Routes

Belgian low-cost, long-haul airline City Bird and Congolese national carrier LAC have signed an agreement to co-operate on the Kinshasa-Brussels route. Initially, City Bird will serve the route once a week with a Boeing 767-300ER. This may soon be stepped up to a twice-weekly service to meet demand. The Belgian airline will also provide an all-freight service, using an Airbus A300-600F. Lufthansa is broadening its codesharing with Star Alliance partners Air New Zealand and Thai Airways from the end of March. The German carrier will codeshare with Air New Zealand on its services from Frankfurt to Los Angeles, connecting with flights to Auckland, and Los Angeles frequencies have been increased to a daily service. The extended codeshare with Thai will incorporate flights from Frankfurt via Bangkok to Brisbane, Melbourne, Sydney and Auckland. Lufthansa will also increase capacity between Frankfurt and Tokyo, with a Boeing 747-400 replacing an Airbus A340. Lufthansa is also stepping up the number of daily flights between Brussels and Frankfurt from five to seven from 28 March, making full use of available slots at Brussels Airport. Because of this, the airline will discontinue its twice-daily flights between Brussels and Stuttgart, which will be operated by Sabena. Virgin Atlantic will launch twice-weekly services from London Heathrow to Shanghai in May. A daily Heathrow-Chicago O'Hare service will begin in August. Both will be operated by A340-300s. America West is seeking approval to codeshare with Air China on flights between Air China's two US destinations, Los Angeles and San Francisco, to Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Dallas/ Fort Worth, Houston, Las Vegas, Miami, Minneapolis/St Paul, New York, Philadelphia, Phoenix and Washington. Southwest Airlines will launch daily direct services from Raleigh/Durham to five cities from June, including Chicago Midway, Nashville, Orlando, Tampa and Washington-Baltimore.

Source: Flight International