Delta adds Salt Lake City-London flights this weekend. (Image: Jim Glab)
In international route developments, Delta adds a transatlantic flight from Salt Lake City; American reduces service to a troubled European airport; British Airways’ OpenSkies turns to a larger aircraft; Virgin Atlantic plans a pair of Manchester routes from the U.S.; a Lufthansa subsidiary begins Miami flights; and Lufthansa will end first class on some long-haul Munich routes.
May 1 is the launch date for new Delta service from its Salt Lake City hub to London Heathrow. The new daily seasonal service will use a 210-seat 767-300ER. Delta also operates year-round service from Salt Lake City to Paris and seasonal flights from SLC to Amsterdam.
The trend among many global airlines to eliminate a traditional first class cabin will get a boost from Lufthansa this coming winter. According to airlineroute.net, the German carrier plans to transition from four-class service to three-class (business, premium economy and economy) on several long-haul routes out of its Munich hub from December through February. The affected routes use A330-300s and some A340-600s. North American destinations losing the front cabin from Munich include Charlotte, Montreal, Boston, Washington Dulles and Miami, with the change also affecting Munich-Chicago and Munich-JFK service from January at least through March.
Related: Check out Lufthansa’s brand new Munich Terminal
Flower carpet at the Grand Place in Brussels (Photo: Wouter Hagens / Wiki Commons)
As Brussels Airport recovers from the recent terrorist attack there, traffic is slow to come back. American Airlines, which had suspended its Philadelphia-Brussels flights after the incident, now plans to resume the daily service on June 14. But instead of offering the service year-round, American now plans to cut it back to a seasonal operation, continuing only through August 16 this year. The carrier uses a 757-200 on the route.
British Airways subsidiary OpenSkies, which currently operates three 757-200s from New York JFK and Newark to Paris Orly, plans to add a wide-body to its fleet this summer. The airline will take possession of a 767-300 from BA and will start flying it between Newark and Orly on August 19, eventually ramping up from two flights a week to five by October. The 767 will be configured with 24 seats in business class, 24 in premium economy and 141 in economy, or a total of 75 seats more than the 757s OpenSkies uses.
Virgin Atlantic to Manchester (Photo: Mark Harkin)
In addition to the new San Francisco-Manchester service that Virgin Atlantic plans to start next year, the carrier will also add Boston-Manchester service, according to Airlineroute,net. The SFO flights will operate three days a week starting March 28, while the Boston service will be offered twice a week beginning March 29. Both routes will use an A330-300.
Lufthansa’s low-cost subsidiary Eurowings is set to begin new transatlantic service on May 1 between Miami and Cologne. The Cologne airport Is also the gateway for Bonn. Eurowings will use a 310-seat A330 on the route, with 21 premium seats and 289 in regular economy. It will be the fifth German city with service from Miami; Lufthansa flies to Frankfurt and Munich, while Airberlin serves Berlin and Dusseldorf.
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Boeing are phasing out 767’s and 757’s. However many airlines still have them and their lower carrying costs make them economic to run even though they guzzle fuel. Icelandair, for instance, use 757’s exclusively on their North American routes where, particularly to Anchorage and Portland, they operate close to their range limits. hey can also afford to leave them on the ground for most of the day.
While Delta is of course notorious for running older aircraft for economy reasons.
WestJet bought some old 767’s from Qantas and now run them to the UK.
And BA has so many aircraft and routes that it will take them a long time to totally migrate to new-generation craft even though they are investing heavily.
Maybe only the ME3 airlines can afford the luxury of very young fleets.
Personally I prefer to fly only 777, 787, A350 and A380. And 747’s of course. But I doubt that most passengers take much notice of aircraft type because they’re not air nerds like us.
Interesting that so many of these new routes use 767s, as I thought Boeing was phasing out that aircraft.
Of course, it could be that airlines are testing demand on these routes out to determine if it’s worth replacing the aircraft with their successor, the 787, in a couple years.
While that would imply that more of this is coming, especially in Europe, I think many of these routes will struggle because of the consolidation in the US airline industry that is making it look more like Europe already does.