Recent international air service developments:
• Lufthansa continues to do well in Charlotte. For the summer, they upgraded their flight to Munich to an Airbus A340-600 from the smaller Airbus A340-300 or A330-300. In the tentative summer schedule for 2009, the A346 returns to CLT.
• Continental just announced they’re adding a flight from Newark to London’s Heathrow Airport — and discontinuing all service to Gatwick. Houston thus loses one of its three London flights on CO — and presumably Cleveland’s seasonal flight to Gatwick won’t return next summer.
This will also leaves only Delta, its merger bride Northwest, and US Airways as the only U.S. carriers serving Gatwick. Their London flights:
Delta:
Atlanta – Heathrow: 1 x 767-300ER
Atlanta – Gatwick: 2 x 767-300ER
Cincinnati – Gatwick: 1 x 767-300ER
New York JFK – Heathrow: 2 x 767-300ER
Northwest:
Detroit – Heathrow: 1 x A330-300
Detroit – Gatwick: 1 x 757-200
Minneapolis – Heathrow: 1 x A330-300
Seattle – Heathrow: 1 x A330-200
US Airways:
Charlotte – Gatwick: 1 x A330-300
Philadelphia – Heathrow: 1 x A 330-300
Philadelphia – Gatwick: 1 x 757-200
Post-merger, Delta’s Cincinnati hub is a goner. And Delta is certainly trying hard to acquire the slots to have their other two Atlanta flights serve Heathrow and not Gatwick. The second Detroit flight doesn’t matter much.
All of which makes it real questionable as to how viable the CLT-London flight is long-term. Could easily develop into a case that either US Airways spends $50 million on a set of slots and moves it to Heathrow or it disappears entirely over time.
