Moscow. As an airline of a third country, Cathay would have to persuade the aviation bodies in the UK and Russia for the right to fly customers between Manchester and Moscow.
It already flies once a day between Dubai and Perth. From March it will operate an additional four flights a week, becoming daily from September 2006. The additional flights are being operated by it's three class Airbus A340-300 until September when it will be replaced by a Boeing 777. There will be links with Heathrow, Gatwick, Birmingham and Manchester.
Emirates will give premium fare passengers in Sydney and Perth upgraded first and business class lounges. Both have the same furniture and bar as the existing facilities at Dubai. Both have a business centre and a dining room.
The London-Tokyo service will be halved from two flights to a single daily service operated by a Boeing 777 twin jet, and the daily Osaka service will change from a 747 to a smaller 777. 777s will also appear on flights from Amsterdam, and Paris to Tokyo. These aircraft have JAL's lie-flat style seats.
The equipment will be fitted to 57 Boeing 747's, 25 Boeing 777's and 14 Boeing 767's. Curiously, this doesn't represent all of the airline's longhaul fleet, implying that on some routes (probably holiday routes from LGW) the existing equipment will continue to operate. Some 777s have a very early version on BA's inflight system with small screens, and it is possible that these will continue in use.
A revamp of all BA longhaul flight classes is due in September. First Class is expected to be steadily removed except on ultra long haul routes and a few premium services. It is expected to include a larger seat divider, in effect making a larger cabin. Details of the latest incarnation of New Club World are being kept under wraps. On four class planes, World Traveller Plus will be moved to the second cabin, between First and Club World.
Qantas will also use some of 787 aircraft to replace it's 747s. The airline has abandoned plans to fly from Sydney to London and New York non-stop, as it has decided the Airbus A340-500 could not carry an economic load, and it also feels there is little demand for a non-stop service.
Another of Qantas' offshoots, the one-class long haul airline Australian, is to introduce a Premium Economy cabin from mid-2006. At launch the airline was designed to replaces services that Qantas felt could not justify a two or three class plane. It has now completely replaced Qantas from Cairns to Tokyo, using 767-300s.
Equally, passengers need to be at the gate at 10 minutes before the scheduled departure time, or they will be denied boarding.
As well as the five Boeing 777-300ER aircraft, Etihad has ordered Airbus aircraft, with four A340-500s, four A340-600s, 12 A330-200s and four double-decker A380s.
It debuts on transatlantic services in the middle of this year, with Air Canada's routes to London's LHR airport being a priority.
The airline is also to cut it's service to Nice to only one flight a day. A few years ago, this route was served twice a day, with most of the cabin being business class. Now, bmi are struggling to sell the cheapest possible seats.
Analysts have pointed out that there are few passengers in Newcastle who can afford to fly to New York on a regular basis.
Customers booked on these cancelled services will be automatically rebooked on services between Manchester and Oslo via London Heathrow on the same departure date.
bmi are still selling seats for the service, however on the LHR schedules BD are planning to operate LHR to Doha using a wet-leased Qatar Airways A330. This will be painted in Qatar Airways colours , and will be sold as a Qatar Airways codeshare, however it's operating carrier will officially be bmi, to avoid regulatory problems with Qatar.
However, after one day when belts had to be removed, this requirement has been dropped, due to the long delays it was causing. Belts can continue to be worn.
No other airport in the UK or in Europe has brought in these changes (apart from Dublin and Amsterdam), which were as a result of US requests.
BA is claiming to reducing many fares by up to 40% as it seeks to regain ground lost to no-frills carriers in recent years. The airline, renamed BA Connect, will offer one-way fares for £25 from destinations including Bristol, Manchester, Edinburgh and Birmingham. CitiExpress was formed in 2001 by the merger of four regional carriers.
The revamped airline - which serves UK regional airports - will begin flying at the end of March. Customers will be able to make reservations next month. BA has found it hard to develop its regional subsidiary in the face of the aggressive price cutting and relentless expansion of its rivals. Nevertheless, the airline still carried almost four million passengers last year, serving 32 destinations in the UK and Europe. The new service will offer two million flexible tickets a year for £25 while frequent flyers and business travellers will be able to book a more advanced service from £110.
Lufthansa new seats in European business class |
Passengers in business class benefit most. They will get a proper four across (2+2) layout on Airbus A320 and Boeing 737 flights. These will be the normal economy seats - but the seatback flips down to give a fold down table ensuring a handy place to put a drink down, and is better than the normal airbus convertable seats with sliding armrests that give a 2+3 layout. The airline is also catching up with rivals such as BA by offering seat side coat hooks that enable jackets to be hung even when the centre table is folded down. When converted to business use, the seat width increases to 48cms. Allmost all rows including economy also gain an extra 4 cms of legroom.
The seating will be progressively installed between April and October this year. Because of space constraints the new seats will not be fitted on Lufthansa's commuter subsidiary Cityline's smaller BAe146 and Canadair jets on less busy routes, such as on many out of London's Heathrow.
Instead of sandwiches, a pannini, tortilla wrap, or an All Day Deli box, the airline is believed to be testing out a new service level which will give passengers with a flight of up to 60 minutes just a packet of crisps. Those familiar with the situation report that the airline decided to test out a reduction in the level of catering following the recent Gate Gourmet dispute at LHR. The slight reduction in loads, but a dramatic reduction in costs, during the six months when there were no meals on many of BA's flights, has encouraged the airline's management to experiment with a reduction in service levels.
Starting in the new year members of cabin crew, who decline to be named, report that BA will experiment on some flights outside normal mealtimes by just offering a packet of crisps. The response from passengers on these experimental 'reduced' flights will then be monitored. Flights from LHR to Scotland, Zurich and Paris have been earmarked for testing, as have many from Manchester. As part of the changes passengers will just be offered "tea or coffee" from the drinks trolley - however a limited bar service will still be maintained for those passengers who know to ask for it.
This reduction is similar to the changes that the new Chief Executive of BA, Willie Walsh, made at AerLingus a few years back. It revolutionised the carrier, and made it profitable again. However passengers flying BA do so for different reasons to that on the Irish Carrier, and, as with BA's shortlived offshoot Go, Industry Watchers debate if this move will continue to bring in valuable business revenue on longer, thin, routes.
The cost increases to £4 if you pay at the airport. Economy Plus gets 30kg of hold luggage, and can take on 10kg plus a laptop, for free.
| AGA : Q)EGTT/QFULT/IV/NBO/A/000/999/5129N00028W005 FROM 05/12/13 18:33 TO 05/12/31 23:59 EST A2706/05 E)HEATHROW AIRPORT IS EXPERIENCING REDUCED DELIVERIES OF JET FUEL. IN ORDER TO ENSURE CONTINUANCE OF OPS, THE ARRANGEMENTS AGREED IN THE DRAFT HEATHROW FUEL CONTINGENCY PLAN (HFCP) WILL APPLY WIE. THERE ARE SOME RESERVE STOCKS, BUT THESE NEED TO BE BEST USED IN ORDER TO SAFEGUARD OPS. ALL INBOUND ACFT WILL MAXIMISE TANKERING OPPORTUNITIES. IN ADDITION TO TANKERING, FUEL RESTRICTIONS WILL ALSO APPLY. USING THE HFCP, EACH CARRIER WILL, ON A DAILY BASIS, BE ALLOCATED A PERCENTAGE OF THE PREVIOUS WEEKS TOTAL UPLIFT. THIS ALLOCATION CAN BE USED AT AIRLINES DISCRETION. ALL DEPARTING ACFT WILL RECIEVE FUEL, BUT ON A REDUCED BASIS - (REFLECTING NORMAL CONTINGENCY PRACTICE WORLDWIDE). THE FOLLWING RESTRICTIONS APPLY: VISITING CARRIERS FLTS UP TO 5 HR DURATION WILL RECIEVE 40 PER CENT OF NORMAL UPLIFT FLTS OVER 5 HR DURATION WILL RECIEVE 64 PER CENT OF NORMAL UPLIFT BASE CARRIERS IN ORDER TO MAINTAIN THE OPERATIONAL INTEGRITY OF THE AIRFIELD AND ENSURE STAND AVAILABILITY THE 3 BASE CARRIERS WILL HAVE THE FOLLOWING ALLOCATION: FLTS UP TO 5 HR DURATION WILL RECIEVE 64 PER CENT OF NORMAL UPLIFT FLTS OVER 5 HR DURATION WILL RECIEVE 85 PER CENT OF NORMAL UPLIFT CONSIDERATION WILL BE GIVEN TO LONG RANGE AIRLINES WHO NEED TO ESTABLISH INTERIM OPERATIONAL ARRANGEMENTS. AIRLINES IN THIS CATEGORY SHOULD CONTACT THE AIRSIDE BUSINESS RECOVERY TEAM ON 0208 745 7582 TO ESTABLISH AN AGREEMENT. THE SITUATION WILL BE MONITORED DAILY AND AIRLINES PERFORMANCE MEASURED, WITH NOTAM ISSUED AS REQUIRED. |
| The LHR NOTAM |
Other airlines have said their long haul flights will have to make similar stops at overseas airports. The Buncefield depot is said to supply a third of the fuel for Heathrow.
Some aircraft are only being allowed 40% of the fuel they would normally take on board and airport company BAA said restrictions could last some weeks. British Airways said the situation was having no impact on its operations. It said it was putting more fuel than normal onto its flights into Heathrow to avoid using up so much of the fuel available at the airport.
Other companies like McDonalds are also having problems obtaining enough fuel, which has lead to shortages at their airport outlets.
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SYD-LHR QF301 1515-0520+1 via BKK QF319 1555-0555+1 via SIN QF031 1655-0645+1 via SIN QF001 1700-0700+1 via BKK LHR-SYD QF032 1215-1850+1 via SIN QF320 2150-0515+2 via SIN QF302 2200-0605+2 via BKK QF002 2215-0605+2 via BKK MEL-LHR QF009 1530-0530+1 via SIN QF029 2300-1320+1 via HKG LHR-MEL QF030 1220-1955+1 via HKG QF010 2205-0445+2 via SIN |
| New QF Schedule |
Qantas will double the number of its direct Boeing 747-400 flights between Melbourne and London from seven to 14 each week from 26 March 2006.
The Qantas flight will replace British Airways' daily Melbourne-Singapore-London service, which will now operate London-Singapore-London. British Airways will codeshare on the Qantas services to London via Hong Kong. This is the second time BA have axed Melbourne - it was operated until 1998, and then brought back in 2001.
The Qantas schedule change involved redirecting the airline's current four Sydney-Hong Kong-London services to Melbourne and adding a further three flights. Under their Joint Service Agreement, Qantas and British Airways will operate 42 return services each week between Australia and the UK from 26 March 2006.
Flights will depart Singapore Changi Airport every Monday, Wednesday and Friday evening, arriving at Moscow's Domodedovo Airport, via Dubai, the next morning. The return flight will depart Moscow every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday mid-morning and arrive in Singapore, via Dubai, early the following day. Singapore Airlines will fly a 3-class Boeing 777-200 aircraft on this new route. (Please refer to Annex for full flight schedule.)
With this new destination, Singapore Airlines will fly 74 times a week to 10 cities in Europe. The number of destinations in the route network will also increase to 62 in 34 countries.
The airline will also increase to daily its service from Heathrow to Mumbai on 22 April.
The airline will continue to operate seven flights a day from the UK to Munich with the Heathrow service increasing from five to six a day. BA will also maintain three flights a day from the UK to Hanover from Birmingham and Manchester airports, but oddly there will be no service to London.
No flights will operate from Cologne, which will mean the closure of the BA operation there. BA operates 63 daily direct services from five destinations in the UK to seven in Germany. The suspensions will take place in the summer 2006 schedule, which starts on March 26. The airline has also announced that flights to Riga will move from London Heathrow to London Gatwick in March 2006.
. Finnair says the orders include nine A350s and three A340 planes and also includes an option for four additional planes. It is part of an Asian growth strategy, with more routes to the region. It will enable the airline to open new destinations as well as to increase flight frequencies to destinations where demand is greatest. In addition to China the airline is opening new routes to Japan and India.
Now a limited catering service will return on flights between London Heathrow and Spain, Portugal, Italy and Finland. In the Euro Traveller cabin customers will be offered a sandwich and fruit pot plus a range of juices in addition to tea, coffee and bottled water. In Club Europe, customers will be offered the same sandwich option as in Euro Traveller, but with the addition of a full bar service.
The airline has now signed a commercial agreement with Gate Gourmet, which was involved in a bitter dispute after sacking hundreds of workers. BA's baggage handlers staged sympathy strikes, grounding flights at Heathrow for a day in August. Gate Gourmet, which supplies in-flight food for BA's services at Heathrow, reached a deal last month with the Transport and General Workers Union which saw hundreds of its employees take redundancy.
oneworld is rapidly expanding, and will shortly include Royal Jordanian from the turn of 2006/2007, and Hungary's Malév.
The airline's new enhanced economy class will be gradually implemented across its network, beginning with flights operated on routes to Europe, Far East, Australasia and North America. In the coming months, Emirates also plans to revamp its travel amenity kits for premium classes. Emirates is also retrofitting AVOD to its fleet.
The main in-flight meal and soft drinks such as tea and coffee will remain free of charge, however from November, if economy customers want anything other than basic food they will have to purchase something from a range of savoury and sweet snacks in-flight.
bmi will also become the only scheduled airline operating out of Europe to Asia to charge for alcohol from the 3rd of January. This is seen by many in the industry as a brave move, considering the competition on routes such as to Bombay, where every single competitor provides complimentary drinks. bmi say that the move is to bring it into line with United, which charges for alcohol transatlantic, however no UK competitor does. Airline comentators have speculated that this may cause bmi's bookings to drop, just as United's UK bookings did, when it made the change.
bmi are also to axe it's highly popular A330 service from Manchester to Las Vegas and the Caribbean, and replace it with a leased 767 without a Premium Economy class.
Emergency food box this is handed out on the airbridge at LHR to economy passengers |
Loss-making caterer Gate Gourmet fired about 350 staff, sparking unofficial sympathy strike by BA ground crews which brought BA operations at LHR to a complete halt, after checkin staff refused to work following what they claim was abuse by customers. Since then passengers, even on long haul flights of up to 14 hours, have only been offered water on board.
Gate Gourmet says it will be able to offer British Airways, Finnair & Qantas flights some service levels from Monday 22nd August. However for premium passengers the news is not all good - business and first class will still only be offered a basic economy class meal, regardless of flight length.
Passengers who are members of British Airways Frequent Flyer scheme, the Executive Club, are being offered 12,000 miles as compensation (or 25,000 for Silver members, 50,000 for Gold. This is raised to 100,000 for those that complain by letter).
Chaos at Heathrow caused by a strike by British Airways staff has begun to ease, but BA has warned it may take days to clear the passenger backlog. The airline will continue catch-up operations, after over 80% of its scheduled flights have started to run again.
British Aiways Catering Vouchers |
A problem with a sub-contracted firm that provides the airlines meals escalated into secondary strike action by hundreds of BA ground staff, who went on strike on Thursday after Gate Gourmet, which supplies meals for BA flights, a day earlier sacked 670 staff. Gate Gourmet said it had sacked the staff for staging an unofficial walkout over the firm's restructuring plans - this has been disputed by TGWU.
Flights which are taking off still have no catering on board, regardless of class or destination. Long haul, First class passengers are being provided with £40 of vouchers to buy food at the airport before travel, in Business it's £30, while economy gets £10. Short haul around Europe, economy passengers are being provided with a bag at the airport containing a bag of crisps and a packet of sandwiches.
Some bar service is being provided, with aircraft loaded with alcohol at outstations, but the service is very restricted.
However, Delta added that despite the sale, its financial liquidity would still "decline substantially" in 2005. The third largest airline in the US, it has faced ongoing speculation that it could file for Chapter 11 protection. Chapter 11 gives a US company time in which to rearrange its finances while continuing to trade.
Passengers booked on this route are being re-routed on bmi's new route to Las Vegas.
This lounge was normally deserted, and with the move by bmi to axe all European business class flights except to Dublin, it is not suprising that bmi are taking this move, which is estimated to save the firm £2m a year.
SIA, which has been lobbying for access for three years, had not been given an indication about when the issue might be reconsidered.
