Transatlantic venture

American Airlines, British Airways and Iberia have launched a  transatlantic joint venture including new routes, codeshare agreements on over 2,600 services, and the rescheduling of key flights between London and JFK.

Members of all three frequent flyer schemes can now earn and redeem miles on eligible routes, and also have the ability to mix and match outbound and return fares from the carriers.  For the first time BA and AA will also open their Arrivals lounges at Heathrow T3 and T5 to all oneworld Emerald status cardholders landing on either airlines’ flights.

AA’s CEO Gerard Arpey said that the new schedules, which take effect for the summer 2011 season, would allow for “virtually an hourly service” between London and New York.  Schedules between London and Chicago will be similarly adjusted.

The three carriers also announced new routes which “would not be economically viable for a single airline,” namely Heathrow to San Diego with BA, New York JFK to Budapest and Chicago to Helsinki operated by AA, and Madrid to LA with Iberia.  The four new routes will start from next April.  BA also announced a new twice-a-week year round service from Gatwick to San Juan, Puerto Rico from 28 March 2011. www.ba.com www.aa.com www.iberia.com

Index/Home page
 

OUR READERS' FINEST WORDS (All times and dates are GMT)

All comments are filtered to exclude any excesses but the Editor does not have to agree with what is being said. 100 words maximum