Delta Air Lines' ranking at Boston has been impacted by the growth of JetBlue Airways and consolidation in the US airline market. While it acquired Northwest Airlines, the merger of AirTran Airways into Southwest Airlines, Continental Airlines into United Airlines and most recently US Airways into American Airlines has boosted the presence of its rivals at Logan International Airport.
Gulf carrier Emirates Airline is cutting back on its schedules to the United States of America, blaming policies introduced by President Trump's administration for hurting bookings. Daily flights from Dubai to Fort Lauderdale and Orlando will be cut to five a week. Flights to Seattle, Boston and Los Angeles will now be once a day, instead of twice.
JetBlue first introduced the Airbus A321 into its network in late 2013, but started introducing its premium Mint configured aircraft into its fleet in the middle of 2014 for operation on Transcontinental routes from New York and latterly also from Boston. These aircraft are configured with 16 lie-flat seats, four of which are private suites, and 143 core JetBlue Experience seats (Economy and ‘Even More Space’ seats).
Colombian flag carrier Avianca will launch the only scheduled non-stop link between South America and Boston's Logan International Airport when it inaugurates a new four times weekly link from its El Dorado International Airport hub in Bogotá from the start of June 2017.
Lufthansa has confirmed it will base its first ten A350-900s at Munich and will enter commercial operation on the Munich – Delhi route from February 10, 2017. Alongside the Delhi route the type will also initially be used on flights from the Bavarian hub to Boston, USA.
JetBlue confirms it will take delivery of ten additional Airbus A321s in 2017 and nine of these will be configured in its MINT arrangement to be introduced on routes to Las Vegas, San Diego and Seattle from New York; to San Diego and Seattle from Boston and to Los Angeles and San Francisco from Fort Lauderdale.
Twenty years after it first launched flights from Manchester, Virgin Atlantic is making history by offering the northern city’s first direct service to San Francisco as part of an expanded summer 2017 schedule that will also deliver a regular link to Boston. The two new routes will cut journey times to both US cities by eliminating the need for connections.
The German flag carrier has acquired the modern generation airliner to replace its older, less-efficient, four-engined A340-600s on scheduled routes from its Frankfurt and Munich hubs. It has ordered a total of 25 A350-900s and continues to plan the deployment of the remaining 15 aircraft.
Non-stop air seats from the US mainland to Martinique have increased by 193 percent this winter comparing the upcoming December 1, 2015 to March 31, 2016 peak season versus the same period in 2014-2015. The spike comes as a result of new non-stop service from the three new Northeast gateways of New York, Boston, and Baltimore/Washington, DC via Norwegian and an expansion in American Airlines flights from Miami.
The news that Norwegian has selected the Irish regional airport to launch new transatlantic links to Boston and New York in 2016 and 2017, respectively, was unexpected and showed how the airport is working with local partners and the world’s airlines to develop enhanced global connectivity.
Although not formally advertised by the airline as yet, the proposed four times weekly flights between Keflavik International Airport, serving the Icelandic capital Reykjavik, and both Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport in Montreal and Lester B Pearson International Airport in Toronto are displayed in its website booking engine. This displays four times weekly links on each route launching from May 12, 2016 for Montreal and May 20, 2016 for Toronto.
This year has already seen JetBlue introduce flights from Fort Lauderdale to Albany, Baltimore, Cleveland, Detroit, Mexico City, Nashville and Philadelphia. These have quickly followed the launch of services to Jacksonsville, Los Angeles and Pittsburgh late last year.
Among the early customers for the 747, Air France was one of the largest operators of the type in the world flying four major variants of the aircraft and more than 70 aircraft over five decades of scheduled service. It has now reduced its fleet to just five 747-400s having replaced the type with more efficient 777 and larger A380 equipment.
Only two years after launching its long-haul operation, Norwegian will now be the largest foreign airline at New York’s John F Kennedy International Airport in terms of number of routes as it continues to grow its capacity from the US, a market it now serves with 31 direct routes from Europe, and now the Caribbean.
JetBlue grew its departure capacity from Boston’s Logan International Airport by 355.9 per cent between 2005 and 2014, an average annual rise of 39.5 per cent. The airline overtook Delta Air Lines as the airport’s largest operator by departure seats in 2010 and now has over a quarter share of capacity, up from just 5.8 per cent in 2005. It is forecasted to grow capacity 4.3 per cent this year and this latest expansion will see further rises in 2016.
From October 23, 2015, the Irish carrier will commence 16 weekly flights between Liverpool and Dublin on a 174 seat Airbus A320, offering ideal connections onto Aer Lingus flights to North America via Dublin.
The new non-stop service links New England and Hong Kong directly for the first time, and marks the airline’s sixth gateway in the United States, and its eighth in North America.
The further five year agreement which actually took effect from November 1, 2014, will see the airline grow the number of seats on offer across Manchester Airports group's portfolio of London Stansted, Manchester and East Midlands by 15 per cent - including a 21 per cent increase at Manchester - compared to figures in 2013.
The announced growth from Qatar Airways is sure to further anger the bosses of the three US majors – American Airlines, Delta Air Lines and United Airlines – which are understood to remain disappointed at the level and speed of the US governments reaction to its claim of unfair state subsidies at the Gulf airlines.