While Australia has a free trade agreement with Singapore, it suspended talks on an open skies deal with the city-state in 2003, saying it wanted to wait until the world aviation market stabilised following a series of shocks caused by SARS, terrorism and the Iraq war. Qantas makes about 15 percent of its profits from the Australia-Los Angeles route. It controls about 75 percent of direct flights and United Airlines has the remaining 25 percent.
Meanwhile Virgin Blue is positioning itself to secure a larger share of the inbound tourism market through use of new codeshare technology that will allow Virgin Atlantic customers coming to Australia to buy tickets and travel beyond Sydney to other Australian cities using a single reservation code.
Sources inside bmi have reported a large number of protests from regular travellers, as well as many members of the Diamond Club, following the axing of premium service on most routes, inflight service, and the loss of most frequent flyer benefits.
Lufthansa report that the measure is because of the lack of space in the lounge, which despite the large number of daily flights, is one of the smallest the airline has. Passengers are instead being directed to the larger Silver lounge next door, which has poorer food and a more limited supply of drinks.
The Chief Executive Board of the Star Alliance of airlines voted unanimously to accept Swiss International Air application for membership at the alliance's conference in Nagoya, in Japan. Upon the integration of Swiss International Air and South African Airways, another new applicant, the Star Alliance network across the world would consist of 846 destinations in 151 countries.
The airline says the move follows a six month study of the views of 10,000 air passengers, although bmi have not offered evidence of this.
Business class services on flights from Heathrow to Glasgow, Edinburgh, Belfast City and Brussels will remain, although as these flights rarely last more than 50 minutes, service on these routes is minimal.
The move brings the Heathrow operation into line with the company's budget airline, bmibaby, which operates out of five UK airports, but the changes do not affect the services run by the company's regional operation out of Aberdeen, Edinburgh and Nottingham East Midlands airports.
At the announcement of the change the airline said the changes would be "dynamic", although some reviews have been less than favourable and analysts say that this may not have not been thought through. It brings to an end the changes at bmi, which started 4 years ago when many frills in the frequent flyer scheme were cut, and many routes went low-cost. At present the frequent-flier scheme Diamond Club remains part of the Star Alliance, but there must be doubts how long bmi will remain part of the system.
Both firms have had financial troubles, with US Airways seeking bankruptcy protection twice in two years. America West is the stronger of the two at present after posting first-quarter profits of $33.6m, as against a $1.6m loss for the same period in 2004. The new company will be based in Tempe, Arizona, the home of America West.
The two airlines have complementary networks, with US Airways serving the east coast and America West the western states. The newly-merged airline is expected to reduce the size of its 400-strong fleet by about 60 planes. Further cost savings are expected to come from staff reduction. It is the first big US air industry merger since American Airlines took over bankrupt Trans World Airlines (TWA) in 2001.
When the new guidelines come into force, passengers will be permitted to carry knitting needles and scissors with blades shorter than 3cm in their hand luggage. Nail files and tweezers remain discretionary but airports and airlines will enforce their own specific policy.
It follows fears about Newquay airport's future after the announcement of the imminent "mothballing" of the RAF base at St Mawgan. The announcement in March prompted speculation that, if the RAF were to pull out of its partnership with the civil aviation companies, Cornwall could lose its air links altogether. In the meantime, Air Southwest is optimistic the new additions to its Newquay/Gatwick service which flies four times a day, seven days a week, will strengthen the importance of other passenger services from the airport.
For short-haul passengers, BA' fuel surcharge will rise to £6 from £4 per trip. The surcharge will be levied on each leg of a return flight. It comes one day after rival Virgin Atlantic imposed a similar surcharge increase.
Germany's Lufthansa says its takeover of Swiss International Airlines has won approval from both companies' boards and major shareholders. Under the deal, Lufthansa will pay up to 310million euro for the loss-making carrier.
The bid had been awaiting the go ahead from the Swiss government - the airline's largest shareholder. About 2.6bn euros was invested in the carrier after its 2002 formation from the shell of the collapsed Swissair. However the new company has recorded total losses of about 1.3bn euros, struggling through the Sars crisis, high oil prices and competition from low-cost carriers. Lufthansa is now expected to make a buy out offer to smaller shareholders.
Flight to Paris will operate three times daily Monday to Friday, daily on Saturdays and twice daily on Sundays with fares starting at £42 one way including taxes.
Flights to Nice will operate once a day on Saturday and Sunday with fares starting at £52 one way including taxes.
Fourteen seats have been removed from the original 60-seat configuration in the Business Class section of the A340 aircraft (formerly 54 business Class seats and six rather useless sleeper seats) to create space for a 46-seat layout. This reduces to a 34 seat layout in the smaller A330 aircraft.
The British made seats aren't totally flat - however it reclines to just 11 degrees and has a width of 66cm. The seat pitch is 61inches. When in the reclined position the outer armrest falls down in order to widen the seat; there is special storage space for a water bottle and laptop; and a handle and footrest that make it easier for a window seat passenger to reach the aisle. There is the usualsliding headrest and an adjustable reading lamp. When folded out into the sleeping position it will not interfere with passengers in the row behind.
Together with the flat bed comes the introduction of Video on Demand inflight technology. Business Class passengers will be able to choose when and how to use the entertainment supplied on a larger 10.4 inch high resolution personal monitor. A greater selection of films and music will also be available.
It seems that the services are the use the spare rotations when an A330 is employed on services to Mumbai. These will operate on Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday. Riyadh will be served on Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday with return flights departing on the same days.
In economy on most domestic and some Latin American and Caribbean flights of more than 90 minutes, instead of food for sale on domestic flights, Delta will now offer an assortment of name-brand snacks, including multigrain chips, honey-roasted peanuts and wheat crackers.
On flights longer than 3½ hours there is a prearranged snack pack of crackers, cheese, Oreo biscuits and Sun-Maid raisins.
Alcoholic beverages now will cost $5, up from $4. Pillows will no longer be provided on Delta flights within the 48 contiguous states, Bermuda, Canada and Central American and Caribbean destinations beginning in mid-March. Blankets will continue to be available. Delta said in a statement that shedding pillows will provide more room for carry-on luggage in overhead bins and reduce costs.
In 2001, Delta, along with many of its rivals, curtailed food service to reduce costs as air travel plummeted. Two years later, Delta announced it would offer a new menu -- from Mediterranean chicken to New York cheesecake -- in hopes that customers would pay for it. The meals cost up to $10 and were initially sold on 400 flights. However the meals were very poorly received by customers who had little to distinguish Delta flights from their no-frills alternatives.
Delta says it will continue to offer free meals to first-class passengers (Delta's name for domestic business class) on flights longer than 3½ hours, and to all passengers on international flights of at least five hours, as well as flights to and from Hawaii and Alaska.
A damp lease means that the aircraft is provided with flight deck crew. bmi will be providing its own cabin staff to operate the services to ensure service continuity.
However, passengers may not be impressed - the Boeing 757 aircraft will operate in a two-class configuration with 10 business and 167 economy seats, and only overhead LCD TV screens. Previously the Airbus A330 aircraft on the route had 24 business seats, 48 premium economy seats and 172 economy seats, with inflight entertainment at all seats.
The airline has completed fitting the new seats on all its Boeing 777 aircraft operating direct services from Gatwick to twelve destinations in the USA and Caribbean.
Newly fitted routes are Antigua, Tobago, St. Lucia, Grenada, Kingston, Orlando and Tampa. Services to Houston, Dallas, Bermuda, Atlanta and Barbados were completed last year. The introduction is part of the on-going roll-out of British Airways' next generation of products across the airline's fleet.
In business passengers get a six foot fully flat-bed in Club World, as well the normal multi-channel entertainment system (although without AV on demand), a moveable privacy screen and business facilities. WTP or World Traveller Plus offers a dedicated cabin and a new wider seat with 7" more legroom. There are seatback videos, free pre-flight newspaper and priority meal and drinks service.
Northwest follows other airlines such as U.S. Airways and American Airlines in eliminating complimentary meals in coach service. The so-called legacy airlines have been gradually cutting back on amenities for several years in the face of growing competition from low-cost rivals, such as Southwest, where free food is limited to peanuts or light snacks.
The cost-saving move by Northwest will be phased in over several months, starting on March 1st. Elimination of the complimentary meal service will start with about 450 daily flights and expand by July 1 to 900 flights -- about 60 percent of the airline's flights. Northwest has about 1,500 daily flights. Meals served to business and first-class passengers on Northwest, as well as all passengers flying to Europe and Asia, will not be affected.
The snack boxes will include all nonperishable items such as Granola bars, potato chips, cookies, crackers, cheese spread and raisins. Because the items have a long shelf life, Northwest promises it'll have enough snack boxes for everyone aboard a flight. On longer routes to such places as Hawaii, Alaska and the Caribbean, Adler said the airline also will offer a $5 fresh sandwiches that include vegetarian, deli meat or breakfast choices.
BA 89 Heathrow to Nairobi has been turned over to a charter-configuration A330 operated by the Switzerland-based charter company Edelweiss for the foreseeable future. The A330 has a 31" seat pitch in economy, and 38" in business. There are no seatback videos.
BA2167 London Gatwick to Tampa has been turned over to Euro Atlantic, with a Boeing 767. Economy class seat pitch is 28", and 36" in business. There are no seatback videos. Duty Free sales on-board will not be available.
British Airways warn that on all flights, equipment is subject to change at the last minute. However all passengers booked in Business Class are entitled to downgrade compensation. They will not however get the flat beds, and the multi-channel video they have paid for
Faced with intense competition in the sector from the likes of Ryanair, Easyjet has also been looking at other ways of boosting revenue by providing facilities more akin to the traditional airlines. The company is considering introducing airport lounges and a frequent flyer programme.
All the low-cost carriers have managed to win favour with the increasingly price-conscious business sector. Easyjet believes corporate travellers may now be happy to part with a little bit of extra cash for added convenience. The fast-track scheme is being offered to 10 passengers on each flight when they check in, with a varied take up.
The roast meal will include roast chicken, sage and onion stuffing, roast potatoes, carrots, broccoli and gravy. The roast dinner will be followed by a traditional pear and plum crumble and custard.
The benefits include:
The Champagne will be a large extra cost for British Airways. Because the bottle is opened on the ground, there is standard UK tax to be paid. In addition, no other drinks will be on offer, which will add confusion to some passengers.
Singapore Airlines is the launch customer of the A380. UK travellers will be among the first in the world to experience a new travel concept on board the double decker superjumbo, which has a wingspan equivalent to almost nine London Routemaster buses placed end to end.
The A380 cabin interior is approximately 50 per cent bigger than the B747, which currently serves the London - Singapore route, and has offered SIA many intriguing opportunities to improve on what is available to its passengers. The A380 can accommodate 555 seats in a standard, three-class configuration. However, to ensure more room to walk about, SIA's A380 will have less than 500 seats in a three-class configuration. This means that the space per passenger will be significantly increased.
Customer workshops were held in late 2002 in London, New York and Singapore, where a group of randomly selected frequent travellers were invited to participate in the brainstorming stage of the research and design process. Participants were encouraged to put aside their preconceptions of what an aircraft interior should be, and create the type of environment they would like to travel in. Feedback from the sessions was presented to a group of designers from fashion houses, specialist aviation companies and luxury car manufacturers who have been tasked with designing a cabin that would surpass the benchmark for air travel.
There will be three classes on the A380: First, Raffles (Business) and Economy. The First and Raffles Class products will be very different from the First Class SkySuites and Business Class SpaceBeds that are in service now.
SIA will achieve another world first by providing live international TV on-board to all classes from mid 2005. The channel line-up will initially include four international news channels, with sports content to be added later on. This is part of Singapore Airlines CyberCabinTM project to provide passengers with a wide array of telly to watch.
The world's largest passenger plane, the Airbus A380, has been unveiled in an elaborate ceremony in France. The twin-deck aircraft can carry about 555 people - more than the Boeing 747 jumbo built by Airbus' main competitor. The ceremony was attended by European leaders including Tony Blair, Jacques Chirac and Gerhard Schroeder. French President Jacques Chirac praised the A380 as the "crowning achievement of a human and industrial adventure", describing it as a "European success".
The first test flight of the A380 will take place in April although Airbus is keeping the exact date under wraps. It will enter service in 2006.
Airbus - a joint venture between European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company (EADS) and BAE Systems - has secured 149 confirmed orders for the A380 from 14 customers, including 11 passenger airlines. Lufthansa, Virgin Atlantic, Qantas and Malaysian Airlines are among 11 passenger airlines to have agreed to buy the A380. Emirates is its largest customer, ordering 45 while Singapore Airlines will take delivery first in 2006
The world's busiest airports are having to change their terminal buildings to accommodate the A380. Heathrow is spending £450m on preparing itself for the arrival of the A380, which will arrive and depart from Terminal 3.
Continental also said that, if it did not make any cuts, it expects to lose "hundreds of millions of dollars" in 2005 in current market conditions. Failure to make cutbacks may also push it to reduce its fleet, the group said.
Houston-based Continental now has debt and pension payments of nearly $984m which it must pay off this year. The company has been working to streamline its operations - and has managed to save $1.1bn in costs without cutting jobs. The group has also announced it would be able to shave a further $48m a year from its costs with changes to wage and benefits for most of its US-based management and clerical staff.
The 7E7, which will fly into business in 2008, is central to Boeing's aim to beat its European competitor Airbus. Boeing continues to enjoy a dominance in the US, though in Europe some carriers favour Airbus instead. Last week, Airbus announced the first sale of its A350 aircraft which will be launched as a rival to the Boeing 7E7, also known as the Dreamliner.
Both the 7E7 and the A350 are being designed to be as fuel-efficient as possible in the 200- to 300-seat sector, and each will be available in both short and long range versions. Airbus is to sell 10 of its forthcoming A350s to Spanish carrier Air Europe, which has the option to buy two more in a deal that could be worth more than $1.8bn.
American, which cut back on in-flight food after 2001, will offer food for sale in the main cabin on all domestic flights longer than three hours. Food will be sold on more than 500 daily non-transcontinental flights of three hours or more, including about 300 flights that currently offer no food. The snack boxes will replace main cabin food service that is now free on about 120 other transcontinental and 40 Hawaii flights, which the airline claims will help it save about $30 million a year.
The airline said it would continue to offer complimentary food for first-class passengers. A “morning snack box” will contain a muffin bar, dried cranberries, bagel chips, cream cheese spread and a mint from 6 a.m. to 9:59 a.m. From 10 a.m. to 7:30 p.m., the snack boxes will include crackers, sliced salami, cheddar cheese, fruit mix and Oreo cookies
The flight, the first from the United States to Vietnam since 1975, will be carrying 347 Vietnamese and U.S. officials and businessmen.
UA Flight 869 uses a Boeing 747-400 and makes a stop in Hong Kong before landing in Saigon. It was from Saigon that the last American commercial flight, by Pan Am, left Vietnam when South Vietnam fell to communist forces in 1975.
British Airways, which already operates 19 services between the UK and India, has secured seven of the new slots, while BMI has gained four. Virgin currently flies three weekly services as part of a code-share with India's flag carrier Air India. It had asked the CAA for an additional 18 slots, while BMI wanted 13 and BA all 21.
The new direct flights from London to Bombay, Delhi, Bangalore and other Indian cities were so converted because high passenger demand currently outstrips limited existing services. The new flights to and from the UK and India have been made available following a agreement between the two countries' governments earlier this year. State-run Air India is expected to win most of the new services on the India side.
Virgin said it would launch three of its seven new Delhi services immediately, but that it would appeal against the CAA decision to only grant it three weekly flights on the Mumbai route, for which it hoped to compete aggressively with BA. It may also consider a code share agreement with bmi.
BA said in a statement it was disappointed with the decision to grant it only four services on the Chennai (Madras) route and three to Bangalore but stopped short of saying it would appeal. More UK-to-India routes are expected to be opened up following further talks between the two governments in the next 12 months.
This change has yet to be announced to passengers, however the rules given to Cabin Crew do at present seem to indicate that only US currency will be accepted for drink. Furthermore United will no longer provide free beer, wine or sparkling wine to recognize customers' anniversaries, or birthdays. This complements United's recent change of charging for food on most domestic flights in the US. United will however still continue to hand out two free drink vouchers to customers (on request) who have access to the United Red Carpet Club.
