Fliers get more choices for Budapest, Prague, Iceland
Airlines constantly tweak their schedules, trying to find profitable new routes or pulling the plug on ones that have underperformed. Airports and communities court these new services.
There are dozens of changes to airline routes each month. Here’s a look at some of the most interesting:
AMERICAN AIRLINES JUGGLES ITS EUROPEAN SCHEDULES
Two new cities will join American’s route map this spring, when the world’s largest airline starts flying to Budapest and Prague. The carrier will serve both cities from its Philadelphia hub, offering daily round-trip service from May 4 through Oct. 27 on Boeing 767-300 aircraft. The company last served Budapest in 2011, and — with its return — American will be the only U.S. airline flying to the Hungarian capital. Prague is a new destination for the carrier.
American also will add a new summertime route to the Italian tourist hot spot of Venice. Flights from Chicago O’Hare will run May 4 through Oct. 27. American also serves Venice from Philadelphia.
Other American Airlines trans-Atlantic routes will be discontinued or shifted.
The carrier’s non-stop flights between New York JFK and Manchester, England, will end Oct. 29. American’s seasonal Boston-Paris Charles de Gaulle is scheduled to end Oct. 1, and the airline says the route will not return to its schedule next summer.
American’s last New York JFK-Zurich non-stop will depart March 24, with that route shift- ing to the carrier’s Philadelphia hub beginning the next day.
JETBLUE DOUBLES ITS ATLANTA PRESENCE
JetBlue is growing in Atlanta, doubling its number of daily flights there as it adds new service to New York JFK, Fort Lauderdale and Orlando. The airline will fly twice-daily to New York and Fort Lauderdale and once a day to Orlando. All three routes begin March 8.
JetBlue’s expansion comes after it began flying to Atlanta for the first time in nearly 13 years in March. The airline currently offers five daily round-trip flights to Boston.
TWICE AS NICE FOR CLEVELAND?
Can Cleveland support two non-stop routes to Iceland?
Cleveland has been without trans-Atlantic flights since 2009, but that ended last week when not one but two Icelandic airlines announced their intention to add service from the city.
Icelandair was first, saying it would begin flying this May to its hub at the Keflavik International Airport near the capital city of Reykjavík. Less than 24 hours later, Icelandic budget airline WOW Air announced it would fly the same route, also starting in May. WOW also said it would add service from three other Midwestern cities — Cincinnati, Detroit and St. Louis — this spring.
In Cleveland, both Icelandair and WOW say passengers will be able to connect via Iceland to more than two dozen cities in Europe — including popular destinations such as Amsterdam, Berlin, London and Paris.
UNITED ADDS TO MOMENTUM FOR 2ND SEATTLE AIRPORT
United Airlines will begin fly- ing from Paine Field in Everett, Wash., accelerating momentum to turn the facility into a secondary airport for the Seattle area.
United is now the second carrier — following Alaska Airlines — to announce plans for the airport. United says flights will begin next fall with a schedule of six daily flights split between its Denver and San Francisco hubs.
United’s Everett service would be in addition to its existing service from Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, the region’s primary airfield for commercial passenger service.
Paine Field, perhaps best known as the airfield used for flight activity at Boeing ’s massive widebody assembly line in Everett, is about 25 miles north of Seattle and does not currently have regularly scheduled passenger flights.
AIR FRANCE TO THE CARIBBEAN, NO STOPS
Air France will add a new route from the U.S. to the French Caribbean island of Guadeloupe.
The service launches Nov. 21, with Air France flying two flights a week on 170-seat Airbus A320 jets. Guadeloupe-bound flights will depart Atlanta each Wednesday and Sunday. The return flights leave Guadeloupe on Tuesdays and Saturdays.
Air France will be the only airline flying non-stop on the route. A close partner of Delta, Air France says Guadeloupe passengers will be able to connect to or from more than 60 U.S. and Canadian destinations via Delta.
NASHVILLE JOINS THE TRANS-ATLANTIC CLUB
British Airways will add nonstop service between Nashville and London Heathrow on May 4, offering five weekly flights on Boeing 787-8 “Dreamliners.”
It will be the city’s first regular non-stop route to Europe since American Airlines had a hub there in the 1990s.