Posted by Seth on April 6, 2012 under frequent flyer, News, points | 
Now that the necessary government approvals have been received for the absorption of bmi into IAG, parent of British Airways, the company is confirming its exit date from Star Alliance. In just two weeks’ time – April 20th is the target date – bmi will withdraw from the global alliance group as it transitions into the IAG fold and the sale is completed. The company released a FAQ on its Facebook page with some information.
Nothing particularly surprising in the FAQ, really. They note that existing award reservations will be honored, which is only appropriate. They have also stated that they are working to extend some alliance benefits for members, even after they leave the group:
Q. After completion will I still be able to use my benefits on other Star Alliance carriers?
bmi is working with Star Alliance member carriers to ensure that once bmi begins to withdraw from Star Alliance there are opportunities for Diamond Club members to continue to receive certain benefits on the Star Alliance network for an agreed period of time. We will update you as soon as more information becomes available.
This would likely apply to lounge and baggage benefits for top-tier elites, a useful set of benefits to keep as existing tickets are cycled out of the system. Cutting those benefits when they existed at the time of ticketing would be most unfortunate for passengers.
Oh, and Virgin Atlantic is still considering an appeal of the approval, though it seems unlikely to have any impact.
Anyone have a suggestion for what to do with 58K Diamond Club points??
Posted by Seth on February 26, 2012 under frequent flyer, News, points |
With just a week to go before the new MileagePlus program launches for United Airlines and the OnePas program of merger partner Continental officially disappears, there are still a number of unanswered questions about the new program. Earning rates for flying on partner airlines is among the major points still unknown. In the past couple weeks a test website for the newly merged web presence of the company has been available (http://pss.united.com) and even more recently some details regarding earning rates for partners has shown up on that site. I am hesitant to consider this data completely authoritative for many reasons, among them that the carrier has explicitly stated that the site is not official, but there is enough information there that I figured giving it a first pass was worthwhile.
Each of the programs had about 500-600 rules for earning on Star Alliance partners; the new program is no different in that regard. Of those, somewhere between 20-40% seem to have at least one aspect of the earning rates changing as part of the new program. That’s a lot of new information to process.
In most cases the changes reflect the company choosing the rates from one of the two programs which is being retired; there are, however, a few instance where the numbers are completely new. And, since many people like to wonder if the program is trending more towards the legacy United or Continental way of business, my rough count suggest that in those cases where the two were different and one of the legacy rates was chosen, Continental "won" at a 2:1 clip.
So, what are the changes of note? Here are a few, broken down by partner:
Aegean
- Four economy fare buckets – P, T, U & V – no longer earn at all. This is in line with the legacy United rates and worse than the legacy Continental rates.
- Two economy fare buckets – Y & B – will earn fewer EQMs per trip. The are now at 100%, the legacy United rate, versus the 150% rate that Continental offered.
- Four premium cabin fare buckets – A,C, D & Z – will now earn 125% EQMs per trip. This is a downgrade from the legacy Continental rate (150%) and an upgrade from the legacy United rate (100%).
Air China
- Eight full fare or premium cabin buckets – A, B, C, D, F, J, Y & Z – will earn 100% EQMs, matching the rates in the legacy United program. This is a downgrade from the OnePass program (150%).
Asiana
- Most full fare and premium cabin classes will see EQM earning set at 150%, matching the OnePass program and an increase from the United program.
- Two discount economy fares – G & T – will see earnings at 70%. This is an increase from both the OnePass program (50%) and the Mileage Plus program (0%).
Austrian
- Most full fare and premium cabin classes will see EQM earning set at 150%, matching the OnePass program and an increase from the United program (100%).
- Deep-discount economy fares – S & W – will earn only for flights within Europe, at the rate of 100%. This is a downgrade from the Mileage Plus program and an upgrade from the OnePass program.
bmi
- Two economy fare buckets – L & U – no longer earn at all. This is in line with the legacy United rates and worse than the legacy Continental rates.
- Three full fare economy and premium cabin buckets – I, S & Y – will earn 100% award miles and 150% elite miles. This is in line with the legacy Continental rates and an upgrade from the legacy United rates (100%/100%).
- Six premium cabin buckets – A, C, D, J, P & Z – will earn 125% award miles and 150% EQMs, matching the rates in the legacy Continental program. The EQM earning rate is an upgrade from the 100% earnt in the legacy United program.
- All fares earn 500 mile minimums, matching the OnePass charts and an upgrade from the United charts.
Blue1
- Eight full fare or premium cabin buckets – A, B, C, D, J, S, Y & Z – will earn 150% EQMs, matching the rates in the legacy Continental program. This is an upgrade from the legacy United program (100%).
- One discount economy fare bucket – O – will earn at 25% RDMs/EQMs. This matches the legacy OnePass rate and is an upgrade from the legacy United rate (0%/0%).
EgyptAir
- Most full fare and premium cabin classes will see EQM earning set at 150%, matching the OnePass program and an increase from the United program.
- Seven deep-discount economy fare buckets – G, L, S, T, U, V & W – will earn no credit, matching the legacy United program; this is a downgrade from the 25-50% rates they earnt in the OnePass program.
- Two economy fares – Q & K – will earn at 100%, matching the legacy Mileage Plus program and upgrading from the 75% rate in the OnePass program.