Although free drink vouchers are handed out to some elite passengers, and are for sale on the United website, in a highly controvertial move, if a United passenger drinks more than four alcoholic drinks on a flight, the purser will be required to complete a report.
There is a reduction in points needed for Sydney to Melbourne or Brisbane seats, however many members use frequent flyer points to upgrade and these opportunities have been dramatically reduced. From May upgrades will no longer be available on discount fares and will not be able to be confirmed in advance on international flights.
The award table will be transformed from the current 5 zones into 10 zones of one way travel
The table starts with 0 to 600 miles, where 8,000 miles are needed for economy, and 16,000 for business. 601 to 1,200 needs 12,000, 24,000 or 36,000. 1,201 to 2,400 requires 18,000, 36,000, and 54,000 At the top end of the scale, flights to London need 64,000 in economy, or 128,000 in business. Whilst MEL-SYD in WHY will decrease from 20000 to 16000 and MEL-PER from 30000 to 26000, J class on the MEL-PER Run return will go from 45000 to 50000.
You will no longer be able to upgrade flights booked as domestic red-e deals, or as they say heavily discounted fares in N, O or Q classes of travel. For international flights there are no guaranteed upgrades using points. You will only know if your upgrade has been successful when you check in.
From 25 May 2005, you will no longer earn Upgrade credits. Instead, for every 450 Status credits earned, we will award a Loyalty bonus of 5,000 Frequent Flyer points, in place of one Upgrade credit. This is quite a dramatic change.
A fee will apply to Award booking flights as they can only be booked through a consultant. The cost is 2,500 points unless you book through the website.
Passengers, who check-in online for flights from Heathrow Terminal 1 to Aberdeen, Edinburgh, Manchester, Glasgow and Newcastle, will now be able to print their own boarding passes. Passengers travelling from Manchester will be offered the facility on both domestic and international routes.
Online boarding passes have proved very popular with British Airways' customers, since being introduced in Edinburgh in February this year, with over 12,000 printed in October.
The pass can be printed on A4 paper and contains a unique barcode containing all the passenger's relevant flight details. It enables passengers with hand baggage only to go straight to security, by-passing the need to go to a check-in desk or self-service check-in kiosk. At security, the barcode is checked by an airport security guard using a barcode reader.
Customers with bags to check-in, can use the fast baggage drop facility.
The online printed boarding pass initiative is part of British Airways' drive to simplify the check-in process for passengers and help smooth their way through the terminal and onto the aircraft.
Only 81 passengers were onboard Pakistan Airlines flight PK 709 on Friday 12th November. The aircraft on these routes can carry up to 450 passengers.
PIA officials later claimed the plane had been unable to contact air traffic controllers in Manchester but had spoken to operators in London. NATS has disputed this, saying it would not have launched a security alert if the plane had made contact. The plane landed safely at Manchester Airport. NATS has filed a report on the incident with the Civil Aviation Authority, and PIA has mounted its own inquiry. A spokesman for NATS said: "The plane had not made contact with controllers at Maastricht".
Pakistan Airlines is the National Flag Carrier of Pakistan, and regards the UK routes to London and Manchester as its flagship. PIA have been unable to confirm the load factor on these flights, however checks with the booking system used by PIA confirm that many flights to Manchester with PIA are flying at less than 20% of capacity.
In June 2004 two different PIA aircraft caught fire on the same day at Manchester airport.
All Sunday flights have already been pulled from the schedule, as well as other selected dates from Janurary to March. Passengers booked on these flights are being offered alternative routes, which involve a change of plane at Chicago and then a transfer onto a low cost carrier.
A bmi spokesman was unable to confirm that this is due to poor demand on the flights from Manchester, however checks with bmi bookings confirm that virtually the only seats that have been sold are those in bmi's £250 for business class mistake on its online booking site.
While bmi have pulled flights before, including its last winter experiment to the Canary Island, and many of its flights to Madrid and Palma, this is the first transatlantic route to be cut before it properly starts operating.
In a statement, she says she is initiating legal action against the airline for "wrongful termination". A Delta spokesperson confirms Ms Simonetti is no longer an employee. The spokesperson also confirmed that there were "very clear rules" attached to the unauthorised use of Delta branding, including uniforms.
She said in an official statement: "As a result of my suspension and subsequent termination without cause by Delta Airlines I am moving forward with filing a discrimination complaint with the Federal Government EEOC [US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission]." She added she had also hired a Texas-based law firm to initiate legal action for "wrongful termination, defamation of character and lost future wages."
Queen of the Sky has received a lot of support and advice from the global blogging community since news of her suspension was brought to light. Her story has highlighted concerns amongst the growing blogging community about conflicts of interest, employment law and free speech on personal websites. The blog, which she started in January as a way of getting over her mother's death, contains a mix of fictional and non-fictional accounts.
Queen of the Sky developed over the months as a character in her own right, according to Ms Simonetti. In the postings, she made up fictional names for cities and other companies she mentioned to protect anonymity. But some postings contained images of herself in uniform. Of the 10 or so images only one showed Ms Simonetti's flight "wings". She removed them as soon as she was informed of her suspension. A legal expert in the US speculated that Delta might be concerned that the fictional content on the blog may be linked back to the airline after the images were posted.
Icelandair is the largest of 13 subsidiaries of the Icelandair Group. Among the other Icelandair Group holdings are a cargo marketing company, a hotel group, car rental and travel agencies. Any takeover attempt of Easyjet would need the approval of founder Stelios Haji-Ioannou, whose family still owns 41% of the company.
Shares in Easyjet, Europe's largest low-cost carrier after Ryanair, hit an all-time low late last month on concerns about rising fuel costs and competition. Rival Ryanair has strongly denied that it is considering a takeover attempt of Easyjet.
In addition, Glasgow will have daily flights to Faro, Tenerife and the Czech Republic, Prague. The Prague flights will increase competition on the route.
bmi confirm that a ticket class just for bmi's frequent flyer Diamond Club was inadvertantly added to their booking engine. The I class ticket should cost miles, plus £249.60GBP. Instead it was made available to all customers at bmi's website who selected "business class-restricted" while booking. The tickets should cost £2300.
The mistake was rectified within hours of being discovered, but details were posted on the various websites, allowing some lucky customers to book the tickets. Later in the day some travel websites such as Ebookers also reflected the error, and priced the tickets at £249, but showed the tickets as full Business C class tickets, allowing other customers who had missed out on the bmi bug to claim their bargain priced tickets.
bmi say that the tickets will be honoured, however customers will not earn any miles for their flight, except for those who have booked under "C" class.
This has become a likely new possibility because of new route rights between the UK and India, unveiling plans to serve Mumbai and Bangalore from London Heathrow.
bmi says it would offer a daily Mumbai service and six weekly flights to Bangalore from March 2005. It joins the fray with British Airways and Virgin Atlantic for the 21 extra flights per week, which were recently brokered between UK and Indian authorities. A portion of the new rights come into effect this winter, but bmi says it is not able to move quickly enough to establish services.
bmi's long-haul network currently comprises three transatlantic services from Manchester, and has a fleet of three Airbus A330s on its intercontinental flights. It is planning to buy two more planes for the services, but is warning that a two long-haul aircraft operation at London Heathrow in the long-term would not be viable, and it would need more routes. It is unclear if the new aircraft would also be A330s, but this seems likely.
Virgin are also planning a total of 25 destinations by the middle of next year. Virgin have confirmed an order with Airbus for 26 new A340-600s. This is the largest order Virgin have ever placed, and is in addition to an earlier order for 12 of the aircraft.
Virgin have also come up with a wish list of future destinations served by the plane. It includes Melbourne, Dubai, Bangkok, Mumbai, Chicago, Toronto, Jamaica, Nairobi and Rio.
Oneworld is offering a bonus of 15,000 frequent flyer miles to existing loyalty scheme members and those who sign up to the programme. To qualify, air travellers must fly on at least three Oneworld airlines, including the one they are registered with as a frequent flyer, between October 1 and November 30.
oneworld hopes to poach customers from Star Alliance operators. Star Alliance recently targeted members of the Oneworld airlines' frequent flyer schemes by offering to match their status if they transferred. The scheme was criticised by British Airways as "effectively queue-jumping".
The oneworld bonus offer is being promoted through press and poster advertising and by individual carriers. The 15,000 air miles can be redeemed against flights across the frequent flyer programmes of Oneworld's member airlines.
The airline's maiden flight was a new Airbus 320 with the company logo of leaping tiger painted on the front, left Singapore Changi Airport with about 160 passengers on board. Some of the passengers on this maiden flight had paid only one Singapore dollar for the one-way trip, part of a marketing gimmick that has started a price war. Thai Air Asia has retaliated with a 29 cent one way fare to Bangkok and a 17 cent promotional fare to Phuket.
Delta Air Lines is yet another US carrier facing possible bankruptcy filing, and there are suggestions that the food suppliers are determined to receive outstanding payments prior to any bankruptcy filing.
Delta is now giving out food vouchers to passengers at airports yesterday after Gate Gourmet, who supply most of it's onboard catering, stopped deliveries to Delta terminals across the country. Delta Air Lines have posted the message below on their website, but little optimism of an early settlement is being shown.
Thai Airways has just reopening the Royal First Class Lounge, after more than three years of closure, initially caused by defective plumbing.
The renovated lounge is based on contemporary Thai design with modern facilities and is part of Thai's plan to win more premium passengers, many of whom had deserted the airline due to it's 1970s style premium cabins.
There is a pretty good varieties of facilities, including a private room with entertainment facilities, shower rooms (if you ask you get a nifty toilet bag), Thai massage service (very good although rather public as you lie in the lounge), Internet on LCD monitors, local and international phone services, and portable DVD players handed out on request.
The lounge fits about 75 First Class passengers, and is located at Pier 2, Terminal 1, Departure Hall, Bangkok International Airport. Thai currently has 6 Royal Executive Lounges at Bangkok International Airport, with the existing Royal First Class Lounges next to the Duty Free Shop and Airside, Pier 2, and Pier 5, a Royal Executive Class Lounges at Pier 1, Pier 3, Pier 5 and Royal Orchid Star Alliance Lounge at Pier 4. All in all it's a pretty good place for a lounge crawl.
The best deal to Australia is with Lauda Air (operated by Austrian Airlines), with either Melbourne via Singapore or Sydney via KualaLumpur coming in at £530. Book by 12th September for flight from 2nd Sept 04 to 31 Dec 04. Note that these are W class tickets, so you can't use upgrade vouchers on them, they are totally unchangeable, but one open jaw and open stopover is permitted (the advertising says only in Vienna, but you can also argue for a stop in KL). They are available via Austrian's prefered partner, The Airline Network. Full frequent flyer miles are given.
Singapore is also offering flights to Oz and NZ for £615, as detailed below, although as with Singapore's normal policy, upgrades are never permitted for an Economy seat. Full frequent flyer miles are given.
Lufthansa is also offering great promos, with Beijing from £391, Osaka from £560, and Shanghai from £402. Alas Bangkok is not reduced and is still £532. Full frequent flyer miles are given except for Miles and More and bmi Diamond Club members, and upgrade vouchers can be used.
Thai have a buy one get one free offer (available for purchase in Thailand only) for 2 Royal Executive Class or Royal First Class tickets for the price of one until October 31. Thai also have a new class - in effect World Traveller Plus, called Economy Deluxe Class between Bangkok and Copenhagen or Stockholm, beginning October 31.
Icelandair are offering their new "Lucky Fares". It's just £75. This fare is valid for travel between 28th August and 06th October 2004 on the evening flight from London and afternoon flight from Iceland on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Saturdays only.
bmi have a great offer of earning double destinations miles when you travel with United between September and February 2005. Unite are also offering £530 flights to Sydney - use both, and you get 55,000 miles for a £530 fare. A bargain - even if you do spend 5 days in the air. The next bmi seat sale is also taking place between 3 - 8 September. You'll earn miles on even on bmi's lowest fares, although at a miserly rate.
United themsleves are offering a flight to their US hub for £262, or all the US for £303, plus 2000 miles for buying a ticket online. There are also two Economy Class tickets to any European Star Alliance destination when you fly a qualifying roundtrip in United First (F or A booking class), United Business (C or D booking class) or full-fare United Economy (Y or B booking class) to the US with United between 6th September and the 31st October.
Lastminute are joining in the promos with Hong Kong - from £374 and Bangkok on Etihad from £378.
Finally good old British Airways are offering Melbourne and Sydney at £599, however Bangkok and Singapore are not included. BA adds Routes, axes Paris New services to Switzerland, Greece, Croatia and Lithuania British Airways is making it's traditional Autumn reshuffle to its routes. There are new schedules, starting from October 31, 2004. Flights between London Gatwick and Paris Charles de Gaulle will be suspended. Three new services to Switzerland with flights from London Heathrow to Basle, which will operate three times per day, and London Gatwick to Zurich which will operate twice per day. British Airways CitiExpress will operate flights from Birmingham to Geneva on Saturdays during the ski season between December 2004 and April 2005. From late March 2005 there will be three new services from London Gatwick. There will be four flights per week to Salonika in Greece, three flights per week to Split in Croatia and five flights per week to Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania. There will also be increased frequencies on longhaul services from Heathrow this winter. Weekly flights to Cape Town will go up from 10 to 12, Dubai flights will rise from 17 to 19 per week and Miami will go up from 14 to 16 per week. Flights to Nassau in the Bahamas increase from five to six per week and services to the Turks and Caicos Islands double to two per week. Prices start at £67 from London Gatwick to Zurich, £94 from London Heathrow to Basle, £89 from London Gatwick to Split, £115 from London Gatwick to Thessalonika, £99 from London Gatwick to Vilnius and £99 from Birmingham to Geneva (including taxes).
London City is to be the first English airport to offer this enhancement to British Airways' On-line Check-in, and enables Executive Club members to check-in up to 24 hours before a flight, and registered customers, 12 hours before.
Under the current on-line system, customers can confirm their flight and select their seat, but still need to visit a Self-Service Check-in Kiosk to collect their boarding pass. This latest development also allows customers to print their boarding card, which will have a unique barcode. Once at the airport, they proceed directly to security where the barcode is checked by a scanner. Customers with bags to check in can use the "fast bag drop" facility.
Flights to Australia come in at good prices to. Adelaide, Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane are £615 to Christmas, £660 to end of the year, rise steeply to £755 until 15th January, then drop to £615 to Easter. Singapore Airlines also throw in a free nights accomodation in Singapore, plus Airport to Hotel transfers, free use of the SIA hop-on tourist bus service around Singapore, free entry to: Sentosa Island, the Singapore Night Safari, Jurong Bird Park, the National Orchid Garden, and National Heritage Board Museums.Although the hotels offered are limited - just the Allson, Copthorne Orchid, Furama, Golden landmark, Novotel Apollo, Peninsular Excelsior, Plaza Park Royal, Albert Court, Concorde, Copthorne King’s, Miramar and River View.
The offers do seem to be available in moderately acceptable quantities, and are applicable to new bookings made between 01 July 04 and 30 November 04, and the offer has to be taken by 30th March 05. Prices above exclude taxes.
You can also claim double miles for the Singapore to London Heathrow leg of your journey if you travel between 1st September and 30th Novmber 2004 in all classes and only on flight numbers SQ318/SQ320 ex Singapore to London Heathrow. However you must enter your details on a special part of the KrisFlyer website before you fly to be applicable.
All in all, this is a promotion offer to be savoured.
While these moves are common in today's airline industry, it is surprising that SAS, which had held out against these moves for a long time, is now adopting a stance similar to Ryanair.
Business Class remains unchanged appart from some minor tweaks. Around Europe, passengers are guaranteed that the centre seat will be left empty (although this only applies on the right hand side of MD aircraft) and there will still be food and lounge access.
The change is that from November, Economy changes: For most tickets meals and refreshments will be available for purchase on board. No rebooking or refund is allowed.
If you pay extra you can get into the new "Economy Flex" cabin. This is separated from "no-food economy" by a curtain, and there will be special headrests. You get basic food and beverages on board. You also get free rebooking and refunds, priority check-in, and can carry on two bags.
