LanChile and Alaska Airlines are to form a commercial alliance which will include a unilateral codeshare agreement and joint frequent flier programmes. LanChile's code is now applied to Alaska flights from Seattle, Washington and Portland, Oregon. Air Maldives is introducing twice weekly service from Manchester to Male in the Maldives, with a stop in Dubai. The airline is also launching services to Male from London Gatwick. Delta Air Lines and South African Airways have filed for US approval to codeshare on certain services from Atlanta, New York (JFK) and Cape Town and Johannesburg. Delta is to expand its codeshare services with Air France on the carrier's services from Paris to Warsaw and Prague from January. Meanwhile, Air France is stopping loss-making passenger services from Paris to Nairobi next March. Transavia will begin scheduled services from Amsterdam to Catania, Naples and Pisa starting in April. British Airways' London Stansted-based low-cost subsidiary Go has received UK approval to operate from London to Geneva and Zurich, beginning in mid-December. TWA is to begin codeshares this month with Kuwait Airways on the US carrier's services between Los Angeles, San Francisco, St Louis and New York Kennedy. TWA's code will be carried on all Kuwait Airways flights from New York and Chicago to Kuwait City and beyond to Dubai, Oman and Muscat. Middle East Airlines is to offer four-times weekly overnight connecting flights from London Heathrow via its Beirut hub to Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Kuwait and Jeddah. American Airlines will add a new daily service between San Jose and Honolulu in May. City Bird has ceased operations between Kinshasa and Brussels on behalf of Lignes Aériennes Congolaises. The Belgian airline says the political climate in the Democratic Republic of Congo makes "it impossible" to invest there.

Source: Flight International