AIR CANADA:

Vancouver-Los Angeles effective between October 28 and December 12 will be reduced from 4x/day to 3x/day.
Vancouver-San Diego effective October 28 is CANCELED.

Air Canada is converting Vancouver – San Diego operation from year-round to summer seasonal, as it’ll cancel this route from 28OCT12 to 30APR13. S
AIR CHINA:

Beijing–Okinawa effective between October 10 and October 27 is CANCELED.
Beijing–Osaka effective October 1 to October 26 is reduced from 3x/day to 2x/day.
Beijing–Sapporo Service is CANCELED on October 2, 6, 12, 16, 19, 23, 26.
Beijing–Tokyo(NRT) effective between October 15 and October 27 is reduced from 18x/week to 17x/week.
Hangzhou–Tokyo(NRT) effective between October 1 and October 27 is CANCELED.
Wuhan–Tokyo(NRT) effective between October 1 and October 27 is CANCELED.

COPA:

Panama City-Cali effective December 18 will increase from 26x/week to 28x/week.
Panama City-San Andres Island effective December 17 will increase from 5x/week to 1x/DAY.

EGYPTAIR:

Cairo-Osaka effective December 1 will BEGIN 2x/week service.

TURKISH:

Istanbul-Kilimanjaro-Mombasa-Istanbul effective December 4 will BEGIN 5x/week service.
Istanbul-Djibouti-Mogadishu-Istanbul effective January 26 will increase from 2x/week to 3x/week.

PREVIOUS STAR ALLIANCE ROUTE ANNOUNCEMENTS

Courtesy: www.AirlineRoute.net

I’ve updated my earlier post to reflect the addition of more pictures that were taken at the media preview event. The additional photos that I have added are courtesy of FlyerTalk’s NewbieRunner. She had the opportunity to attend the event and was kind enough to share her photos. I’ve added her photos below. Thanks NewbieRunner!

Thanks to Ralf from Germany’s www.vielfliegertreff.de (one of Germany’s largest and best frequent flyer websites) for sharing these pictures with me. Ralf (known as rcs on vielfliegertreff.de) had a chance to attend a sneak preview event in Frankfurt and was able to see some of Lufthansa’s new lounges that have been constructed in the terminal. The new 900 million dollar Terminal is scheduled to open to the public on October 10.

The event was originally scheduled to be held next week and I was planning on attending but a change in timeframe by Frankfurt Airport took that decision out of my hands. I’m still off to Frankfurt next week to visit Lufthansa so all is not lost and will have a first hand look at the brand new facilities.

Again, great thanks to Ralf for sharing these great images! The photos that he took are great, so I’ll let them do most of the talking:

These are from the First Class Lounge:

First Class Lounge Bathroom

The First Class Lounge is equipped with private "sleeping rooms"

Library area in the First Class Lounge

Additional View Of Library

View Of The Tarmac From The First Class Lounge

The Following Pictures Are From The Senator Lounge (and it looks to be Lufthansa’s best looking SEN lounge!):

Senator Lounge Reception Area

Waiting Area Near Service Desk

View From The Senator Lounge

Part Of The Senator Lounge

Lounge Seating Area

Looks Surprisingly Real

A "Quiet Area" In The Lounge

Large Work Area.....

Complete With PC's

Private "Cellphone Booths"

The following photos are courtesy of Flyertalk.com’s NewbieRunner:

Beautiful Atrium near entrance to the new "Pier A+"

Children's Play area in the new Pier

The flags that you see are flying at the First Class Terminal (FCT)

One of the gates in the new Pier

Entrance to Lufthansa's Senator and Business Lounges

Fantastic view of the ramps

A 747-400 Parked at a new gate

People Movers will help passengers cover ground in the new Pier

Lufthansa announced today that their CloudStream product will be permanently taken off line on October 17. Users have until that date to log into their accounts and download their accumulated content before it is deleted.

For those unfamiliar with the platform, CloudStream was a “digital carry-on” application that allowed you to save content from the internet as well as share your findings with others. The “digital carry-on” would then store all of your downloaded content so that you can review it later during a wifi-enabled flight (on any airline) or where ever you would have access to the internet.

Basically it gave you the ability to create bookmarks to content that you could refer to at a later date and have all of them consolidated in one location. As part of the program Lufthansa would also make content recommendations to CloudStream users.