As many customers choose to travel on SAS for the free food and perks, it remains to be seen if this moves means that there will be a radical shift from SAS to the low cost carriers.
All the new services will start in October 2004 and will be operated by SAS using CRJ 48 seater regional jet aircraft, leased from partner Cimber Air of Denmark. The 48-seat regional jets appear to be an economically viable option on these routes and allow SAS to build up frequencies whilst sustaining a year round viability.
The Aberdeen and Newcastle services are expected to be daily and will offer the only direct services to Copenhagen from these airports. The new service complements SAS' twice daily Aberdeen to Bergen flights and four times daily Aberdeen to Stavanger flights with its Norwegian partner, Wideroe. SAS also operates a daily service (excluding Saturdays) to Stockholm from Edinburgh Airport. From Newcastle SAS already operates a double daily service to Stavanger, run by its partner airline, Wideroe.
Flights to Las Vegas launch Sunday 31 October 2004 and will operate three times a week, on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays. Special offer launch fares are available, starting at £399 return inclusive of taxes and charges.
The new route will be served by a bmi Airbus A330, offering passengers a choice of three cabins; the business, new economy - a premium economy service, and economy. bmi is also changing its plans for new services from Manchester to the Caribbean, even before they launch, due to the number of bookings. Flights will start at the end of November. St Lucia will now be served direct both ways - avoiding a stop in Barbados on the Friday - and the flight will also operate on a Monday.
Due to this change, bmi's twice weekly services to Barbados on Wednesdays and Fridays will now both operate as direct flights instead of the midweek service operating via St Lucia. The enhancements to the bmi schedule to the Caribbean increases the number of flights from three to four services a week.
In addition, extra services to meet seasonal demand are also to be introduced. bmi will operate an extra two round trips to Barbados during the busy Christmas and New Year period. One return service will operate the week leading up to the Christmas break, on Tuesday 21 December, and one early in the New Year on Saturday 8 January. These additions to capacity are expected to prove extremely popular during the traditional holiday break.
It is similar to a successful cocktail service in the Heathrow Clubhouse for the past few months. The service will be introduced onto selected flights later in the year.
Cabin crew will hand out a cocktail menu to Upper Class passengers during the first drinks service. Passengers can choose from a French 75, Ivy Fizz Royale, Grapefruit Collins, Gin Martini and a Raspberry Debonaire. The cocktail barman will be stationed at the onboard bar creating the cocktails. The cabin crew will serve the cocktails to Upper Class passengers in their suites or they can come and sit at the bar and make their choice. It is intended for the service to be offered for the first three hours of the flight.
Virgin make great play of the fact that "Consumption will be monitored and limited". The mixologist will be in a Bombay Sapphire uniform and therefore be clearly distinguishable from the Virgin Atlantic cabin crew. He will receive safety procedure training to enable him to work onboard an aircraft and will not perform any additional duties throughout the flight. So no cocktails for him then.
This is a 33 per cent increase in the number of seats available as compared with the current four-times weekly service to the commercial capital of the Netherlands - these flights used to stop off at Amsterdam on the way to New York. With the new direct flights via the pole to New York, these stop overs are no longer needed.
With the addition of these new services, the Airline will fly to Europe 70 times a week. Apart from Amsterdam, Singapore Airlines' other European destinations include Athens, Copenhagen, Frankfurt, London, Madrid, Manchester, Paris, Rome and Zurich.
Sydney is a prestigious route and will become Virgin Atlantic's 23rd destination. This years is the 20th anniversary of Virgin's first flight from Gatwick to Newark in 1984.
On the new route Virgin offer their new Upper Class suite which consists of a reclining leather seat for take off, a place to sit and eat a meal, the biggest fully flat bed in business class with a proper mattress for sleeping on, a private onboard bar and an inflight beauty treatment area.
Tickets will go on sale for the new services later in the summer. Details of introductory promotional offers will also be announced at that time.
Sydney will bring the total number of destinations served by Virgin Atlantic to 23. In addition to this route, Virgin recently announced that it is due to launch a number of new routes including Cuba and The Bahamas and an increase in services to the US, Caribbean, Asia and the Far East.
The service through to Sydney will operate via Hong Kong with a 90 minute stopover in Hong Kong in both directions. The route will be operated by an Airbus A340-600 aircraft with a configuration of 45 Upper Class Suites, 28 Premium Economy and 233 Economy seats.
Flight VS200 will depart London's Heathrow daily at 2130 arriving in Hong Kong at 1750 the following day. This aircraft will then depart Hong Kong at 1920 arriving in Sydney at 0710 the following day.
Flight VS201 will depart Sydney at 1615 arriving at Hong Kong at 2205. The aircraft then departs Hong Kong at 2335 arriving at London Heathrow at 0450 the following day.
These additional services will utilise new landing and take-off slots at Heathrow that Qantas purchased earlier this year. Under the new schedule, Qantas will operate 17 services to London via Singapore, seven via Bangkok and three via Hong Kong. Qantas would continue to operate daily flights to Frankfurt via Singapore. Together with the new services to Mumbai and Shanghai that will begin later this year, Qantas is growing its international operations.
Movie buffs get a selection of 60 international blockbuster movies, along with over 90 other TV hit programmes like CSI, The West Wing and Alias.
Music fans can pick from twice as many CDs, with a selection of 200 titles ranging from the latest chart toppers and jazz favourites to world music, J-Pop, K-Pop (whatever that is) and Chinese pop. Thanks to the noise reducing headphones in Raffles class, your ear's won't pop.
There are also 33 Nintendo, 20 PC and 3 multi-player games.
Air NZ's existing fleet of eight Boeing 747-400 aircraft, and eight Boeing 777-200 ER aircraft, which start arriving next September, will still be divided into three classes.
First class is to be scrapped. Business Class becomes "Premium", there is a new "super economy" class, and economy remains as usual.
Air NZ joins most other airlines by introducing video screens to every seat, including in economy. Now only Thai remain an airline which refuses to fit seatback videos, even in business.
In the new premium class there is now a lie flat bed. Super Economy gets a bigger seat than economy, but economy food. The seats in economy will also be replaced, and cabin interiors refurbished.
Majority owned by the New Zealand government since a near-collapse in 2001, Air NZ is upgrading its fleet to compete with competitors such as Singapore Airlines - which has video on demand at all seats - and Emirates, which has made Auckland a mini-hub. Emirates features superb food even on it's 3 hour trans-Tasman flights, but has narrower seats and only 8 channels of inflight entertainment.
The refit is long overdue, as the key disadvantage Air New Zealand has had in terms of competitors has been the very poor quality of its product. In particular the in-flight entertainment systems, or lack thereof, and also the fact that the premium service didn't have a lie flat bed.
The revamp of the airline's long haul fleet follows the purchase of 15 Airbus A320 planes for short-to-medium haul routes, and its changes to domestic services in 2002 to low fare-low frills, which means scrapping it's food.
The service through to Sydney will operate via Hong Kong with a 90-minute stopover in Hong Kong in both directions. Virgin plans to operate its A340 on the route with 45 passengers in upper class, 29 in premium economy and 233 in economy. Sydney will bring the total number of destinations served by Virgin Atlantic to 23.
In addition to this route, the airline has recently announced that it is due to launch a number of new routes including Cuba and the Bahamas.
The full English breakfast for early morning flights remains. In addition, the airline will introduce a new continental breakfast option and a hot panini on its mid range European flights to destinations such as Frankfurt, Geneva and Lyon.
On longer shorthaul flights, including Stockholm, Barcelona and Lisbon, customers will be given two hot meal choices for dinner and lunch, plus a further salad option for those wanting a healthier meal.
Other changes include the introduction of mid-afternoon tea with warm savouries such as mini cornish pasties and quiche served with warm scones and cake on mid range late afternoon flights, replacing the current salad.
Customers can also enjoy warm pastries and croissants on breakfast flights, warm Mediterranean bread throughout the day and new style chocolate 'dessert pots'. There is a change of presentation with menu cards, white linen tablecloths and new round china plates, replace the existing 'airline' style dish.
Swiss International Airlines said it had opted against integrating its Swiss Travelclub frequent flyer programme into BA's Executive Club scheme, a key part of the alliance arrangement. The costs are believed to be large, and something Swiss cannot afford when it is struggling to survive.
BA says certain parts of the commercial pact between the two airlines remain, including the exchange for eight Heathrow daily slots. BA and Swiss codesharing between London Heathrow and Geneva will continue for a further three years subject to agreement of commercial terms, but would not be extended further, effectively not covering flights to Zurich.
Swiss had staked its revival on joining an alliance in the medium term and tie-up with Oneworld was announced with great fanfare by company bosses and BA chief executive Rod Eddington last September after months of negotiations.
The end of the arrangement has revived speculation that Swiss could now look towards the German airline Lufthansa, which had put forward a lucrative offer for a financial tie-up last year rather than a simple alliance arrangement.
The Swiss government says it would, without doubt, very much welcome such a move or at least talks in this direction.
Prices start from £149 for tickets sold in the UK for a return Club Europe ticket to Paris. Holidaymakers to the South of France can travel to Nice and Marseilles in style in August from £179 (saving up to £330) and return Club Europe tickets to Lyon, Toulouse and Bordeaux have been reduced to £189 (saving up to £319). In Italy prices start from £185 to Venice and Naples (saving up to £321), £189 to Bologna, Bari and Milan (saving up to £268) and £259 to Pisa and Rome (saving up to £250).
You must book by 24 June, and travel between 15 July and the end of August. If you have not yet bought your summer flights, you could find that business class costs barely more than economy. For example, for a flight from Gatwick to Malaga on 24 July, returning a fortnight later, the lowest economy fare is £190. Club Europe is only £10 more. For this, you get lounge access, better food and drink, and a bigger baggage allowance. And on some heavily booked weekend departures, Club Europe may actually be cheaper than economy.
Other routes covered by the offer include Heathrow-Nice (lowest economy fare on those dates, £134; Club Europe, £178) and Manchester-Venice (economy, £210; Club Europe, £299).
Help another passenger carry a bag, stay upbeat during a difficult situation or assist a flight attendant and you could earn one of 5,000 roundtrip tickets Song will give away in June for redemption between September and November. Song hopes the program will build customer loyalty and generate more revenue for Delta Air Lines, which has lost more than $3 billion in three years and recently warned about the possibility of bankruptcy.
In the Song promotion, each flight attendant will get four tickets to give away to passengers at his or her discretion. The tickets will be good for travel between Sept. 7 and Nov. 10 in any of the 12 cities Song flies.
With profits hard to come by for the major U.S. airlines since the 2001 terrorist attacks and several having to raise ticket prices recently because of high fuel costs, some have been trying a few tricks to attract customers. American Airlines is to keep its expanded legroom instead of adding more seats in many of its jets and will provide more passengers power ports to plug in their entertainment devices. New York-based JetBlue Airways, which has TVs in every seatback, is to enhance its in-flight entertainment with about 100 channels of free digital satellite radio and two pay-per-view movie channels.
Song has martini bars on its flights and Atlanta-based Delta has experimented with premium food for sale and is having fashion designer Richard Tyler update employee uniforms.
If the application is successful, Qantas will operate 17 services to the UK each week via Singapore, seven via Bangkok and four via Hong Kong. Qantas has also applied to add a further three weekly services via Hong Kong to the UK. These flights will not operate until April 2006.
Skiing in Japan is becoming increasingly popular among Australian and New Zealand ski enthusiasts as it is closer than Europe or America and makes it possible to ski all year round. Sapporo is the capital of the northern-most island of Hokkaido and has a reputation for some of the best powder snow in Asia and more than 100 ski runs. This region is also famous for its fresh seafood, chocolate, ramen noodles and beer. There are more than 200 hot springs in Hokkaido, ancient Japanese culture and the Sapporo Snow Festival held each February.
Australian currently fly 17 services each week to the Japanese cities of Nagoya, Osaka and Fukuoka. Sapporo will be the fourth destination in Japan and increase the number of weekly Australian Airlines flights to Japan to 19.
However it won't be easy to get the new fares - flights must be purchased at least 28 days in advance, and are only valid for Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays.
The major change is for cheap economy tickets. Within Europe, flights now have a fixed benefit, regardless of the length of flight. Most Economy flights get 500 miles, while those in classes B & Y (flexible economy) get 750 miles. Class L & T (Restrited Economy) gets 125 miles. Worldwide you get the miles flow, except for classes B & Y (flexible economy) get which gets 1.5 times the number of miles (minimum 750) while class L & T (Restrited Economy) gets 0.5 times (minimum 125 miles). Business still gets x2 and First x3.
Miles & More have reduced some of the targets needed for a flight award. Flights in Europe need 30,000 miles (Business 45,000), to America 60,000 (90,000 business) Bangkok and Singapore 80,000 (120,000) and Australian 100,000 (160,000 business).
Upgrades are now also more expensive. For economy upgrades from economy to business cost 15,000 in Europe (10,000 for B&Y economy), 65,000 to Asia (B&Y 50,000), and 75,000 to Australia (60,000 for Flexible Economy B&Y classes).
Senator level (Star Alliance Gold) will now get two Upgrade eVouchers when getting to that level, and each year on renewing it. Senators will not now get Upgrade vouchers for each 50,000 miles flown.
You Status Level executive bonus (to get to Silver or Gold) will no longer be given for Star Alliance flights except for United and Austrian Airlines.
The changes come into effect from 1st August 2004.
Flights can only be booked from 11th May to 28th May, at least 7 days in advance, with a minimum stay of 3 nights or 1 Saturday night.
SAS have also announced a new Gatwick to Oslo service from the 3rd of June.
The long-range plane has a compartment which could be used to accommodate a body. However the airline said it would only resort to the compartment option if no other suitable spot could be found. On the rare occasion when a passenger passes away during a flight the crew do all that it possible to manage the situation with sensitivity and respect. Unfortunately, given the space constraints in an aircraft cabin, it is not always possible to find a row of seats where the deceased passenger can be placed and covered in a dignified manner, although this is always the preferred option.
The compartment will be used only if no suitable space can be found elsewhere in the cabin. The compartment is unique to this aircraft. The A340-500 flies on the worlds longest non-stop route, and is Trans-Polar, meaning deaths are statistically more likely, and there will be no chance of stopping via another airport to drop off the dead.
BAA Scotland, which owns Glasgow, Aberdeen and Edinburgh Airports is supporting the new route through its £95 million Route Development Fund. The initiative was launched in 2002 in a bid to increase the number of direct links to and from Scotland.
Unlike low cost airlines there is still some hot food, along with the usual snacks and sandwiches. Unusually Monarch also demand payment for tea, and coffee, plus the usual charges for wine, spirits, and even soft drinks. Water is still free.
Passengers who have already booked flights still get the free food - prompting a rather strange two tier system onboard. Monarch Charter flights still get free food.
Monarch fly from London Gatwick to Alicante, Faro, Gibraltar, Malaga, Menorca, Tenerife and Ibiza.
China is one of the fastest growing economies of the world and is set to become one of the world's largest economies in the next decade. The fifth service will depart London on Fridays using an A340-300 aircraft. The VS250 departs Heathrow at 15.40 arriving into Shanghai Pudong Airport at 09.55 the following day. The return flight VS251 departs Shanghai at 12.30 arriving into Heathrow at 17.50. Virgin Atlantic first launched services to Shanghai in May 1999.
Ekaterinburg is a former gold-rush town in the Ural Mountains, and is the site of the murder of Tsar Nicholas II and his family while under house-arrest in 1918. The flight is being introduced to service oil workers. BA's lowest economy ticket costs £499 return, for the five hour flight - about the same as a return to Sydney from LHR.
The route is actually run by British Mediterranean, which has another new destination: Khartoum in Sudan. The new flight from Heathrow to a battle-scarred nation in east Africa complements BA's service to Luanda on the western flank. This took off in October, just as the link with San Diego was ditched. A southern Californian city with the most benevolent climate in the world has been ousted from the schedules by the Angolan capital, thanks to it's diamond wealth. A ticket costs £393 return for the maiden flight from Heathrow to Khartoum. BA is also launching a flight from Gatwick to Bastia in Corsica for £159 return.
In a document sent to the US Securities and Exchange Commission on Friday, the number-seven US carrier said that "given the company's continued operating losses, the company is pursuing a transformation plan to further reduce cost per available seat-mile to levels competitive with low-cost carriers such as America West and JetBlue.
