On the Road: Airlines add, cut flights; new hotels open

By Joe Brancatelli

FUN IN FLORIDA

More Flights and Hotels for the Sunshine State: It may not always be sunny in Florida, but there’s always plenty of new flights andnew hotels to talk about.

On the lodging front, there’s a new 82-room Fairfield Inn and a 98-room Courtyard by Marriott in St. Augustine.

The 408-room W South Beach has opened at 22nd Street and Collins Avenue in Miami Beach. And a 95-room Holiday Inn Express opened in Largo, Florida.

Meanwhile, AirTran Airways is bulking up in Florida for the fall and winter. It will resume daily flights from Tampa to Flint, Michigan, on October 6 and then restore daily Flint-Fort Myers service on November 4. There will also be four weekly Flint-Fort Lauderdale flights beginning November 4. Also returning to the schedule is Florida service from Akron/Canton. Starting November 4, there will be four daily flights to Fort Lauderdale and daily flights to Fort Myers.

ROUTE MAP

The Routes Are Beginning to Drop Like Flies Now: The collapse of business travel that effectively began with the collapse of Lehman Brothers last September is really beginning to effect the global network of airline routes. Here’s a brief list of what we know will disappear in the coming weeks.

Along with the previously announced fall cuts at its once-mighty Cincinnati hub, Delta Air Lines will drop nonstops to Dayton, Ohio, and Birmingham, Alabama. Also taking the pipe are Delta’s routes from Lincoln, Nebraska, to its hubs in Salt Lake City and Atlanta. Delta will also pull out of Dubuque, Iowa, and kill flights to Cincinnati and Atlanta from Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

Internationally, routes getting the axe are Tampa-Cancun on JetBlue Airways, Portland (Oregon)-Frankfurt on Lufthansa and Atlanta-Mumbai and Atlanta-Cape Town on Delta. Delta has also canceled plans to launch a New York/Kennedy-Mumbai flight.

Meanwhile, American Airlines will slash 18 flights from its St. Louis hub. Going on August 25 will be commuter flights to Cedar Rapids, Charlotte, Philadelphia, Tulsa and Springfield, Missouri. On November 19, American will drop service to Las Vegas and San Diego and trim its schedule to several other cities.

HOTEL HOT SHEET

Get Your Lodging Scorecard Out: The hotel-development pipeline continues to gush forth new properties even as the lodging business is in a major downturn. Get out your scorecard and see if your favorite city and/or preferred hotel chain is represented in this week’s tranche of openings.

From Hilton, there’s the 190-room Embassy Suites in downtown Buffalo, the 410-room Hilton Dalaman Golf Resort & Spa on Turkey’s Mediterranean Coast and the 320-room Doubletree Qingdao in Shandong Province, China.

Marriott has added a 140-room Fairfield Inn near Buffalo Airport, a 109-room Residence Inn near the Costa Rican capital of San Jose and a 299-room Marriott in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

Hyatt has opened a 142-room property in Jeddah, the business center of Saudi Arabia. Accor has opened a 203-room Novotel on Juhu Beach near Mumbai, India.

A 244-room Four Points by Sheraton has opened in Manhattan’s Times Square district. A 127-room Hotel Indigo has replaced the historic former Bel Air West Motel in the Central West End of St. Louis. A 132-room Red Lion hotel in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, has switched to the Radisson brand.

NEED TO KNOW

On-the-Road Intelligence to Help You Travel Smarter: Try to act surprised by this: Republic Airways, the company that snapped up both Frontier Airlines and Midwest Airlines last month, says that the two carriers will begin code-sharing later this summer. The airlines’ small frequent flier programs — Frontier EarlyReturns and Midwest Miles — will also be linked.

Speaking of Denver-based Frontier, the airline will drop flights to El Paso, Texas, and Grand Junction, Colorado, on September 14.

Tourism to Hawaii may be sagging, but there are more car-rental options then ever. An Alamo Rent A Car branch has opened at the airport on Molokai and Enterprise Rent-a-Car offices have opened at the airports in Hilo and Kona on the Big Island and Lihue, Kauai.

A new operator has taken over the airport shuttle concession at St. Louis/Lambert and prices have risen. Go Best charges $21 one-way to/from downtown, up from the previous firm’s $15. A roundtrip is now $37, up from $25.