—Beginning April 10th, Austrian Airlines has been flying to Los Angeles (LAX). The carrier offers five weekly flights on a 6,120-mile route from Vienna. Austrian already operates flights to Chicago O’Hare, Miami, Washington Dulles and two airports in New York. Los Angeles is the fourth new destination in the US to be added to Austrian’s network during the last four years, along with Chicago, New York Newark and Miami. The route to Los Angeles will face no direct competition. With this launch, Austrian now flies to six airports in the U.S. on 28 weekly flights according to OAG schedules. †
—After a two-and-a-half year hiatus, Virgin Australia Airlines resumed flights between Melbourne and Los Angeles (LAX) on April 4. The 7,923-mile flight will be served by the airline five times weekly, up from the three-times-a-week it served in 2014. The airline also serves Los Angeles from Brisbane and Sydney. †
—On April 7, WestJet launched flights between St. John’s, Newfoundland and Tampa, Florida. The low-cost carrier weekly lights on Fridays for the 2,094-mile route WestJet now serves two airports in Florida from St. John’s, with Tampa joining Orlando which is also served weekly (Saturdays). For Tampa, this becomes WestJet’s fourth connection to the Floridian airport, with it already linking Tampa with Halifax, Ottawa and Toronto Pearson. †
—Iceland’s WOW air launched flights to its eighth destination in North America on April 5th, 3,659-mile connection between Reykjavik/Keflavik and Miami International. The route will be flown three times weekly (Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays) facing no direct competition. According to the airport, this is Miami’s first-ever service to Iceland. WOW already serves Baltimore/Washington, Boston, Los Angeles, New York Newark and San Francisco in the USA, as well as Montreal and Toronto Pearson in Canada. †
—Update on airberlin service from Germany to California: Due to the continued ground handling problems at Berlin-Tegel Airport, the start date for the Berlin–San Francisco routes will be postponed from 1 May to 29 May 2017. Air Berlin had recently changed the service provider in Berlin. Since 26 March 2017 AeroGround, a wholly owned subsidiary of Flughafen München, is responsible for ground handling services. The other U.S.-bound flight from Tegel, the Berlin – Los Angeles route, is set to start operating from the middle of May – twice a week.
† Source: anna.aero