The company expects to begin implementation of the actions needed to achieve the cost reductions by mid-year 2004. However, since the plan will require changes in the company's collective bargaining agreements
US Airways was placed under Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection from its creditors in August 2002, and underwent a massive reorganization, which allowed it to emerge from bankruptcy seven months later.
With US Airways as part of Star Alliance, Dividend Miles members are now able to accrue and redeem miles on any of the 15 member airlines and are eligible to achieve Star Alliance Silver or Star Alliance Gold status. US Airways Dividend Miles Chairman's Preferred and Gold Preferred members automatically become Star Gold members, and Silver Preferred members are recognized as Star Silver members.
Star Alliance Silver status entitles customers to priority reservation wait-list and priority standby at the airport. Star Alliance Gold status customers additionally enjoy access to each of the member airline lounges, dedicated check-in, priority baggage service, additional baggage allowances, and priority boarding.
In celebration of joining the Star Alliance, US Airways and its Star Alliance partner carriers are offering Dividend Miles members a Round-the-World Sweepstakes with chances to win award tickets, including a Grand Prize of two First Class award tickets around the world. Over 50 tickets valid on the Star Alliance member airlines are being given away.
bmi will be the first and the only carrier to operate direct scheduled services from Manchester to Antigua and St Lucia, as well as the first and the only airline to offer three different classes of travel on scheduled flights from Manchester to Barbados. bmi will also be unique in providing a direct return service from Barbados for those seeking a seven day break.
The twice weekly service to Barbados will launch 26 November. Weekly services to Antigua commence 27 November and St Lucia on 1 December. Return fares for all three destinations start at £449, including taxes.
The start of Caribbean serviced for bmi seems to have two main reasons. It further cements the idea of bmi as a trans-Atlantic carrier, a concept it has been trying to build on for the past 20 years as it seeks to have the Bemunda II agreement cancelled (it is currently prevented from flying from LHR to JFK, a route which has brought in vast profits for BA). It also gives the airline something to do with its 3 long-haul A330s, when the Torronto and Washington routes shut down for the winter.
Flights are timed so that London passengers could, if they are really determined, just fly from LHR in the morning, in time to catch the flights from Manchester. However there seems little point in doing this, unless passengers have a determined bmi loyalty. As well as connections at Manchester, the schedules have been timed to connect at their destinations with a wide range of services to other popular Caribbean islands, such as the British Virgin Islands, St Kitts, Tobago, Grenada, St Vincent and the Grenadines.
From Manchester there are flights to Barbados on Wednesday and Friday at 0850 (arrive 1330). On Friday this returns at 1730, getting back to Manchester at 0600. On a Wednesday it includes a hop to St Lucia (at 1515, arriving 1600) and then to Manchester, again at 0600.
On a Saturday, there is a flight to Antigua, departing 0945, arriving 1415 returing again at 1810, arriving back at 0615 the next day.
Flights use bmi's A330, a long haul twin isle twin engined Airbus, with 3 classes. The business - Sleeper seats offer 60 inches of legroom and 160 degrees of recline, with 9-inch seat mounted video screens. Food comes with a fully qualified onboard chef. New economy - 38 inches pitch, individual video screen, and economy food. And economy - 32 inches pitch, and a TV screen.
The new codeshare services will originate in Frankfurt and fly to Frederichshafen, Paderborn and Munster in Germany as well as Copenhagen, Gothenburg, Helsinki, Oslo and Stockholm in Scandinavia.
Operated daily on Lufthansa aircraft, these new services will offer customers travelling to Europe even more options to choose from when making their travel plans. The codeshare service to Copenhagen in particular will complement SIA's current thrice-weekly direct services to the Danish city.
SIA and Lufthansa currently operate codeshare services to 29 destinations worldwide. The two airlines first started codeshare operations on 1 July 1998.
SIA's passenger route network now covers 59 destinations in 33 countries. Taking into account code share services with its alliance partners, the airline's route network extends to 113 destinations in 40 countries.
Weekend services will be added to Leeds Bradford, Newcastle and Nottingham East Midlands. These additional services will bring Eastern's total weekly departures from the Island to over 40.
In addition, Eastern Airways has unveiled a new range of promotional fares. Fares will begin at £99 return, including all taxes and charges, which will be applicable to all its Isle of Man routes.
The introduction of new services and fares will greatly enhance access to and from the Island for residents and visitors alike. New Sunday services from Newcastle and Nottingham East Midlands will provide an option for weekend breaks on all five of Eastern's Isle of Man routes. Further flexibility for travellers will be available on the Leeds Bradford route as the service becomes daily, with the introduction of a Saturday service.
The airline has recently formed 'Manx Regional', a ground handling operation at Ronaldsway, and is now well positioned to continue to grow its Isle of Man network to further improve access. It is currently evaluating a number of additional routes to the Island.
Eastern Airways operates over 650 flights each week, and this year will carry approximately half a million passengers on a network embracing Aberdeen, Belfast International, Birmingham, Bristol, East Midlands, Edinburgh, Humberside, Inverness, Isle of Man, Leeds Bradford, London Stansted, Manchester, Southampton, Newcastle, Norwich, Teesside and Wick.
The new style of service will be operated on 17 overnight flights and includes a choice of five dining options before, during and after the flight, a more tranquil cabin with fewer announcements and complimentary spa treatments on arrival at Heathrow.
Larger pillows and higher quality thicker blankets will also be offered to all Club World customers on these flights to help them sleep even better.
The new onboard catering, includes a "Night Cap" service of a hot or cold drink and a snack such as warmed cookies or a toasted sandwich, substantial snacks from a "Midnight Munchies" menu such as cereals, luxury ice-cream or a cheese selection. A "Breakfast in Bed" will also be served as close to landing as possible for those customers who want it.
Customers can also take advantage of the of the improved pre flight supper options in the departure lounges and the shower, spa and full breakfast facilities at the British Airways' arrivals lounge in Terminal 4. Up to 70 customers can be seated in Club World and all parts of the cabin will be included in the new style of service on the 747-400s.
On sleeper service flights from the Middle East customers will also be able to choose to have a full hot breakfast. Due to the late hour of departure on these flights, there will not be a pre-flight supper option for customers.
The flights, which have been chosen to have the Club World Sleeper Service are:
To North America: JFK, New York to Heathrow: BA176, 114, 116, 182. Newark to Heathrow: BA188 to be launched this summer. Boston to Heathrow: BA214. Philadelphia to Heathrow: BA068. Houston/Chicago to Heathrow: BA294, BA298. Toronto to Heathrow: BA098 and BA096. Washington to Heathrow: BA292 to be launched this summer.
To the Middle East: Dubai to Heathrow: BA106. Doha/Bahrain to Heathrow: BA124. Riyadh to Heathrow: BA262. Muscat/Abu Dhabi to Heathrow: BA072. Jeddah to Heathrow: BA132 to be launched this summer
Qantas indicate the new arrangements will allow Qantas to look at developing Hong Kong as a transit and stop-over point as well as a destination in its own right. the aditional capacity means Qantas could look at developing new services to London via Hong Kong, as well as additional services between Australia and Hong Kong. Under the new arrangements, Qantas has the potential to offer four Hong Kong-London flights immediately, increasing to seven flights a week in 2006.
Hong Kong is an important market for Qantas. It has been flying to Hong Kong since 1949, and currently operate 28 services a week from Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth to Hong Kong, with Australian Airlines also flying three Cairns-Hong Kong services a week.
Qantas will own 49.9 per cent of the new airline. The owners will invest a total of S$100 million in the new airline, with Qantas contributing S$50 million. All aircraft will be financed through operating leases.
This is a modest investment for Qantas but it is a good opportunity to participate in the growing intra-Asia travel market. The region, which has a population of more than 3 billion people, is enjoying strong economic growth and features many potential destinations for point-to-point travel from Singapore. Qantas has had considerable experience competing against low cost carriers in the Australian market over the past ten years and, more recently, Qantas set up its own low cost airline - Jetstar.
The launch of the new airline is dependent on it obtaining a Singapore Air Operators' Certificate and substantive traffic rights.
The new airline will add to the Qantas flying product, which comprises: Qantas International (offering 540 flights each week serving 84 destinations in 35 countries) Qantas Domestic (2,500 flights each week), QantasLink (a small regional airline, offering more than 1,900 flights each week), plus in the low cost sector Australian Airlines (low cost international leisure, with 50 flights each week to 12 destinations in six countries) and Jetstar (Domestic low cost carrier).
Qantas already operate more than 200 flights a week across the Tasman, connecting Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne with Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch, as well as flying non-stop services from Sydney and Brisbane to Queenstown during the ski season.
The opening of the Ghan train journey between Adelaide and Darwin is thought to have stimulated this new development from Qantas which has resisted it for years. The new service will operate from Adelaide on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, returning from Auckland on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays.
Qantas also commenced an expansion of its New Zealand domestic jet operations, with the airline operating Boeing 737s between Christchurch and Rotorua and Christchurch and Wellington for the first time.
SIA currently operates 74 direct weekly services to 10 European gateways, using a mix of its flagship B747-400 Megatop and B777-200ER aircraft. In addition, it serves 20 European cities through codeshare arrangements with Lufthansa. These latest codeshare arrangements with bmi will extend SIA's network to 34 European cities in total.
The acquisition of these five aircraft continues Qantas' strategy of growing the two-class Boeing 737-800 Qantas domestic fleet. Qantas has taken delivery of 21 737-800s since February 2002 and another two will be delivered in the middle of this year. A further ten 737-800s will join the fleet between December 2004 and December 2005.
These new 737-800s are more fuel efficient and cost effective than the rather tired 737-300s that Qantas are in the process of retiring from the fleet, as well as offering more spacious cabins. Qantas is continuing to grow its domestic network, recently announcing the addition of a number of new routes including Sydney-Broome, Perth-Cairns, Perth-Canberra and Melbourne-Ayers Rock.
Travellers wanting a simple point to point journey, can opt for the Dreamtime ticket; fares start from as little as £499 for a return to Perth and £511 for returns to Sydney and other international gateways. A Dreamtime Plus fare allows you to see more of Australasia, with two additional domestic stopovers within Australia/ New Zealand. Fares start at £614.
A World Discovery ticket allows up to four stopovers from a selection of worldwide destinations and a mileage allowance of 29,000 miles, with the option to buy a further mileage allowance. Fares start at £848, but won't allow you to see much on your trip around the world. The World Discovery Plus fare gives you 7 free stopovers anywhere on the Qantas, British Airways, Air Pacific and Australian Airlines network, at £973. that's only a couple of hundred pounds more than an average return to Australia.
The flight leaves Edinburgh for Stockholm at 1140 arriving at 1445, and Stockholm for Edinburgh at 0935 arriving 1055.
Passengers, usually those sitting in the back rows of aircraft, have been complaining that by the time the meal trolleys reach their seats, the main meals have run out and they have had to make do with snacks. The airline has admitted to Airreview.com that it now has a "catering to demand" policy, deliberately under-catering domestic flights by 5 per cent.
On routes linking Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne and Adelaide if a Boeing 767-300 all-economy service has the maximum 272 passengers on board, only 258 meals will be loaded on to the aircraft.
When passengers at the back of the plane are not fed, the crew will run through a list of options. As passengers refuse, the crew will move onto the next option: To start with they will apologise to the customer and offer a complimentary beverage. Then offer peanuts, biscuits or individual portions of crackers and cheese. Finally if the customer is dissatisfied by attempts at service recovery, the customer service manager can issue a catering to demand recovery voucher. The voucher, to the value of A$20, can be used by customers at airports but must be used within two weeks.
Iberia is now offering 'Tu Menu' à la carte service in economy class. Basically, you pay for airline meals on half the BA flights from Heathrow to Barcelona and Madrid which are actually Iberia flights with a BA code, but flown by the Spanish airline.
For the past six months, economy passengers on BA-coded flights operated by Swiss have also had to pay for refreshments. Indeed soon it may get to be hard to find any flights other than real true BA flights which offer the stuff for nothing.
Meanwhile in Australia Qantas flights often have a BA code as well. Some of these will now be operated by Jetstar, but sold in the UK as a Qantas flight with a BA code - and no food.
Code-sharing is enshrined in the 1929 Warsaw Convention, which 75 years on, still governs air travel within the EU. It says airlines can "substitute alternate carriers" any time. Designed to allow airlines in those uncertain times to buy you a seat on another plane if there were only a few passengers, now it is being used to merge two different planes into one.
In Melbourne, Jetstar will fly from Avalon Airfield. However it is actually on the edge of the Victorian town of Geelong, and is described by its owners as a "base for heavy jet pilot training". Avalon airport is convenient for the start of the Great Ocean Road, but not for the city of Melbourne, 40 miles away; the main airport, Tullamarine, is much closer. But if you buy a JetStar flight from Brisbane or Sydney to Melbourne, Avalon is where you will end up.
Qantas is selling flights on JetStar to overseas travellers as though they were the "real" thing, even though familiar Qantas facilities such as allocated seats, complimentary meals and baggage transfer are unavailable.
SAS is hoping this move will simplify the relations between the different units and the unions. Union law in Norway, Sweden and Denmark are very different. Until now, the Stockholm-based group has had to centrally address the concerns of a total of 39 different unions in the three countries.
The company is insisting that its total operations will remain "relatively unchanged", and that splitting up its country units was simply meant to make them more competitive and more cost-efficient.
The Norwegian SAS branch will also merge with local Norwegian airline Braathens, also under the SAS Group, into a new company called SAS Braathens.
Although the holding company, which will handle all intercontinental flights, and the three separate country units will probably all continue to bear the SAS name, the announcement nonetheless marks the end of an era. SAS in its current form was created in 1951, and carriers in the three countries have been cooperating on long-haul flights since 1946. Between the three countries, the routes will now be open to competition amongst themselves, with the most efficient unit will fly the Stockholm-Oslo route.
Jetstar will operate up to 88 flights per day - more than 600 per week - increasing up to 116 flights a day, or around 800 flights a week, by August 2004. The Jetstar network would initially cover: Brisbane, Sydney & Melbourne to: Hamilton Island, the Gold Coast, Cairns, Hobart, Mackay, Launceston, Hobart, Sunshine Coast, Newcastle, Proserpine & Rockhampton.
There also plans for flights to Perth, Alice Springs, Ayers Rock, Darwin, Broome, Townsville and Adelaide.
Many Qantas flights will be axed, and replaced with Jetstar flights. Qantas will maintaining only two Sydney-Gold Coast services per day. There will be eight on Jetstar. Brisbane to Mackay, Qantas will maintain only one service. The worst news is on flights to Hobart - there will be just one Melbourne to Hobart flight a day, as opposed to eight a day at the moment (although it will bring back business class flight to Hobart).
Jetstar offer one class of travel, initially on 125-seat Boeing 717 aircraft but moving to an all Airbus A320 fleet by mid-2006. They will have 177 slim-line, all-leather seats. There will a range of hot and cold beverages to buy (including alcohol) plus simple snacks. There are no inflight films, but there is an inflight audio program, with reusable headsets for purchase inflight and a bimonthly inflight magazine.
There is also going to be a Ryanair style scrum to get a seat - called "Free-style seating"
Qantas Club and Chairmans Lounge members will continue to have access to the Qantas network of lounges when travelling on Jetstar flights, and Qantas Frequent Flyers would be able to redeem or "burn" points** on Jetstar flights.
SAS's partner airline Skyways is also launching a new twice-daily service (apart from Saturdays) from Birmingham to Stockholm. The morning flight will depart Birmingham at 1000 and the afternoon flight at 1600.
Business class service is available on both of these routes, featuring Fly-SAS-Stay-Free. It means Business Class ticket holders get one night free accommodation in selected Radisson SAS Hotels in Scandinavia with a second night at up to 25% discount.
The move of the A330s to international flying is the third change for the planes in 2 years. The A330s were scheduled as the domestic replacement for the 767s. However they moved in August last year to International routes, and then in Janurary they moved back again to domestic operations.
Customers can also enter their Advanced Passenger Information (API) details before travelling to the US, change their booking, upgrade their class of travel, and refund their booking.
