New routes launched during the last week
(Tuesday 6 April – Monday 12 April):

Route of the Week:
American Eagle’s 16 new routes

Calgary were delighted to welcome American Eagle from Chicago O’Hare, while the airline’s Director Planning & Scheduling, Robert Emrich, said: “American Eagle is extremely proud to introduce this new service from Calgary to Chicago. Customers will enjoy even more convenient connections on American Eagle to destinations throughout the American Airlines global network.”

(1) Englishman Jon Snook, American Eagle’s SVP Customer Service, launches flights from Chicago to Fargo; (2) “Flip Flops & Flamingos” greeted the inaugural flight from Miami to Pensacola; (3) despite bad weather in Chicago, celebrations in Lexington went on.

(1) Elaine Roberts, President Columbus Regional Airport Authority, with “RJ”, Executive Mascot, American Eagle; (2) the Jacksonville cake; (3 – left) SVP Planning and CFO John Hutchinson (far left) alongside civic leaders who celebrated the launch of Asheville-Dallas/Fort Worth services; (3 – right) Gary Foss, VP Planning and Marketing American Airlines Regional, celebrated the launch of services from Sioux Falls to Chicago and Dallas/Fort Worth. The statue next to him is of his grandfather’s brother, local war hero and civic leader Joe Foss. See the resemblance?

(1) A snowy day in Salt Lake City, as American Eagle launched daily services to Chicago; (2) Captain Peter Lewis, FA Gloria Fitzgerald and FO Ronald Leon are thrilled to operate the inaugural flight from Dallas/Forth Worth to Asheville; (3) In a play on the Harrisburg airport code MDT, a Money Distance Time saving competition was held – who would be the fastest, the contestant driving to Philadelphia to fly to Chicago or the American Eagle passenger? Of course the latter won!

• American Eagle has had a busy 6 April, launching an entire 16 routes from five of its hubs – all on the same day.

Cake of the Week:
Jointly awarded to American Eagle and AirTran

Cake of the Week winner 1: American Eagle’s Chicago to Calgary, Lexington and Jacksonville

Cake of the Week winner 2: With this stunning cake, AirTran was welcomed to Dallas/Fort Worth. Rumour has it that the Harleys weren’t edible, but the rest sure looks tasty.

• AirTran launched twice-daily flights between Milwaukee, WI (MKE) and Dallas/Ft Worth, TX (DFW) on 6 April using 737-700s. These flights compete with both American Eagle’s 34 weekly services and Midwest Airlines’ 25 flights a week, although AirTran emphasises that it is the only carrier on the route to offer business class, WiFi and “to operate full-sized, Boeing jets”. Kevin Healy, AirTran’s SVP marketing and planning, said: “Connecting these two important business destinations is another strategic milestone for our Company. With the addition of this route, we now offer service to 18 of the top 20 most popular cities in the country.”

Alioune Sow, Manager Customer Service LAX-LAS-SAN-SNA Air Canada; Alan Murphy, Director John Wayne Airport; Michael Harris, Air Canada GM USA; Jeanette Vincent, Air Canada Regional Sales Manager USA; Patrick Khoury, Air Canada Senior Director of Sales USA; and Randall Schlake, Air Canada US Operations Manager, celebrated the new Canada-California link. Orange County’s John Wayne Airport is now international and offers bilingual English/French Air Canada signage – another airport first. The aircraft is seen after landing and then before taking off on its return journey back to Toronto the following morning.

• Air Canada began expanding its California network out of Toronto Pearson (YYZ) on 8 April. The airline now offers a daily 120-seat A319 service to Orange County’s John Wayne Airport (SNA) in Santa Ana, importantly becoming the airport’s first international route since Alaska Airlines served Vancouver for one and a half months in 2002. Air Canada has planned capacity increases and further route launches to California in June. Ben Smith, EVP and CCO at Air Canada commented: “Air Canada is solidifying its position as the airline offering the most frequencies and capacity between Toronto and California. As a tourist, business and entertainment hotspot, Toronto has a natural affinity with California and that is why we are increasing capacity 51 per cent over last year and operating 77 weekly flights between Toronto and California this summer.”

• American Airlines launched six weekly flights between New York JFK (JFK) and San José (SJO) in Costa Rica. The 757 services compete with LACSA’s three weekly flights. Allan Flores, Costa Rica’s tourism minister commented: “We are pleased with the addition of New York service due the importance of this market and look forward to welcoming visitors from New York on American Airlines to our beautiful and unspoiled country, excellent climate and warm, friendly people.”

For some reason we have struggled with images of the many Delta Connection launches this week, so instead we're focusing on another remarkable event as Maine's Bangor International Airport honoured its millionth military passenger since major operations in this sphere began in May 2003. In that time almost 5,000 flights (and 235 dogs) have been greeted by another army of hundreds of volunteers comprising the Maine Troops Greeters.

Another Delta launch this week was the seasonal relaunch of the former Northwest route between Evansville Regional Airport (EVV) in Indiana and Memphis (MEM), which the airport celebrated with a ribbon cutting ceremony and two spectacular cakes.

