International service is trendy, and apparently profitable, again. How else to explain the new burst of overseas flights after two years of sharp cutbacks? Some of the new service is a restoration of previously cut flights as part of a new airline alliance deal. But some of it is genuinely new stuff.
- Lufthansa says it is making its Montreal-Munich route a year-round operation. There’ll be five flights a week in the winter and daily service in the summer.
- Transaero Airlines, a private Russian carrier, has set October 29 as the launch date for its first U.S. service. There will be four weekly flights between New York/Kennedy and Moscow’s Domodedovo Airport. The next day, Transaero starts a Moscow-Miami route. Transaero will offer three classes (business, premium economy and coach) on the Boeing 747-700s to New York and four classes (first, business, premium economy and coach) on the Boeing 777 flights to Miami.
- American Airlines says it will launch three weekly flights between its Dallas/Fort Worth hub and Barbados on December 16. Next year, American will begin flying between New York/Kennedy and Budapest and Chicago/O’Hare and Helsinki.
- British Airways next year will once again try flying between San Diego and London Heathrow. (BA has launched and dropped San Diego flights several times in the last 20 years.)
- Iberia’s new route, Los Angeles-Madrid, is planned for next year, too. It is actually a revival of a service that the Spanish carrier abandoned more than a decade ago.
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Joe Brancatelli is editor and publisher of JoeSentMe.com, a non-commercial Web site for business travelers. Copyright 2010 by Joe Brancatelli. Licensed by contract for Orbitz use.