When requesting a seat, customers are presented with an interactive map of the cabin and they can move the cursor wherever they choose to sit. They can also change their seat number if for instance they wish to sit next to a friend or colleague who has booked at different time.
Customers travelling on all longhaul services or in Club Europe will be able to use the system to request a designated seat from the time of booking. If there are no further seats available for pre-allocation then customers can use the online check-in area of the website to choose a seat. The online check-in facility is opened up to Executive Club members 24 hours before departure and 12 hours before for registered users of ba.com.
Executive Club members and registered ba.com users flying in Euro Traveller or domestically in the UK can choose a seat through the online check-in process in the 24 hours and 12 hours respectively before their departure.
Qantas was a long term supporter of Northern Territory tourism, growing capacity into the Territory over the past few years. The new non-stop Melbourne-Ayers Rock services complement a range of other non-stop flights from the southern capital, including Melbourne-Alice Springs and Melbourne-Darwin. The new Qantas services will operate on Mondays, Thursdays, Fridays and Sundays, departing Melbourne at 10.00 for an arrival into Ayers Rock at 1220, with the return leg departing Ayers Rock at 1305 and arriving in Melbourne at 1605.
Passengers can choose from salmon ciabatta, sandwiches, salads, pastries and fruit, at up to €5. Soft drinks are €2, alcoholic drinks are €3.50. Mineral water is still free.
All flights from the US will depart in the morning offering US passengers daylight services to the UK which are becoming increasingly popular, as many passengers realise this is a way to beat jetlag. The additional services to Washington, VS055, will operate on Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays departing from Heathrow at 20:10 and arrive into Washington 23:20. The return services, VS056 will depart Washington on Thursdays, Saturdays and Mondays at 07:25 and arrive into Heathrow at 19:30. The additional services to Boston, VS053, will operate on Mondays, Thursdays and Saturdays departing from Heathrow at 20:10 and arrive into Boston 22:20. The return service, VS054, will depart Boston on Tuesdays, Fridays and Sundays at 08:00 and arrive into Heathrow at 19:30. The additional Newark service will operate on Tuesdays out of the UK and Wednesdays back, bringing the VS017 and VS018 to a daily service. Virgin Atlantic currently has a fleet of 28 aircraft which includes thirteen 747s and nine A340-300s and six A340-600s.
At present the airline, formerly known as British European, offers 600,000 seats on flights out of Glasgow and Edinburgh, but it plans to increase that to 1.4 million a year from today. From March it plans to offer a new route from Edinburgh to Belfast with tickets from #15, and a route from Glasgow to Belfast will be added from March 28. The airline will also add routes from Exeter to Edinburgh and Glasgow to its existing schedules.
In September it will supplement its existing Southampton-Edinburgh route with a Southampton-Glasgow routes.
As Virgin's Upper Class passengers enter the Clubhouse they are greeted by Virgin staff. One of the lounge's features is a glittering waterfall which flows into a 90 ft long pool that runs along the length of the Clubhouse. The main dining area is a leather banquette which runs alongside the interior bank of the pool acting as an acoustic barrier from the main terminal. There is a full menu service available or alternatively passengers can help themselves to a range of snacks such as sandwiches, drinks or ice cream from the new Snack Bar. The Clubhouse is equipped with W-LAN and there are booths offering i-Mac computers positioned in the Business Area that are individually screened for ultimate privacy.
The bar area is the main focal point of the Clubhouse and offers seating for 20 guests together with stunning views of the runway. There is also a 42" plasma screen for passengers to watch the latest news or a movie. In addition to the bar, there is also a cocktail area where passengers can sip a martini or play on one of the four Sony Playstations or watch TV. Situated in the centre of the Clubhouse, are large pearlescent coloured screens that at 10ft high rise to form sculptural monuments. At night these impressive structures are illuminated with soft subtle colours reflecting the Manhattan skyline.
One of the more quirky features of the lounge will be situated in the loos. Bathroom Mania - an achingly trendy design company - has designed urinals in the shape of big red lips, called Kisses.
Virgin Atlantic operates three services a day from JFK to Heathrow at 1930, 2110, and 2310. The return from LHR to JFK is at 0930, 1400, and 1830.
The Mumbai services would operate three times per week from Sydney from 1 September 2004 on elderly two-class Boeing 747-300 aircraft. These will fly on Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays. Qantas axed this route a couple of years back, when it was flown with Boeing 767 aircraft.
Qantas is also finalising plans to fly to Shanghai by the end of 2004.
The airline will move from Dash 8 to larger series BAe-146 and two-class Boeing 737 aircraft to operate services from Perth to Kalgoorlie, Karratha, Broome, Port Hedland, Paraburdoo and Newman. From 1 May, Qantas will introduce weekly services between Perth and Kununurra, catering for a very busy tourist trade.
From the start of the 2004/2005 winter timetable on October 31, Swiss are to axe the four daily Geneva-London flights. As a replacement British Airways will increase from six to eight daily frequencies between London Heathrow and Geneva, although this actually represents a decrease in the number of services.
British Airways wholly owned subsidiary CitiExpress is to operate up to eight daily flights between London City and Zurich, which again will be codeshares. Swiss International Air Lines has applied to join the Oneworld Alliance and is expected to enter this year.
In turn, the Dutch carrier's longstanding alliance with Northwest Airlines and a three-way partnership with Continental Airlines is expected to open the way for the two U.S. carriers to also join SkyTeam to make it the second largest industry grouping behind the Star Alliance.
Aeroflot has applied to join SkyTeam but will require Russian government approval and must satisfy SkyTeam quality standards before it can be admitted.
The new Qantas non-stop Brisbane-Los Angeles services will be operated by two-class Boeing 747-400 ER aircraft on Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays.
Qantas has significantly boosted capacity between Australia and the USA over the past six months. In addition, it continues to operate three flights a week to Honolulu. Qantas had been flying to the USA for 50 years and had invested billions of dollars in this market, including dedicating six new Extended Range Boeing 747-400s to non-stop USA services.
The vouchers are written very badly, and are not easy to understand, however the benefits are that if the person receiving the vouchers logs onto the site, then:
They receive membership of a Star Alliance Frequent Flier scheme at the same level as their Oneworld or Skyteam membership.
They get a bonus of 5000 points for the first flight flown.
The scheme runs until the 15th May 2004.
In the same pack Gold Star Alliance members receive four (standby) upgrade vouchers for any flights on a Star Alliance airline.
There is joint sales and marketing of bmi and the Star Alliance partner Air Canada, and indeed the flight will be a codeshare with Air Canada. There are three cabins - the business, new economy and economy. bmi's long haul product features cabin crew dressed as chefs and individual entertainment screens for all passengers.
Flights will depart Manchester at 1400, arriving in Toronto at 1630. The return flight departs Toronto at 1825 and arrives in Manchester 0610 the following day. Journey time approximately seven and a half hours. From 25 April to 26 May bmi will operate Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Sunday, increasing to daily from 28 May to 11 October, after which it will return to four days a week.
In the Southwest Pacific region there will be an extra five services to Melbourne and two to Auckland. In Europe, SIA will now fly daily to Amsterdam (up from four a week) and three times to Athens (up from twice).
The thrice-weekly service to Nanjing, together with seven additional frequencies to its other Chinese cities, will increase the number of SIA services to China to 53 a week.Elsewhere, three additional services will be mounted to Surabaya, Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi in Southeast Asia.
The lamb and rosemary pie is hand made by Square Pie using only the finest freshest ingredients, free range meat and avoids artificial flavourings. Square Pie recently launched a classic pie and mash shop in Selfridges Food Hall, Oxford St, featuring a daily choice of 12 types of pie served with freshly made mash peas and gravy. Square Pie also famously created the 'Humble Pie', a kangaroo and merlot pie, only for Australians following their Rugby World Cup defeat.
There is also an increase in Darwin-Brisbane capacity by adding eight Boeing 737 services a week, offering double-daily flights six days each week. Qantas will also double its non-stop return Boeing 737 services on the Darwin-Melbourne route, operating 12 flights a week. These aircraft will also run on two new routes from April, when services commence between Sydney & Broome, and Perth & Cairns.
Impulse Airlines, which it acquired in 2001, will be the operating entity for Jetstar using new slimline leather seats, with the A320s configured for 177 passengers. In effect this means that Impulse's Qantaslink flights, such as Sydney to Hamilton Island, will turn into a low-cost Jetstar route, with no meals or Frequent Flyer points.
Qantas aims that Jetstar will be the lowest cost airline in Australia and can operate alongside rival discount carrier Virgin Blue.
Qantas has also made a number of changes to its domestic operations, with all its full service domestic Qantas services to be reorganized into a two-class jet operation using only two aircraft types - Boeing 737s and 767s.
Qantas currently had a fleet of 133 jet aircraft, which includes just four Airbus in the form of the A330 with a further nine to be delivered over the next two years while the first of an expected 12 Airbus A380 will be delivered in 2006. The company has agreed to buy five new Boeing 737-800 aircraft for the full service domestic airline, replacing the airline's last 737-300s and further modernizing the fleet.
Jetstar will start flying in May, using 14 Boeing 717s currently operated by Impulse Airlines under the QantasLink brand. The website is www.jetstar.com.au
United will conduct this additional evaluation in partnership with Gate Gourmet and LSG SkyChefs. Customers will be able to choose from signature meals and a la carte items from branded and brands well known in the US such as Bennigan's, Hard Rock Cafe and TGI Friday's.
On flights three-and-a-half to five hours in length, Economy will have the option of either a free snack or buying a meal. On shorter flights, two-and-a-half to three-and-a-half hours in length, which currently do not offer a meal service, customers will be able to buy food. Breakfast will be offered for US$7 and lunch and dinner will be offered for US$10. Complimentary meals will continue to be offered in United First and United Business classes.
Sample meals include offerings such as TGI Friday's Apple Crumb Cake with lemon yogurt with granola on the side, and an individual size bottle of spring water. Oddly, this is the breakfast offering. Bennigan's Kilkenny's Country Chicken Salad In effect a ceasar salad by another name, with a roll, butter, and cheesecake dessert. TGI Friday's Chicken Pesto Sandwich accompanied by a Caesar salad with lemon pepper croutons and dressing on the side. Plus cookies and cream dessert bar and a bottle of spring water.
Virgin already flies between London and Hong Kong and operates within Australia through its Virgin Blue company. However, until the change in service patterns agreed by Hong Kong today, it has not been able to fly to Australia from London via Hong Kong.
The airline will now be able to take on the likes of British Airways, Singapore Airlines, Qantas, and Lauda on the London to Australia route, which has been growing in popularity following the enormous world exposure Australia has received from the 2000 Olympic Games and the recent Rugby World Cup.
Virgin aims, initially, to use Airbus A340 aircraft on the London to Sydney route - operating a daily service with a two-hour stopover in Hong Kong in both directions. From 2006, Virgin intends to use the new "superjumbo", the Airbus A380 on the route.
The new service arrangement will also allow Hong Kong carrier Cathay Pacific to compete with BA, Virgin and US carriers American Airlines and United on the Heathrow-New York route. This is the most significant development. bmi British Midlands, Britain's second-largest full-service carrier, is understandably upset. It has long campagned to fly the route, and believes it's unfair to let another foreign carrier fly to New York from London's Heathrow airport when bmi is barred under the disputed Bemuda II agreement. bmi has the second-largest share of landing slots at Heathrow.
Qantas 737-800 Yananyi Dreaming |
There is a growing demand for links between Western Australia and Jakarta. The arrival of Yananyi Dreaming signals a 33 per cent increase in the seat capacity between Perth and Jakarta. This equates to an extra 158 seats each week and provides the option of another mid-week flight.
Two Boeing 767 currently operate the route which will be supplemented by a Boeing 737-800 flight until February 2004. This will be the first opportunity for Qantas passengers to experience the Boeing 737-800 fleet on flights between Australia and Indonesia.
Yananyi Dreaming is a flying work of art featuring a story of one of the country's most recognisable tourist designations, Uluru, in central Australia. Yananyi means 'going' or 'travelling'. The design features radiating pathways leading to the symbol of Uluru which is surrounded by desert oak trees and blue hills with wallaby tracks imprinted on the sand and a blue tongued lizard basking in the sun.
Yananyi Dreaming was painted in collaboration with indigenous artist Rene Kulitja, from the Mutitjulu community in Uluru, and Sydney's Balarinji studio. It is the third Qantas aircraft to be painted with an Aboriginal design. It took 29 painters around 2,000 hours at Boeing's Seattle headquarters working in shifts over six days to paint the design onto the aircraft fuselage. Around 485 litres of paint were used.
The 'gambling masterclass' will be available in the Gatwick Clubhouse during November while passengers are waiting for their flight to Las Vegas on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays. Top tips on Blackjack, Baccarat, Roulette and Dice will be provided by a croupier who has been specially flown over from MGM Mirage, the largest resort operator in Las Vegas and owners of Bellagio, MGM Grand, New York New York, The Mirage and Treasure Island. The service will also be available for Upper Class passengers travelling to Las Vegas onboard the flight on 25th November. Gold Star Alliance members can also benefit.
The new Wednesday flights will depart Gatwick at 10.45, arriving into McCarran International Airport at 13.30 between 17 March and 24 March 2004. From 31 March until 6 October 2004 flights will depart Gatwick 12.30 and arrive in Las Vegas at 15.15. In the return direction flights will depart Las Vegas at 17.45 and arrive into Gatwick at 10.35 the next morning. The Boeing 747-400 operating this route has 28 Upper Class, 38 Premium Economy and 373 Economy seats.
Flights commence in May 2004 with four flights per week from Glasgow to Toronto, increasing to daily in July and August, and weekly from Edinburgh to Toronto. The Boeing 757 aircrafts will be re-configured with the removal of 8 rows of seating from the original layout, offering 187 seats with considerable extra leg-room.
Prices from Glasgow to Toronto start from £69 per person, one-way excluding taxes. In effect that means a return comes in at about £230. Passengers will be able to enjoy complimentary meals and in-flight entertainment.
Canadian Affair carried its first passengers in 1995 and since then, has become the UK's leading Canadian specialist tour operator. Canadian Affair opened an office in Glasgow in 1999 and, in addition to Toronto, also offers flights to Vancouver and Calgary from Glasgow.
Thomas Cook Airlines operates a fleet comprising of five Airbus A320s, two Airbus A330s, and 15 Boeing 757s, of which two are Boeing 757-300s.
The new menus for Euro Traveller will follow the new with-frills line of offering appropriate food depending on the time of the flight during the day. In effect there's more at breakfast and dinner, and little during the day, in the style of Qantas' new style economy food menus.
UK internal flights see the end of the dreaded "All Day Deli" bag. Food now comes in a box, again mirroring Qantas.
Longer flights also get more, and hot food makes a comeback. BA will introduce a hot sandwich on all its mid range European flights (between 1 and 2.5 hours) to destinations such as Italy, Spain, Sweden, Austria and the Czech Republic.
Hot food options, on a tray, will remain on longer shorthaul flights (above 2 hours) including Russia, Turkey, Greece and Cyprus.
Newspapers are also making a comeback. Euro Traveller customers will be able to pick up a choice of four complimentary national newspapers when boarding the aircraft on all European routes.
The 7,900 nautical mile service from Singapore to Los Angeles will take 16 hours, and the return service from Los Angeles about 18½ hours. This is a saving of 2 hours over SIA's current one-stop flights. Takeoff in Singapore is 1600, landing in LA at exactly the same time, 1600, on the same day. Return takeoff in LA is a 2000, arriving two days later at 0640. The base fare is S$1928 return. Daily non-stop services to Los Angeles will commence in February 2004, with services to New York City to follow in August 2004. The service from New York to Singapore will shorten travel time by two hours, and from Singapore to New York, by six hours.
The service seems to be designed for business travellers - there is no first class cabin. The aircraft will have a distinctive premium configuration, featuring just 181 seats comprising of Raffles (Business) Class and a new Executive Economy Class.
Economy will have 117 Executive Economy Class seats in a 2-3-2 configuration; with a seat pitch of 37" and a seat back recline of 8". It will also feature a seat width of 20", a leather adjustable headrest, an innovative leg rest and footrest, AC power supply outlets and a 9" personal video monitor.
