West United States
Beginning December 14, low-cost Frontier Airlines will launch a new daily service between San Francisco International and McCarran International, Las Vegas, with one flight a day. Service departs SFO at 8:20 p.m. and arrives at LAS at 9:40 p.m. Return from LAS is at 10:20 p.m. arriving at SFO at 11:50 p.m. On the heels of those new runs, Frontier on March 2 will begin a daily nonstop between its Denver International hub and Bradley International in Hartford, Connecticut. That service is the only one between the two cities and will be operated with the 132-seat A319 with the carrier’s one-class configuration. Departure from DEN to BDL will be at 11:55 p.m., arrival at 5:35 a.m...Look for United Airlines to begin a daily regional jet service between Denver International and Huntsville, Alabama, starting February 14. Departures from DEN will be at 10:30 a.m…Spirit Airlines on February 15 is scheduled to launch its first transcon run. It will offer daily nonstop service between McCarran International and Fort Lauderdale International and then between FLL and Los Angeles International on March 15. Both eastbound runs will be red-eyes. Services will be operated with the A319 with eight in business and 130 in economy…American Airlines begins seasonal nonstop service on December 14 to San Jose, Costa Rica. The run will end April 9…Frontier Airlines will begin nonstop service between Sacramento International and Cabo San Lucas three flights a week starting March 3. On the same day, Frontier will also offer four flights a week between San Jose International and Cabo. The services will be operated with the A319…On March 31 Lufthansa will add a second daily roundtrip between Denver International and Munich Airport. Service will be operated with the A340-300 with eight in first, 36 in business, and 197 in economy.
Southwest United States
Don’t look for a lot of dramatic Southwest route announcements in 2007, juts a lot of route tweaking and connecting of already extant dots. Cases-in-point: March 11 the carrier lays on a sixth-daily Tucson – Los Angeles nonstop, as well as seventh and eighth daily Dallas Love Field – St. Louis departures… American Airlines is offering nonstop Dallas/Fort Worth International – Zihuatanejo service through April 7, 2007. The Fort Worth-based carrier continues to aggressively grow its Mexico service out of DFW…More Mexican nonstops out of DFW. AA is fielding Acapulco flights through April 9…Aeromexico just laid on a third-daily nonstop from Bush Houston Intercontinental to Mexico City. It’s an early morning departure…Now that Lufthansa’s flying new A340-600s between Houston and Frankfurt, seat capacity on the route has increased by a third. Specifically, the -600s sport 98 more seats. Why the boost? Lufthansa says its IAH – FRA flights have been running 80 percent full.
Midwest United States
Don’t look for Southwest Airlines to open up a slew of new cities this year. Connecting the dots is the low-fare carrier’s strategy. Cases-in-point: The airline intends to launch daily Detroit – Orlando service December 20, 2006. Also scheduled: twice-daily Cleveland – Orlando flights beginning March 11, 2007…More route tweaking from Southwest. The cheapseater lays on a fifth-daily Chicago Midway – San Diego nonstop March 11, a sixth-daily MDW – Denver departure March 17, and a fourth-daily Midway – Seattle/Tacoma flight March 17…Midwest Airlines ups the number of Kansas City – New York LaGuardia nonstops to five come December 3. At the same time, MCI – Milwaukee gets an eighth daily departure… Some people will miss this airplane. Many, manifestly, will not. Northwest just retired the last of its venerable DC-10s over the transatlantic. Perhaps the most problem-plagued of modern widebodies, the DC-10 (under other airlines’ colors) racked up a terrible safety record in the 1970s—before fixes were made. Northwest has replaced them with A330s…More seats to Shanghai. United subs a 747-400 for a smaller 777 on March 25, 2007. That means 658 more seats per week to China…The Detroit – Frankfurt connection is especially robust these days. Lots of links between U.S. and German automakers fuels the flying. To that end Lufthansa lays on a second daily DTW – FRA nonstop on March 25, 2007. The A330-300 will be fitted with LH’s new lie-flat Business Class seats, seats that offer a full 6.5 feet of room to stretch out…Northwest is doubling up on Detroit – Cancun from February 15 through April 8, 2007. There will be a pair of daily nonstops on the sun-‘n-fun route. A good way to burn WorldPerks