Lufthansa subsidiary germanwings today launched a fare sale until midnight(CET) on Sunday, 30 October. Fares start as low as €29.99/one way and range to €49.99/one way based on city pairs. germanwings has made 1 MILLION tickets available for this fare sale. According to the terms/conditions these fares are eligible to earn miles as well.

As stated, tickets must be purchased by this Sunday and the fares are valid for travel between 28 October and 30 March, 2013. This also means that anyone booking a ticket for travel beginning 1 January will be flying Lufthansa’s newly organized Low Cost Carrier as germanwings will become part of the new subsidiary at that point.

For more information on this fare sale, please visit germanwings’ fare sale webpage.

Here are a few sample fares from germanwings.com:

From €29.99/one way:

From €39.99/one way:

From €49.99/one way:

During last week’s Supervisory Board meeting in Germany, the board announced plans to build a new logistics center in Frankfurt. This piece of news was overshadowed by last week’s announcement that Lufthansa will consolidate their germanwings and direct services into one Low Cost Carrier(LCC) next year, but it comes as great news for Lufthansa Cargo.

The plan calls for the replacement of the current facility to be completed and in operation by 2018. The current facility has been in use for over 30 years so it makes sense that a new and technologically superior facility be built.

A major motivation behind the decision to improve Cargo facilities was Lufthansa’s desire to become more efficient and competitive with their cargo business in light of night-flight ban in effect in Frankfurt which prevents air traffic from arriving or departing during over-night hours.

I really am excited about this decision because by making the “mid triple digit million euro” commitment, it confirms that Lufthansa Cargo is confident that it can make adjustments in it’s logistics that will allow it to remain competitive in spite of the challenges they face with the night-flight ban.

The new facility will be built where the current Lufthansa Cargo facility is located (north side of the airport) and construction is expected to begin in 2014. Current Cargo operations will not be affected by the construction.

Looks like we’ll continue to see the current MD-11′s and the new 777 Freighters (deliveries start in 2013) at Frankfurt for years to come.

Artist rendering of the new facility:

Courtesy: Lufthansa Cargo

SWISS today announced that it will begin serving Singapore with daily non-stop service beginning on May 12, 2013. SWISS had previously served Singapore via Bangkok as recently as 2009. The route will be flown by the Airbus A340-300 with seating for 219 passengers.

Flight Details:

Zurich-Singapore’s LX178 will depart Zurich at 10:45p and arrive in Singapore at 5:10p the following afternoon.

Singapore-Zurich’s LX179 will depart Singapore at 11:05p and arrive in Zurich at 6:10a the following morning.

With the addition of Singapore, SWISS now serves 8 destinations in Asia including: Hong Kong, Beijing, Shanghai, Delhi, Mumbai, Tokyo and Bangkok.

According to SWISS’ CEO Harry Hohmeister, “Singapore is one of Switzerland’s most important intercontinental markets, and one that has seen constant growth over the past few years,” and “By providing our new daily non-stop service from Zurich, we aim to meet this substantial demand. In doing so, we’re also continuing our steady long-term investment in the region: Singapore will be SWISS’s eighth Asian destination.”

According to the press release, booking for this route will open on October 8.

Today in 1952, the government of post-war Germany voted to reinstate a national airline for Germany after suspension of passenger airline services during World War II. This initial step paved the “runway” for the creation of Aktiengesellschaft für Luftverkehrsbedarf or “LUFTAG” on January 6, 1953.

Following up on this approval, LUFTAG began to organize as an airline and started to build facilities in Cologne, create it’s structure and hire it’s employees. Also during this time in 1953, LUFTAG ordered 4 Lockheed 1049G Super Constellations (Super Connies) and four Convair 340s. The Convairs began joining the fleet in mid-1954 while the Super Connie’s began arriving in late 1958.

On August 6, 1954 LUFTAG formally changed it’s name to what we know today as Deutsche Lufthansa Aktiengesellschaft(AG) or “LH” for short!

On April 1, 1955 2 of Lufthansa’s new Convair 340′s (D-ACOH and D-ACEF) took to the skies and officially christened Lufthansa’s first regularly scheduled routes. To mark the inaugural routes, one of the Convairs flew Munich-Frankfurt-Cologne-Hamburg while the second Convair flew Hamburg-Dusseldorf-Frankfurt-Munich.