The Raffles Class cabin will feature 64 of SIA's lie-flat SpaceBeds in a 2-2-2-seat layout, with a larger seat pitch of 64". The SpaceBed is 26" wide and 78" long and has an adjustable headrest, leg rest, lumbar support, an AC power supply outlet at every seat and a 10.4" personal video monitor which enables customers to enjoy SIA's in-flight entertainment.
The A340-500 will also feature new passenger corners in both Raffles and Executive Economy cabins, where passengers can gather to socialise. In addition, Economy will have an area where customers can help themselves to an array of snacks and drinks.
Singapore has plans for a fleet of five A340-500, with an option for a further five.
A special introductory fare of only A$199 one way is available for travel between 4 February until 1 July 2004.
However unlike the comfortable new A330 services on more established routes, it will be flown with a decade old single isle Boeing 737-400.
The timetable that allows for a full day's business to be conducted in Canberra, with takeoff in Perth at 2310, arriving in Canberra at 0605 the next morning. The return leaves at 1910, arriving in Perth at 2050.
However customers on these flights will be offered the international meal and beverage service which Qantas introduced earlier this year on trans-continental flights to Perth. It offers up-rated food, and a free bar: in effect the same as on an international flight. Business class passengers are offered a full three course meal.
To support these flights the Qantas Club lounge in Perth has recently been renovated to include 100 additional seats, as well as new furniture and fittings, bathroom facilities (including showers), a buffet and bar. Refurbishment of the Qantas Club lounge in Canberra is also under way, with increased seating and new interiors.
This is sorely needed, if only because Lufthansa's product is seen as offering fewer perks than most other airlines in business class. The current seat only has a small recline, the video screen is very small, and there are few other perks.
The new "PrivateBed" two-metre bed is certainly longer than the industry leaders, BA and Singapore, and makes a decent sleep possible. The surface is completely flat and the inclination to the floor is a mere nine degrees - however it is not completely level, unlike BA & Qantas' bed. There is however a built-in massage function. Privacy is guaranteed by a fold-away screen. A special compartment for laptops will be integrated into the seat.
Initially, the new Business Class will go into service around the world in the Airbus A340-600 and A330-300. The delivery of these aircraft to Lufthansa will begin at the end of November. The entire Lufthansa long-haul fleet of the older B747-400s and around 80 aircraft will be successively equipped with the new seat.
There is the new "Media World" At 10.4 inches, the monitors in the new Business Class are four times the size of their predecessors. Lufthansa is the only other airline other than Singapore to include "video-on-demand", which means that films can be started at any time, interrupted, advanced or rewound. Lufthansa are also offering audio-on-demand, which means you can build up tailored CDs.
Computer connections are also there - theres "FlyNet"; Broadband internet on board, and CNN headlines updated via satellite, although there are only a few news stories, and these tend to update only once a day.
Qantas had been seeking to buy almost a quarter of its trans-Tasman rival. The ACCC says the alliance would be anti-competitive, resulting in decreased capacity and higher fares. Air New Zealand plans toi carry on the fight, with New Zealand Commerce Commission still to rule on the matter, and an appeal to be launched with the Australian Competition Tribunal. Air New Zealand has argued the plan is vital to its survival as a major carrier, however the commission does not believe rejecting the proposal will harm the viability of either airline.
Qantas chief executive Geoff Dixon says he is particularly disappointed the ACCC has not properly taken into account significant additional information and expert evidence since its determination in April. He says the ACCC has either ignored or underestimated the significant structural challenges facing airlines around the world.
It is however good news for the Star Alliance. If the two airlines merged, then Qantas, the stronger partner by far, would probably have forced AirNZ to pull out of the Star Alliance, and join it's One World Alliance. This would would have left the Southern Hemisphere pretty much devouid of coverage by a Star Alliance partner following the demise of Ansett.
Qantas' new International Business Class, will replace its current service which is starting to look very old and tired compaied to Singapore Airlines and BA's offerings. It features Skybed as well as dedicated Business Class flight attendants; new food and wine; a new service style; a self-service bar for drinks and snacks; premium quality noise cancellation headsets and luxury amenity kits. First Class customers will also see improvements in seat comfort and cabin enhancements including new bathrooms and amenities.
The refurbishment of the 747-400s, includes a new inflight entertainment system that offers in-seat videos in Economy Class, larger personal screens and PC power in Business and First Class and in-seat telephones in all classes.
The six very old 747-300s will all get a revamp, installing Dreamtime Business Class seats and new seats in Economy, in-seat inflight entertainment, new interiors and enhanced cabin lighting in PC power in Business Class. The aircraft will also get a mobile text messaging (SMS) system from late September, offering a reply facility, and installing a unique LED mood lighting system in First and Business Class. The system offers light schemes that coincide with cabin activities and time of day to increase customer comfort and relaxation.
There are also new lounges at Los Angeles Airport, following the opening of new International Qantas Clubs in Sydney, Melbourne, Singapore, Bangkok, and Honolulu. Domestically there are new Qantas Club lounges in Townsville, Darwin and the Gold Coast following the opening of new or upgraded lounges in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth and Adelaide.
Qantas will take delivery of 12 Airbus A380 aircraft from 2006. Domestically, Qantas is continuing to invest in new, two-class 'Next Generation' Boeing 737-800s.
Theres a shock in-store for domestic customers who have grown used to the new A330s which replace the ancient 767 fleet. The 767s are coming back domestically. The four A330-200s, which currently fly domestically, will operate internationally with the seven A330-300s that will be delivered in the second half of next year. The 767-300 fleet, which currently operates internationally, will replace the A330-200s domestically, operating major domestic routes together with the growing 737-800 fleet and refurbished 737-400s.
However BA will axe its flights between London City and Glasgow, started only six months ago - it seems even BA can't get enough passengers on the route. Frights from London City to Paris and Frankfurt will be maintained using BAE Regional Jet 100 (RJ100) aircraft, seating 110 passengers.
The move is the result of pressure from American Airlines, which wants to block negotiations between Swiss and Lufthansa. Lufthansa is closely cooperating with American Airlines competitor United Airlines under the roof of Star Alliance.
Moreover, BA is seeking to add additional weight to Oneworld, with KLM reportedly advancing towards Air France Group's Skyteam alliance. The move would relegate Oneworld from the current second position to number three among the major air alliances.
Since Australian began flying to Bali from Cairns, backpackers have are keeping the four weekly flights relatively full. Now there is a fifth service from Sydney to Bali, however it takes a roundabout route travelling via Melbourne, although this does give Victoria its second non-stop Australian Airlines service.
Flights between Singapore and Sabah will also increase to two a week from December. Australian Airlines will also reinstate Cairns-Hong Kong services to pre-SARS levels. Japan services will also return to their pre-SARS schedule of daily flights to Osaka and three flights per week to Fukuoka.
If you use upgrade credits, 1 will be given for each 450 status credits, instead of the 250 status credits at present. If miles are used, the number of miles required for a one-way upgrade with Australia rise from 5,000 to 9,000. To upgrade for a flight from the UK to Oz, it rises from 50,000 to 90,000.
In addition the the minimum miles credited for flying British Airways on a discount Economy ticket will fall from 1,000 points to 125 per flight. However it is still possible to earn a point per mile, and you can earn status bonuses as well as miles on BA flights. One small sop to counter for the major cutbacks to the programme.
It is also unlikely that Virgin Atlantic will manage to obtain rights to fly to Australia via Hong Kong because, despite trying for many years, Qantas had been unable to obtain the rights to fly between the United Kingdom and Australia via Hong Kong.
British Airways owns 18.75 per cent of Qantas, however Qantas owns no shares in British Airways.
Virgin's new Upper Class Suite, consists of a reclining leather seat for take off, a place to sit and eat food, the longest fully flat bed in the world with a proper mattress for sleeping on, a private onboard bar, a private massage room and four limousines per return trip. By charging the same as other airlines' business class for this first class product, Virgin Atlantic's new Upper Class Suite is expecting to attract BA's Concorde passengers when the plane is axed.
It will be introduced on all of Virgin's Boeing 747-400 and Airbus A340-600 aircraft starting from this summer, and will be on all those aircraft based at Heathrow by spring 2004 and all those at Gatwick by autumn 2004.
Virgin's return ticket to New York costs £4631 as against BA's £7603
However there are additions - with a new service from London Gatwick to Turin, which will operate on a daily basis until December when a twice daily service commences. In addition, from April, 2004, there will be a new service from London Gatwick to Dubrovnik in Croatia which will operate three times each week. Regionally there will also be a new twice daily service from Manchester to Copenhagen. From London Gatwick flights to Antigua will increase from 7 to 10 each week and flights to Barbados will increase from eight to 10 each week. Flights to Bilbao in Spain will switch from London Gatwick to London Heathrow.
A ground engineer spotted smoke from one of the 16 brakes of Flight QF6 from Frankfurt via Singapore moments after it landed at around 5:15am.
The engineer alerted the captain who ordered an immediate evacuation by all 347 passengers through an emergency chute at the rear of the plane. Five passengers with minor injuries, including friction burns and grazes, were taken to hospitals and were described later as being in a stable condition.
There was panic aboard the aircraft as the captain ordered the evacuation. Passengers were not told why they had to evacuate and could not tell that anything was wrong from inside the plane. Another passenger said he had seen one of the chutes collapse as people were evacuating.
Airport officials said the majority of passengers who had been evacuated were required to remain at the airport while fire crews assessed the aircraft before unloading bags and allowing the recovery of passports left behind during the evacuation. Police said passengers were undergoing "disaster victim register" to ensure everybody was accounted for.
The passengers were treated for minor injuries such as friction burns, grazes and bumps from the evacuation. The Air Transport Safety Bureau has also opened an investigation.
Qantas Airways has weekend fares discounted in some cases by as much as 50 percent to two of the worst hit regional centres, Singapore and Hong Kong, where the virus has been brought under control.
The Australian national flag carrier is offering packages, which include fares and four nights accommodation, as low as 300GBP (800 Australian dollars) from Sydney and Melbourne to Singapore and Hong Kong. They will be available until June 21 for travel up to November 27 this year.
Singapore Airlines has also announced reductions up to a third in some peak season rates, with stopover packages to London, Paris or Frankfurt as low as 1,218 Australian dollars from Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide or Brisbane and even less from the West Australian city of Perth.
The airline is also offering cut price packages to Paris, Bangkok, Hong Kong and Dubai and half fares to the first 15,000 people who book.
SIA, which the Singapore government has warned may lose as much as one billion Singapore dollars in the 2004 financial year, says the fares are among the lowest since the 1970s.
Air Canada, also badly affected by the SARS virus, is offering a 600 GBP (1,600 Australian dollar) fare from Sydney across the Pacific to London with a stopover either in Hawaii or Canada.
In another boost to the industry, the Australian government has announced it will scrap from the end of this month its so-called Ansett levy of 10 Australian dollars per airline ticket imposed after the collapse of the domestic airline to pay workers' entitlements.
Recent official data shows international visitor numbers to Australia had slumped to five-year lows, with travellers from Southeast Asia down 40 percent in April compared with the same month last year.
Dubai-based airline Emirates meantime announced it would fly trans-Tasman routes between Australia and New Zealand from August 1, beginning with two flights daily to Auckland, one each from Sydney and Melbourne and a third from Brisbane on October 26.
US Airways international gateway is in Philadelphia - which has only just gained an international terminal, this month, and isn't nearly as grim as most US terminals.
There is no firm date set for US Airways' official entry into Star Alliance, but its likely the carrier will become part of the world's leading airline alliance within the next nine to 12 months.
US Airways has a code-sharing agreement with United Airlines and Lufthansa. It joins the other Star Alliance members, bmi, Air Canada, Air New Zealand, ANA, Asiana Airlines, Austrian Airlines, Lauda Air, Lufthansa German Airlines, Mexicana Airlines, Scandinavian Airlines, Singapore Airlines, Spanair, Thai Airways International, Tyrolean Airways, United Airlines and VARIG Brazilian Airlines. LOT Polish Airlines will become a member in October 2003.
Under the Aviation Security Act, any vehicle that appears to be armed is barred from airport property. Luton airport's passenger services director, Natalie Raper, said: "Our airport duty manager very vigilantly saw this vehicle. We informed them that it wouldn't be wise to move it."
She said Ryanair staff were confined to the car park of the nearby Holiday Inn, where they were "standing around dressed in combat gear, singing songs about EasyJet", accompanied by the theme tune to the television series The A-Team. According to an eyewitness, Mr O'Leary was "absolutely furious, effing and blinding".
Ryanair maintained it had informed police of its intentions. "It was a fully branded tank. It had the name of the airline on the front, back and sides. It wasn't a risk to anybody". The stunt was further hampered when an EasyJet staff member removed the keys from the tank.
The system is changing from a Points based system to a Miles based system, which means that you will now earn the exact number of miles you have flown, rather than a set number of points, for both the destination miles (determining how far you can fly for free) and the status miles (determining what tier level (silver, gold, etc) you are at).
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BMI LHR-MAN was 600 (900) now 3000 (4500) SIA LHR-SIN was 2500(3750) now 8000 (120000) ANZ LHR-LAX was 2000(3000) now 10000 (150000) |
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Spending old bmi points/new miles
Figures in brackets, business class |
There's a minimum of 800 miles for short international flights. However internet booked fares - which represents most passengers - only earn 25% of the normal miles. For example a flight to Amsterdam will only earn 200 miles, instead of the previous 800. Even phoning up, and paying an extra £5, only earns 400 miles. At least fully flexible economy earns 150% points - but tickets are about £300 for an hour long flight!
Points will be converted so that 40 status miles and 30 destination miles are given for each point already held - and most customers are only being given a few days to make the change. The only bright spot is that silver and gold members now get an extra 25% bonus on each flight taken.
For example, suppose you are a Gold member with 1150 status miles. This converts to 46,000 miles. 3280 destination miles will convert to 98400 miles. Compare this spending power: previously you could have had 10.9 free flights to Amsterdam, or 5.5 flights to Helsinki, or 1.32 flights to Singapore from LHR. Now you only get 6 flights to Amsterdam, 3.8 miles to Helsinki, or 1.23 to Singapore!
It's also, as detailed above, much harder to earn points. For example you could have flown LHR to SYD via LAX on United and earned 800 points. Enough for two flights from LHR to Dublin (with 100 points to spare). Now you will earn 21000 miles, and that's only enough for one flight to Edinburgh. Add the fact that its now much harder to earn points, and that way bmi disguise in their mailout to customers how many points passengers get, and Diamond Club members are having their trust in bmi badly shaken.
British Airways wants to resume scheduled flights from London to Baghdad as soon as stability returns to Iraq.
BA has the rights to fly to Iraq and we are now awaiting confirmation from the British government that it is safe to return. Plans are afoot to operate a Boeing 767 on the route three times a week. BA and its predecessor BOAC served Baghdad for decades. Flights were suspended during the Iran-Iraq war, then resumed in November 1988 until February 1990, a few months before Iraq invaded Kuwait, triggering the Gulf war.
Last week Virgin Atlantic Airways said it had approached the UK government to start London-Baghdad flights.
British Airways will put more than 1.5 million long haul flight tickets on sale at discounted prices tomorrow, with savings of up to 60 per cent on return flights. The Easter sale introduces prices from £199 return to New York, saving £202 on the usual fare and £239 to Miami, saving £285.
The bargain fares to 58 long haul destinations are on sale until May 15, 2003 for travel during different time periods between April 20 and December 10, 2003. The airline is telling people that 'it's time to dig out your suitcase' in a multi media advertising campaign to help kickstart bookings after a slowdown during the war. Other holiday hot spots on sale are Mexico City from £429, Johannesburg from £499, Mauritius from £539 and Sydney and Melbourne from £599.
For the first time upgrades to Club Europe are available for a special supplement fare, starting at £100 return. Upgrades to British Airways' premium economy cabin, World Traveller Plus are also offered at a sale price of £150 one way. However it is impossible to book these online.
In response to a further softening of demand due to the spread of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome and to a lesser extent, the war in Iraq, plus the continuing weakness in the global economy, Singapore Airlines has further service reductions. The daily flight from Manchester to Singapore will now only take place 4 days a week.
Combined with those announced in March and early April, the latest reductions will result in 199 fewer frequencies a week, or a 19.7 per cent of capacity in terms of available seat kilometers. The latest cuts include a reduction in services to Hong Kong to 14 per week and the suspension of the daily Singapore-Hong Kong-San Francisco service.