South United States
December 20 is the launch date for Southwest’s new Orlando – Detroit Metro service…A new near-transcon. US Airways begins daily West Palm Beach – Las Vegas nonstop service February 11…Huntsville is an increasingly important high-tech town. And it’s not just NASA’s presence that drives traffic in the north Alabama city. Now, word that United begins nonstop service from HSV to the carrier’s Denver and Washington Dulles hubs February 14 and April 9 respectively...It’s going to cost you less to fly to Augusta now that US Airways has slashed walk-up fares in the Georgia city. Rates to 30 markets are affected. Consider a last-minute Augusta – Detroit ticket now runs $291—57 percent less than before. Reductions to other markets aren’t as dramatic… Air Canada increases service from Fort Lauderdale to Calgary December 17. Where there was just one weekly Sunday sojourn, there will be thrice-weekly seasonal service…More seasonal snowbird service, this time on low-fare WestJet. The Canadian carrier will fly Tampa – Halifax on a once-weekly basis March 13 – May 1…Looking for a new place to burn some Delta SkyMiles? Think about Tobago. Delta launches nonstop service to the Caribbean destination from Atlanta February 17—assuming foreign government approval is forthcoming. Flights depart for Tobago Saturdays, and return on Sundays.
Northeast United States
Don’t look for Southwest to start flying to a slew of new cities soon, but that doesn’t mean it can’t connect existing dots. Case-in-point: Baltimore/Washington – Pittsburgh. Thrice-daily nonstop flights begin March 11. On the same day Southwest tweaks a bunch of existing routes: Buffalo – Orlando gets a third nonstop, Manchester, New Hampshire – Orlando a fifth flight, and Philadelphia - Raleigh/Durham a sixth sojourn. March 11 also finds Southwest fielding a sixth-daily PHL – Raleigh/Durham flight, a second-daily PHL – West Palm Beach departure, and a fourth-daily PHL – Tampa nonstop…There once was a time when Boston was all but bereft of low-fare service. That’s ancient history. Underscoring the fact yet again is JetBlue’s new BOS – San Juan, Puerto Rico service. It gets off the ground December 22, marking the low-fare wünderkind’s 22nd nonstop destination from Logan… Delta’s New York JFK – Mumbai nonstop is now a fait accompli. A 777-200ER makes the trip. The flight saves flyers four hours when compared to European connections to BOM…Lots of Middle East movement out of Kennedy, with new players popping up all the time, like classy Etihad Airways. The airline now fields nonstop A340-500 service to Abu Dhabi…Next summer, another Gulf States carrier, Qatar Airways, intends to launch A340-600 service from JFK to its Doha hub. This will be a daily deal…More proximately, Royal Air Maroc now offers thrice-weekly service to Accra, Ghana and Brazzaville, Congo—both via Casablanca…On the fun-‘n-sun front, JetBlue was set to begin nonstop JFK – Cancun service November 30.
Worldwide
It’s a lot easier to get from Alberta’s capital to London now that Air Canada flies the Heathrow route nonstop. No need now to connect via Calgary or Toronto. There’s a trio of weekly Edmonton – LHR nonstops: Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays…Scandinavian news. SAS starts nonstop Stockholm – Munich service February 12...Now that Varig is a shell of its former self, somebody has got to fill the void. To that end, TAM adds a third daily Rio de Janeiro – Paris Charles De Gaulle nonstop January 12…More schedule tweaking. KLM lays on a second daily Amsterdam – Moscow nonstop March 25…International aid workers and NGO flyers pay heed: Ethiopian Airlines just started flying three times per week to Juba, war-ravaged Sudan’s second-largest city…Some new intra-country Spanish flying. Spanair now flies from Madrid to Granada, San Sebastian and Almeria. There are also new routes from Barcelona to both Valencia and Grenada…In Southeast Asia, Korean Air just started flying from Seoul to Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia.
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