• Delta Air Lines has been the next American carrier to launch a large number of routes just after Easter on 6 April.

Although Las Vegas is an attractive destination in itself, passengers flying Great Lakes from Merced are no sinners. A majority transfer to other services onward from Las Vegas’s McCarran Airport.

• Great Lakes Airlines has launched two new Beechcraft 1900 routes out of Las Vegas (LAS). Both Kingman, AZ (IGM), launched on 6 April, and Merced, CA (MCE), launched 7 April, will operate twice-daily.

Murali Ramachandran, VP Ground Services Kingfisher Airlines, hands over Kingfisher Airlines aircraft model to Addtl. Commissioner of BCAS, Manoj Malviya, on-board the airline’s A330-200 to commemorate the launch of Delhi-Hong Kong services. The gentlemen were joined for a ceremony by Kingfisher Airlines’ Major Leslie Missal, Asst. VP Security and Vijay Arora, All India Head of Sales, to hand over the boarding pass to the first passenger.

• Kingfisher Airlines has continued its international expansion out of Delhi (DEL). Following the recent launch of flights to London Heahtrow, as of 7 April, six weekly A330-200 flights are operated to Hong Kong (HKG), complementing the airline’s existing Mumbai service. Dr. Vijay Mallya, Chairman and CEO Kingfisher Airlines, commented: “Within a very short time since launch, Kingfisher Airlines emerged as the market leader on the Mumbai – Hong Kong route and we expect to consolidate our leadership position further by being the preferred airline on the New Delhi –Hong Kong route too, very soon.”

• Lufthansa launched six weekly CRJ700 services from Stuttgart (STR) to Manchester (MAN) on 12 April. The same day, the airline also began flying daily from Düsseldorf (DUS) to Lisbon (LIS) on CRJ900s.

• Mango, South African Airways’ low cost subsidiary, began serving Bloemfontein (BFN) five times weekly from Johannesburg (JNB) on 12 April. The 737-800 operator already serves the airport from Cape Town and will ‘compete’ on the Johannesburg route with its parent’s 54 weekly flights.

• Norwegian began flying weekly to Antalya (AYT) from Bergen (BGO) on 10 April using 737-800s. The route is also operated by SunExpress during the peak summer season.

The seventh Ryanair aircraft to be based at Pisa: The inaugural flight to Fez got a special treat, because of how excited Pisa airport is over the five new routes that single aircraft will give the airport.

• Ryanair launched six new routes during the last week.

• Shenzhen Airlines is one of many airlines now beginning to serve the Japanese capital. As of 6 April, Tokyo Narita (NRT) is served three times weekly from Fuzhou (FOC) using A320s.

On arrival from Heraklion, the Transavia.com crew and Hélène Abraham, Transavia France VP Commercial & Marketing, were greeted with a cake by Yves Guyon (Lyon Airport’s chairman) and Philippe Bernand (MD Lyon Airport).

• Transavia.com launched daily flights between Rotterdam (RTM) and Barcelona (BCN) on 6 April. The following day, its French sister company began weekly flights from Lyon (LYS) to Heraklion (HER) on Crete. Both routes are operated with 737-800s. The airline already serves Djerba and Monastir in Tunisia from Lyon’s low cost terminal 3.

• TwinJet launched nine weekly flights between Geneva (GVA) and Milan Malpensa (MXP) on 12 April. The 215-kilometre route will be operated with 19-seat Beechcraft 1900 aircraft.

Well, it’s not from the Cocos (Keeling) launch, but only the week before, flights were launched to Christmas Island, "celebrating Christmas" with an Easter theme and handing out cool bags to passengers.

• On 6 April, Virgin Blue took over another government subsidised route. The airline now flies once weekly from Perth (PER) to Cocos (Keeling) Islands (CCK) with E-190 aircraft.

• Wizz Air launched two weekly flights from Warsaw (WAW) to Turku (TKU) on 10 April. The airline already serves the Finnish city from Riga, Gdansk and Budapest.

Previous weeks’ photos

airberlin’s first officer Erik Meidel, captain Florian Peters and cabin crew members Andy Symonowicz, Fares Yousif, Nina Harwar-Lavignass were seen off from Düsseldorf to Naples by Ulrich Topp, the airport’s Director Aviation Marketing and Karl Heinz Hansen, airberlin’s press officer.

Ryanair’s route from Liverpool to Trapani was celebrated by Liverpudlian restaurant Il Forno’s head waiter Luigi Buonincontro, Liverpool Airport’s head of marketing Katie Smorthit, Ryanair’s sales and marketing exec Maria Macken, Il Forno’s restaurant manager Piero Palermo and none other than John Lennon himself (background). Passengers were offered delicious Sicilian treats. Katie Smorthit commented: “With a large number of Sicilians travelling on this flight this route looks like it will be popular not only with the region’s holidaymakers, but also Italians living here in the North West or visiting this region too. Il Forno’s food obviously made many of today’s passengers feel right at home before they’d even left Merseyside.”