Northwest Airlines launches three daily direct flights from Heathrow Terminal 4 to Detroit, Minneapolis St. Paul and Seattle in spring 2008.
The American airline”s joint venture partner KLM Royal Dutch Airlines is freeing up three of its Heathrow slots to make the services possible.
Heathrow to Minneapolis starts 29 March, taking the place of the Gatwick-Minneapolis route. Heathrow to Detroit starts 1 May, with the Gatwick-Detroit route running in tandem. Both new services use an A330-300, with 34 business class seats and 264 economy.
Heathrow to Seattle starts 1 June and uses an A330-200 with 32 business class berths and 211 economy.
These KLM-Northwest services connect Heathrow with more than 250 destinations across the US through these hubs.
”The new service is great news for both business and leisure travelers who prefer the convenient location and accessibility of Heathrow,” said president and CEO of Northwest, Doug Steenland.
Nathaniel Pieper, vice president of alliances at Northwest, said: ”Competing for business travel is very important. Yields have been good and that”s very important to our bottom line on all of these routes.
”We have corporate customers who want to go to both Heathrow and Gatwick, so that”s a good formula for us to offer from Detroit. Seattle is very keen on us adding the international jewel in the market that is the Heathrow hub.”
The Open Skies agreement between the US and European Union ” coming into effect in March 2008 ” has opened up competition on transatlantic routes from Heathrow, until now the preserve of just two US carriers, United and American, plus Virgin Atlantic and British Airways.
Northwest-KLM is going head-to-head with BA on the Seattle service, one of its most profitable routes, and with the UK capital accounting for 40% of all transatlantic business class traffic, Heathrow slots are clearly extremely valuable. Delta recently announced a similar joint venture agreement to share three slots at the London hub with Air France.
KLM”s flight frequency to its major Amsterdam hub won”t be affected by this slot switch to Northwest ” the Dutch airline is withdrawing one Rotterdam flight, and shifting two Eindhoven flights to London City airport.
Next year KLM and Northwest Airlines will operate 275 transatlantic flights a week, a 40% increase in the last two years.
”We”ve just completed major capital investment, and replaced DC10s with A330s, and KLM have updated too. This means improved operating costs, a better business class service and a better environmental profile,” said Pieper.
”Capital commitments have also been made for Boeing 787s, but these will arrive later than expected, probably in February 2009 rather than August 2008 as scheduled.”