Services to Sydney to be cut from 21 to 19 per week. Services to Brisbane to be cut from 14 to 12 per week, and services to Perth to be cut from 17 to 14 per week.
The Manchester to Singapore flights are being almost halved - there will now only be a flight four times a week, compared to the previously announced daily service.
The Executive Club, which has nearly five million members worldwide, is split into three levels of membership - Blue, Silver and Gold. Key changes include:
Customers will now for the first time be able to use their BA Miles to upgrade to the next cabin on eligible tickets and to also use a combination of cash and BA Miles to purchase a ticket.
A new system which enables customers to redeem their BA Miles on a travel zone basis rather than on a destination by destination basis.
Entry and renewal thresholds to the Silver and Gold tiers have been aligned.
The addition of more fare types on which members can earn tier points and BA Miles.
All Executive Club members will now be able to book their redemption tickets up to three days before departure on routes where e-tickets are available. This is down from the 14 days notice required under the old terms and conditions.
Executive Club Tier Points Tier Points will be aligned at 600 Tier Points to enter and renew Silver membership, and 1500 Tier Points to enter and renew Gold membership. However, the current renewal levels of 500 and 1200 Tier Points will be honoured until 1 March 2004.
You will earn more Executive Club Tier Points on UK Domestic flights and on some short European routes. The additional Gold tier rewards upon reaching 2400 and 3600 Tier Points will change. From 1 July 2003, Gold members will be awarded with a one cabin upgrade for two upon reaching 2500 Tier Points and another at 3500 Tier Points.
Silver and Gold members will benefit from the new tier bonus. Silver members will earn an additional 25% BA Miles for every mile flown and Gold members will earn 50% BA Miles. You will be able to earn 100% BA Miles on 2 additional economy booking classes, B and H. You will be able to take advantage of 2 new redemption opportunities:
Miles for Upgrade - use your BA Miles to upgrade a purchased ticket to the next cabin.
Part Cash Part Miles - you will be able to combine BA Miles and cash to pay for an economy redemption seat.
The inaugural flight uses an Airbus A340-300. It complements the services to Lagos launched in July 2001. Port Harcourt is the oil capital of West Africa. Operating this service from Gatwick on this schedule will provide favourable connections for those travelling via London to Nigeria from US oil hubs such as Houston.
This new route brings the number of destinations on Virgin Atlantic's route network to twenty. The twice-weekly direct service is a result of an agreement that Virgin Atlantic has concluded with the Nigerian authorities and Nigeria Airways. Virgin Atlantic has recently announced that it will also start services to Tobago and Grenada in May 2003.
The Airbus A340-300 operating this route is configured with 40 Upper Class, 28 Premium Economy and 187 Economy seats. This is the first time that Virgin Atlantic will be operating an A340-300 aircraft from Gatwick. Virgin Atlantic also operates services between London Heathrow and Lagos six times a week and will increase to daily services from May 2003.
All new long haul flight bookings, on restricted tickets in economy and premium economy cabins, made between 14 February and 17 March 2003 may be changed anytime up to 31 May 2003, for travel until the end of December 2003. Customers can choose to change their destination, dates or class of travel.
The threat of war means that BA has struggled to hold onto long term bookings, and there is such a degree of uncertainty in the marketplace its difficult for people to decide when and where to travel.
The offer applies to bookings to all long haul destinations but when customers make a change, they can select any destination in the British Airways network including domestic and European routes.
The offer applies to all longhaul World Traveller and World Traveller Plus bookings purchased by 17 March and ticketed by 24 March 2003. All bookings made with British Airways telephone sales, British Airways ticket desks, British Airways Travel Shops, any local travel agent or online at ba.com are applicable. Changes must be made at least 72 hours prior to departure. Flights on Qantas are included. Tickets remain non-refundable, and full refunds are not allowed.
BA also hopes economy ticketholders will be able to take advantage of the service that is being offered to business and first-class travellers from February 18. The live feed is part of a sophisticated hi-tech system that has been developed by planemaker Boeing being tested on flights for three months from London to New York.
If it proves a hit with passengers it could be rolled out permanently on all of BA's 100-strong long-haul fleet of 747s and 777s. The service is aimed primarily at business travellers, 75% of whom who travel on BA flights carry laptops on to the plane. By plugging in a laptop or personal digital assistant to the on-board network First, Club and World Traveller Plus class passengers will be able to get a broadband connection to the internet, fast enough to send real-time emails and access their own company's private server.
Messages from the laptop are sent to antennae on top of the aircraft then to an orbiting satellite and finally down to a station on the earth's surface - a journey of 50,000 miles in seven-tenths of a second. Tony Couttie, BA programme executive, said: "People who travel business or first-class are well connected to the internet day-to-day, either for work or in their private lives.
Soon Internet access will be available to all 350 passengers aboard the jumbo jet in addition to the host of in-flight entertainment, such as films, music and computer games, currently offered on long-haul aircraft. The technology has been developed by Connexion by Boeing. The service will be offered on flight BA 175 from Heathrow to New York and on the BA 112 return from New York for the three-month trial. The service will cost 18GBP for unlimited use on a flight one-way.
Since introducing the first ever direct scheduled service between London and Las Vegas in June 2000 Virgin Atlantic has carried nearly 250,000 passengers on the route. The addition of the new service is also a boost for sister company Virgin Holidays who will be launching a dedicated Las Vegas brochure in April. Las Vegas is by far the best selling destination on the West Coast.
The new Tuesday flights will depart Gatwick at 09.45, arriving into McCarran International Airport at 12.30 between 2 September and 21 October 2003. From 28 October 2003 until 2 March 2004 flights will depart Gatwick 11.15 and arrive in Las Vegas at 14.00. From 2 September until 21 October flights depart Las Vegas at 15.00 arriving at Gatwick at 08.50 the next morning. From 28 October 2003 until 23 March 2004 flights will depart Las Vegas at 16.30 and arrive into Gatwick at 10.20 the next morning.
The Boeing 747-400 operating this route is configured with 28 Upper Class, 38 Premium Economy and 373 Economy seats.
Virgin Atlantic flies to 19 destinations worldwide from Las Vegas to Shanghai. The airline has recently announced that it will also start services to Port Harcourt on February 25 2003 and to Tobago and Grenada in May 2003.
The new flights will replace the current one-stop flights on four days of the week, thereby increasing seat capacity on the Manchester to Singapore route by 27%.
SIA actually fly from Manchester every day of the week, so passengers will have to carefully choose the day they fly on to get a direct route. The non-stop flights will depart Manchester for Singapore, at 10.45am, on Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. In the return direction, the non-stop flights will depart Singapore at 11.55pm on Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday.
These changes are being made in response to growing demand from both business and leisure travellers for flights connecting from Manchester and the North of England to Singapore and Australasia. The new 777 service also coincides with the introduction of the new SpaceBed - the biggest Business Class bed in the sky - on the Manchester to Singapore route. Passengers will be able to enjoy the state-of-the-art seat that reclines into a flat-bed, with a length of 78 inches and width of 27 inches.
Singapore Airlines will continue to offer a daily service from Manchester to Singapore. While the B777 non-stop flights will operate on four days of the week, the remaining three flights of the week will be operated on B747-400 "Megatop" aircraft, with a transit stop at Brussels in both directions. A three-class cabin service, with SkySuites in First Class, will continue to be offered on the B747-400 flights.
Worse, a glossy pamflet is popping through letterboxes this weekend explaining that its "fantastic news" and that "you can expect a seamless journey". What it fails to note is that there are only a few days until the change - until the 2nd of Janurary in fact. And the phone lines to make bookings are only open on the 30th December. Very sneaky, and for which bmi can expect a devistaing press.
An AIRREVIEW.COM exclusive investigation reveals that the number of points exchanged for free flights has changed to zones, with the UK in zone1, the US in zone 3, and Australia in zone 9. Some areas do give benefits under the new system, but in others another 2000 points are required for the same flight.
UK to Australia on Austrian - Old: 3000, New: 5000 (Ref: Was 2440+560)
UK to LA on United - Old: 1910, New: 2000
UK to Singapore on SIA - Old: 2600 New: 2500
UK to Sweden on SAS: Old: 625 New: 600
And now the good news - it is now possible to book a flight in the pointy end of bmi's sole remaining flight over the atlantic: the new system allows Diamond Club members to book a flight in Business to Chicago from Manchester for 4000 points.
The airline is offering passengers John Lewis vouchers worth £100 for every one-way flight in Upper Class (J or D booking classes) between 6 January 2003 and 31 March 2003. This means every passenger will earn £200 for each Upper Class return journey to spend at the leading department store.
This promotion is available to existing members of Virgin Atlantic's frequent flyer programme flying club - but passengers can also join flying club in order to take advantage of the offer.
British Airways is cut 21 routes as part of its cost-cutting exercise, including some from Belfast, Southampton and Newcastle, from next March.
The announcement affects 82 BA staff at Cardiff and 59 at Leeds Bradford, although the airline said it hoped that job losses would be kept to a minimum through employees transferring to other positions.
The new-look regional services will mean that for the first time, BA will operate from London City Airport - launching services to Frankfurt, Paris and Glasgow in April. BA is also planning to introduce three new routes and extra capacity out of Manchester in the new year.
BA's subsidiary British Airways CitiExpress, which was operating the Cardiff and Leeds Bradford services, will operate the new flights at London City Airport. As part of the new arrangement, BA CitiExpress is transferring its 12-strong fleet of 29-seater Jetstream 41s to independently-owned UK airline Eastern Airways which plans to operate routes from Leeds Bradford to Aberdeen, Southampton and Isle of Man; and from Newcastle to Birmingham, Aberdeen and Southampton.
United, the world's second largest carrier, has filed for bankruptcy, marking the air travel sector's biggest corporate failure to date. During the past year the cash-strapped airline axed thousands of jobs to stay afloat. It had been expected to file for bankruptcy ever since last-ditch attempts to secure an emergency loan from the government fell through last week. "We took the decision to do today what is right for the company now," UAL chairman and chief executive Glenn Tilton said.
UAL's corporate failure comes after last year's 11 September attacks and the general economic slowdown triggered a sharp drop in passenger numbers, putting its finances under severe pressure.
The company landed a deal with its lenders, including CIT Group, JP Morgan Chase, Citibank and Bank One, which will provide the $1.5bn required to keep the company flying while a restructuring takes place. The company also has about $800m in cash. Normal passenger services will not be affected.
British Airways has confidently predicted a steadier future for its balance sheet after reporting a rise in passenger numbers last month. The group, hit by a severe fall in passengers following September 11, said it carried 99,000 more passengers in November that at the same time last year, an increase of 3.5%.
However the figures were being measured against one of the group's most difficult months of trading following the terror attacks on the US. Passenger numbers since the start of the group's financial year in April are down 4.3%, compared with a year before, while its traffic figures are 5.4% lower.
Singapore Airlines has posted gains in passenger and cargo loads for the 11th straight month in November, lifted by a low base effect the previous year. Asia's largest carrier by market value said in a statement its overall load factor rose 2.3 points to 70.6 percent in November from 68.3 percent in the same month of 2001. SIA's cargo load factor was up 1.1 points to 71.7 percent and the passenger load factor rose 3.5 points to 70.4 percent versus the same month a year ago. The number of passengers carried during the month was up 11.4 percent, while freight carried rose 10.3 percent.
In 2003, several international carriers will begin offering high-speed Internet access via satellite. For now, it's basically a trial run so the airlines can figure out how much people are willing to pay to get online with their own laptops at 35,000 feet.
This toe-dipping comes as several companies stand ready to supercharge airplanes with a range of communications upgrades, such as giving passengers the means to send and receive e-mail and instant messages from their seats. Connexion's service will debut 15th Jan on Lufthansa flights from Frankfurt to Washington-Dulles in the US. Scandanavian Airlines, British Airways and Japan Airlines will try it next. Lufthansa will offer the service for free for three months; British Airways plans to charge about 20 pounds per flight.
Connexion's service requires installing two antennas on the plane, one to transmit data to satellites and one to receive data. A server and routing system inside the plane relay signals to and from plug-in ports at the seats or wireless networking cards in passengers' laptops. The service promises speeds comparable to cable modems, with downloads up to 1 megabit per second. Even if everyone on board logged on at once, the data transfer rate would not be less than 56 kilobits per second, comparable to dial-up.
bmi, the UK's second largest full service scheduled airline, is revolutionising business class catering on all its services in and out of London Heathrow.
It will be introduced for passengers travelling business class on domestic and European flights from early December.
bmi has worked with top retail food suppliers to develop a product which reflects the changing eating habits and demands of consumers outside the airline environment. The range represents a new approach to airline catering, introducing a consistently high level of quality, freshness and variety served in custom-designed contemporary packaging.
Menus range from hot paninis and organic yoghurts for breakfast, to a choice of hot and cold meals on lunch and dinner services, including healthy options such as freshly prepared salads and fresh fruit to more indulgent items like luxury desserts.
The 'bento' style box, which is made from environmentally friendly recyclable materials, is a cheaper alternative to the traditional airline tray, providing more space to work or relax. Once served, the lid of the sealed box removes to form a tray complete with built-in glass holder.
bmi has also worked with healthy eating TV chef Daniel Green on the healthy range. Daniel is helping to launch the 'food on the go' range and give ongoing advice.
S&P has cut its rating of the airline to "default" after the airline failed to gain financial support from the US government. The airline had been seeking a loan worth £1.15 billion from the Air Transport Stabilisation Board. Shares in United Airlines' parent company UAL were suspended from trade in New York for most of the day on Thursday, and when trading resumed they lost three quarters of their value.
The ATSB's decision will almost certainly lead to a Chapter 11 (bankruptcy) filing by United.
UAL shares were suspended at the start of trade in New York "pending news", but UAL spokesman Jeff Green said no statement was due, adding: "we are working very hard at figuring out where we go next". The ATSB rejected United's approach on Wednesday 4th December, saying that the airline's business plan was "not financially sound".
bmi, the UK's second largest full service airline, has secured a major leasing contract to provide South African Airways with two Airbus A330-200 aircraft. The contract will include the provision of flight deck crew to operate the aircraft as well as a comprehensive flight-training programme for South African Airways flight deck and cabin crews. The leases will commence on 1 December and 15 December and will last for a year in respect of one aircraft and five months for the other.
The aircraft will be used by South African Airways on services between Johannesburg and Milan and Paris.
bmi say "Advance bookings on winter flights to Washington are encouraging, however they do reflect the seasonality of the route and fall short of an economic operation during the winter timetable period. bmi have therefore come to the conclusion that a better option would be to meet the needs of SAA for a second unit and to suspend the Manchester to Washington service with effect from 2 December. However, during the winter months, customers will be able to make bookings for when services resume in June 2003.
Passengers holding firm reservations during the period of the suspension of the Washington service are being re accommodated or offered refunds.
CAA figures for the period January to August 2002 show that bmi, the UK's second largest full service scheduled airline, is consistently more punctual at London Heathrow (LHR) throughout the first eight months of this year than other airlines, including British Airways.
Routes from LHR to Amsterdam, Brussels, Paris (Charles de Gaulle), Glasgow, Madrid and Nice are the most improved for bmi for on time departures, however, the airline has also outperformed the competition from LHR on a large number of routes including; Dublin, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Milan (Linate) and Manchester. The overall average delay has been cut by two minutes with 79 per cent of all flights taking off on time or within 15 minutes of the scheduled departure time.
The kit has been designed in conjunction with the designer cosmetics company, Space.NK. The new amenity kit comes in a Space.NK bag in three colours - Olive, Opal and Red
Inside the bag there are SPACE.NK.BODY and SPACE.NK.HAIR products such as sachets of intensive moisturising balms, body washes, bath tablets and volumising shampoos and moisturising conditioners. The pack also includes two dual use products - a new mirror/clothes brush in one and a unisex bandana/hanky in three different stripy designs.
The updated amenity kit is filled with added extras including redesigned eyeshades in cord and cotton twill with a double headband and earplugs enabling passengers to get a good night’s sleep, new improved cotton mix SID socks, breath freshening Tic Tacs, a toothbrush along with Colgate toothpaste and a pen.