A slightly better economy means more international flights

By Joe Brancatelli

International service is trendy, and apparently profitable, again. How else to explain the new burst of overseas flights after two years of sharp cutbacks? Some of the new service is a restoration of previously cut flights as part of a new airline alliance deal. But some of it is genuinely new stuff.

Lufthansa says it is making its Montreal-Munich route a year-round operation. There’ll be five flights a week in the winter and daily service in the summer.
Transaero Airlines, a private Russian carrier, has set October 29 as the launch date for its first U.S. service. There will be four weekly flights between New York/Kennedy and Moscow’s Domodedovo Airport. The next day, Transaero starts a Moscow-Miami route. Transaero will offer three classes (business, premium economy and coach) on the Boeing 747-700s to New York and four classes (first, business, premium economy and coach) on the Boeing 777 flights to Miami.
American Airlines says it will launch three weekly flights between its Dallas/Fort Worth hub and Barbados on December 16. Next year, American will begin flying between New York/Kennedy and Budapest and Chicago/O’Hare and Helsinki.
British Airways next year will once again try flying between San Diego and London Heathrow. (BA has launched and dropped San Diego flights several times in the last 20 years.)
Iberia’s new route, Los Angeles-Madrid, is planned for next year, too. It is actually a revival of a service that the Spanish carrier abandoned more than a decade ago.