February 01, 2007

New airlines, new routes for NYC airports

VirginAmerica, which has been unable to get permission to fly in America, has announced more cities it may someday fly to. The inaugural route, as previously announced, would be JFK to San Francisco. And nine months later, it hopes to add service to Dulles at Washington, DC; LAX in Los Angeles as well as San Diego and Las Vegas.

Another to watch for: Canadian low-cost carrier Zoom Airlines has applied to start flying between JFK and London's Gatwick, according to the Upgrade: Travel Better travel blog.

But as for the ones already flying, Fodor's has a nice compare-and-contrast story about the new low-cost luxury lines, including Eos, L'Avion, MaxJet and SilverJet.

Here's a roundup of some of the other airlines adding new routes in and out of the New York City area:

JetBlue will initiate service to San Francisco from JFK as of May 03, the airline said.

Starting April 19, Delta will start non-stop service between JFK and Portland, Ore., according to USA Today's Today in the Sky blog.

LaGuardia will get an Air Canada non-stop to Halifax, Nova Scotia as of April 1 - also via Today in the Sky.

Starting April 10, American Airlines' summer-only, non-stop JFK to Rome route will begin flying year-round, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Continental will start a daily non-stop between Newark and Athens on June 7, and a daily non-stop between Newark and Jackson, Miss. starting in September.

And a little more airline news of note:

Online Travel Review points out that egalitarian NY-based JetBlue is considering creating something like a First Class section.

In-flight Internet may return.
Nearly five and half years after Sept. 11, the "Bush administration is checking the accuracy of a watch list of suspected terrorists banned from traveling on airliners in the US, and will probably eliminate half the names," the Associated Press reports.

Not as though that would have helped Canadian Maher Arar who was detained at JFK a few years and then shipped off to Syria for some torture. From USA Today: "The married father of two was falsely accused by Royal Canadian Mounted Police of being an Islamic extremist with ties to al-Qaeda. Based on information from the RCMP, he was detained during a stopover at New York's JFK Airport in 2002 by U.S. officials, who then deported him to his native Syria where he was locked in a tiny rat-infested cell for 10 months, tortured, beaten and whipped with an electric cable. To win his release, he finally 'confessed' to acts he never committed." Last week, a Canadian judge awarded him $10.5 million.

February 1, 2007 04:23 PM in Arrivology

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