
Lufthansa will use an A340-300 on its new San Jose-Frankfurt route. (Image: BriYYZ/Wikimedia Commons)
In recent international route developments, a new European route from San Jose is delayed; South America’s LAN resumes service to a major west coast gateway; American switches aircraft types on a pair of China routes; Cathay Pacific will increase Boston service; TAM will debut a new widebody on a key U.S. route; and Ft. Lauderdale loses some South American service.
Bay Area travelers who want to take Lufthansa’s planned new nonstops from San Jose to Frankfurt will have to wait a while longer. Instead of going ahead with its planned April 29 launch, the German carrier is pushing back the inaugural to July 1. Persons already booked will be put onto Lufthansa flights from San Francisco instead. Lufthansa will use an A340-300 for the daily non-stops.
South American carrier LAN Airlines plans to resume service between Los Angeles International and Santiago, Chile on October 16, according to Airlineroute.net. LAN, a member of American’s Oneworld alliance, will use a 787-8 to fly the route three times a week. LAN discontinued Santiago-LAX (and Lima-SFO) flights in early 2014.
American Airlines plans to make some changes on two of its routes to Shanghai starting June 2. The 787-8 that AA currently operates on its daily Los Angeles-Shanghai service will be replaced with a 777-200ER, while the 777-200ER that the airline currently flies from Chicago O’Hare to Shanghai will be replaced with a 787-8.

Back of the plane on Cathay Pacific’s B777-300ER with new economy seat (Chris McGinnis)
Cathay Pacific says it is seeing increased demand for the non-stop Boston-Hong Kong flights that it introduced last spring, so it plans to increase frequencies on the route from the current four flights a week to five, effective May 5. Cathay will add a new Thursday departure from Boston in addition to the current Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Sunday flights. Cathay uses a 777-300ER on the route. The 1:45 a.m. departure time from Boston allows for same-day connections at Hong Kong to major Asian destinations and 23 cities in China.
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Brazilian carrier TAM, which flies twice a day from Miami to Sao Paulo’s Guarulhos Airport, plans to replace the 777-300ER it uses on one of those flights with Airbus’s brand-new widebody the A350-900XWB, effective May 22, according to Airlineroute.net.
TAME Ecuador – the flag carrier for that South American country, and not to be confused with TAM – plans to discontinue its six weekly A320 flights from Ft. Lauderdale to Quito effective February 20.
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