United Airlines is to add a daily service between Los Angeles and its major European hub at Frankfurt from Saturday, 15 December, operated by a three-class Boeing 777.
This will be United's eighth daily flight to Frankfurt, the airline serving the city from all four of its international gateways, with service twice-daily from its San Francisco and Chicago hubs and three times daily from its Washington DC hub.
Delta will have nine new transatlantic routes operating next summer, all from JFK: Tel Aviv (Israel) (effective 10 March); Edinburgh (1 May); Dakar (Senegal) (2 June); Nairobi (Kenya) (via Dakar) (2 June); Cairo (Egypt) (4 June); Malaga (Spain) (4 June); Amman (Jordan) (5 June); and Lagos (Nigeria) (9 June); and subject to US Department of Transportation (DOT) approval, Cape Town (South Africa) (via Dakar) (June 3).
The airline is applying to the DOT for authority to add the only direct service operated by a US carrier to Cape Town. Delta is also to introduce a six times weekly between Atlanta and Stockholm from June 3, 2008
Now the world”s largest carrier, American Airlines will introduce JFK ” Stansted for the coming winter season at the end of October with daily flights. The airline clearly feels that the market is strong enough to establish a second daily flight beginning 8 April, 2008.
On 2 May, next year, American starts daily non-stop services from both Milan and Barcelona to New York JFK. A oneworld partner of British Airways, it will operate two-class Boeing 767-300 aircraft on all three routes with 221 seats, including 30 of the yet-to-be introduced Next Generation business class lie-flat modules.
The DOT has issued a whole series of new transpacific route licences following the upgrading of the US ” China bilateral. US Airways and Delta receive their first ever Chinese routes, both to Beijing, from Philadelphia and Atlanta respectively. Continental Airlines gains Newark to Shanghai; American Airlines between Chicago and Beijing; Northwest Airlines between Detroit and Shanghai; and United Airlines between San Francisco and Guangzhou.
The only loser with the applications is Maxjet which has failed on its request to fly Seattle ” Shanghai.