D-ACEF courtesy: Robin A. Walker

D-ACOH

A Super Constellation at Munich Airport's Besucherpark (Visitor Park)

ASIANA:

Busan-Fukuoka effective November 15 is CANCELED.
Busan-Osaka effective November 15 will increase from 1x/day to 2x/day.

BRUSSELS:

Brussels-Kigali effective October 28 will increase from 3x/week to 4x/week.

COPA:

Panama City-Sao Paulo effective December 15 will increase from 3x/day to 4x/day.

LUFTHANSA:

Dusseldorf-Tel Aviv effective November 1 will BEGIN 2x/week service.

THAI:

Bangkok-Taipei effective January 13 will increase from 14x/week to 18x/week.
Bangkok-Brussels effective May 7 to June 29 will be reduced from 4x/week to 3x/week.

UNITED:

Cleveland-Nashville effective January 3 will BEGIN 2x/day service on weekdays and 1x/day service on weekends.
Cleveland-Oklahoma City effective February 14 will BEGIN 6x/week service.

PREVIOUS STAR ALLIANCE ROUTE ANNOUNCEMENTS

Courtesy: www.AirlineRoute.net

Earlier today SWISS introduced a Christmas Week Business Class fare sale for flights departing Zurich, Basel, Lugano and Geneva. The fare sales covers destinations to North America, Asia, The Middle East and Africa during the Christmas Holiday.

As is typical for Holiday travel, the fares are about 50% lower than their normal “peak” rates which gives passengers a great opportunity to experience SWISS’ onboard hospitality. As I’ve said in the past, I would pick SWISS’ Business Class cabin over many other airline’s First Class cabins! Honestly, it’s that good!

Example fares include:

Zurich to Beijing from CHF2499/€2065/$2670
Zurich to Chicago from CHF2729/€2255/$2916
Lugano to Dubai from CHF2099/€1734/$2242
Geneva to Tel Aviv from CHF1999/€1651/$2135

The fare sale lasts until September 28, and availability is excellent at this point for the various destinations that I looked at. The nice part is that most if not all of the flights are operated by Swiss Aircraft.

The fare sale website doe not provide too many terms and conditions other than the fare sale ends on 28 September and travel needs to occur between 22 December 2012 and 6 January 2013.

For more information on fares between specific city fares, please visit SWISS’ Christmas Holiday Business Class Fare Sale Webpage.

RELATED:

SWISS Thanksgiving Holiday Business Class Fare Sale

SWISS Fare Sale From Stuttgart, Germany to the Middle East and China

Lufthansa has announced a fare sale (Ends October 11) for travel between the US and Europe through the end of November. Now that we are entering the off-peak travel season, this is a great time to see some of Europe’s greatest cities and attractions with far fewer tourists and crowds, not to mention airfares that are about half off of their normal peak rates!

Attractive sample fares include :

New York-Dusseldorf for only $688.
Chicago-Istanbul for only $799.
Los Angeles-Berlin for only $789.
Seattle-Istanbul for only $949.

Most of the fares are lower than competitor fares based on a search using Kayak.com. Most competitor fares were ranging $100-$300 more for the same origins and destinations. This is a good opportunity to see Europe in the fall and add miles to your Frequent Flyer accounts as the year starts to wind down.

As always, terms and conditions apply:

Ticket must be purchased by midnight, October 11, 2012
Depart between: August 29 & October 31, 2012
Return between: October 8 & November 30, 2012
Tickets must be purchased 14 days in advance.
The fare covers travel on Lufthansa, Swiss, Austrian, Air Canada or United Airlines.
Weekend surcharges of up to $60 may apply.
A Saturday night stay is required.

For more details on this fare sale please visit Lufthansa’s Fare Sale webpage.

Good Morning!!

Austrian has just announced their weekly RED MONDAY Fare Special that is in place for 24 September:

Vienna to Milan For €99

Vienna to Kiev For €129

Fares from other Austrian gateways to Milan and Kiev are approximate €50 higher.

The Terms and Condition are simple:

Ticket must be purchased by Midnight (CET) on 24 September.
Travel between 28 September and 1 October, 2012.
No Minimum Stay.
Maximum stay is 4 nights.

To take advantage of this one day fare sale, please visit the Austrian RED MONDAY Fare Sale webpage.

If you decide to book these specials, don’t forget to take advantage of Austrian’s fantastic A-La-Carte Dining Program! I’ve heard from several readers that the DO & CO inspired menu is outstanding and worth getting.