JetBlue adds service from Orlando

By Joe Brancatelli

AIRPORT REPORT

The Club Life Keeps Improving: Lufthansa has opened an elaborate, three-tiered lounge inside Terminal 1 at New York's Kennedy Airport. The 16,000-square-foot, $10 million facility features a lounge for First Class/HON Circle members on the third level, a Senator Lounge on the second level and a lounge for business-class fliers on the main level. … Speaking of airport clubs, Priority Pass members now have access to new lounges in Terminal 2 of Sao Paulo/Guarulhos, Terminal 3 of Beijing/Capital, and Terminal 1 of Toronto/Pearson. … AirTran Airways says that it will launch daily flights between Columbus, Ohio, and Fort Lauderdale on March 5.

MEAN AND GREEN

Greenpeace Buys Real Estate to Block New Heathrow Runway:A controversial third runway for London's Heathrow Airport has taken a strange twist now that Greenpeace and other environmental activists purchased a large plot of land where the planned runway would be built. Greenpeace said it and luminaries such as actress Emma Thompson purchased land in the village of Sipson, which would be obliterated to make room for the runway. The British government, which is generally supportive of a Heathrow expansion, could invoke the English equivalent of "eminent domain" to seize the land, but its purchase by committed anti-runway activists will surely slow down the process.

ROUTE MAP

Southwest Adds Another Route in the California Corridor: If you had any doubt that Southwest Airlines is the emotional and physical successor to AirCal and PSA, the former masters of the California Corridor, consider this: Southwest is adding still another intra-California service. On May 9, it will launch five daily flights between San Francisco and John Wayne/Orange County. That'll make 362 daily flights within California for the nation's largest low-fare carrier. … JetBlue Airways continues to quietly turn Orlando into a small hub. Its latest move: daily service between Orlando and San Jose, Costa Rica, beginning on March 26. The airline previously announced that it would begin flights from Orlando to Bogota, Colombia, (on January 29) and Nassau, Bahamas (on February 1). … WestJet, the big Canadian discounter, is adding a slew of new seasonal destinations this spring. The new service includes daily Edmonton-Yellowknife flights; three weekly flights from Calgary to both San Francisco and SanDiego; flights between Toronto and both Fort McMurray and Sydney, Nova Scotia; and service from Vancouver to Saskatoon, Regina, Fort McMurray and London, Ontario. It will also resume its seasonal flights between Calgary and Newark and Toronto and St. John. All of the service starts in May.

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Tagged: California, Europe