Ethiopian
- Three premium cabin fares – C, D & J – are upgrading from 100% to 150% EQMs. This is an upgrade from both legacy programs (100%).
Lufthansa
- Most premium cabin fares see an upgrade to the award miles earning rates, in line with the previously discussed earning rates for United flights. These rates are much higher in most cases than the legacy United or Continental rates.
- For discounted economy fares – L & T – the rates will match those of the legacy United program, earning 100% on intercontinental flights and on intra-Europe flights which connect to intercontinental flights. The OnePass program offered 50% credit on all flights in those fare buckets.
Swiss
- Similar to Lufthansa, most premium cabin fares will earn at much higher award miles rates. In addition, the EQM earning rates for those fares will be increased to 150%, matching the legacy Continental rates and improving from the 100% that United used to offer.
- Three discount economy fares – K, L &T – disappear from the earning charts completely, a downgrade from both legacy programs.
US Airways
- No more 500 mile minimums for flights, a downgrade from the OnePass program and matching the United program.
- Only 100% EQMs on Y and B fares, a downgrade from the United program and matching the OnePass rates.
Croatia AIrlines, Singapore, Thai & TAP
- Most full fare and premium cabin classes will see EQM earning set at 150%, matching the OnePass program and an increase from the United program.
For Air Canada and TAM the earning rates are not yet loaded on the site, and the TAM page shows some data from bmi and some from TAM. For Copa it does not show an elite earning bonus, though that is unlikely to actually be the case.
The only chart that appears to remain the same across the board is that of partner Turkish Airlines.
Non-alliance partner EVA will see a much broader partnership, with many more fare buckets available for earning. The rest of the non-alliance partners look to be pretty much the same, though I didn’t give those charts as thorough a review.
Again, please remember that the analysis here is from unofficial data and should not be considered necessarily accurate, though it is accurate from what was on the website when I looked at it today.
And, should these rates end up being accurate, it would appear that this is a case where the company being somewhat one-sided in where they favor a legacy program will work out well for customers. In nearly all the cases that the legacy OnePass rates were picked it was an upgrade for the Mileage Plus rates. The same cannot be said for the cases where the legacy Mileage Plus rates prevailed.
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Tags: Air Canada, Asiana, bmi, Continental, Copa, EgyptAir, Ethiopian Airlines, frequent flier, frequent flyer, Lufthansa, points, Swiss, TAM, United, United Airlines, US Air
Posted by Seth on December 22, 2011 under frequent flyer, News |
A binding agreement has been signed regarding the sale of Lufthansa subsidiary bmi to IAG (the consortium which owns British Airways and Iberia). The sale is still subject to regulatory clearance – no small issue considering the impact on slots at Heathrow – but the two companies expect the deal to close in Q1 2012. Lufthansa expects the impact of the sale to be off their books by the end of next year while IAG will spread the costs of the acquisition and restructuring over a three year period.
IAG only wants the mainline operations of the bmi portfolio. As part of the deal Lufthansa is still shopping the bmi regional and bmibaby units to other potential suitors. If the bmibaby brand is not unloaded there are "significant" price reductions to be accounted for. And Lufthansa is still on the hook for the pension plan of bmi employees. At the same time, IAG will receive up to 56 additional slot pairs at Heathrow, further growing their position as the largest operator there.
IAG CEO Willie Walsh offered up the following comments:
Buying bmi’s mainline business gives IAG a unique opportunity to grow at Heathrow, one of our key hub airports. Using the slot portfolio more efficiently provides the option to launch new longhaul routes to key trading nations while supporting our broad domestic and shorthaul network.
This deal is good news for the UK as we will maintain a comprehensive domestic schedule including Belfast. Our plans to expand our longhaul network would guarantee growth by making Britain better able to compete on a global scale. It will also help maximise Heathrow’s position as a world class hub airport.
Customers will benefit from access to new destinations, more convenient schedules, enhanced frequent flyer benefits and greater investment than had been possible for loss-making bmi.
Sure, maintaining the schedule is easy. The real question is what fares will look like without competition on the routes. It is rare that losing a competitor in a market makes things better for the customer.
I really do need to redeem the last of those Diamond Club points quite quickly.
Announcements from IAG and Lufthansa.
Posted by Seth on March 8, 2011 under Flying, frequent flyer, points |
In part one of this report I recounted a great award booking – even though it was all in economy and on small planes – to the Canadian Maritime provinces. Part two will cover my exploitation of the bmi Diamond Club program and their quite flexible routing and award zone rules.
It all started with plans to visit Bangkok in July for a friend’s wedding. With Thai Air still operating their incredibly long LAX-BKK flight I figured it would be nice to get a change to fly that route. Plus I have never been on the Airbus A340-500 so that’s an added bonus. It turns out that Thai has had a TON of award inventory available for westbound travel but nothing available coming back east. Turns out that isn’t much of a problem for me as I’ve turned a long weekend in Thailand into a RTW ticket adventure.
By sheer coincidence a friend of mine is going to be in Capetown, South Africa the week after the wedding. And I have the points available so why not? Even better is that the award cost from Thailand to South Africa is pretty cheap with Diamond Club. Oh, and I am flying via Mumbai, flying in on Thai and out on South African Airways. South African operates the A340-200 on the route which is also new to me.
And then I needed to get home from South Africa. This is where the Diamond Club rules become VERY favorable if you’re willing (or wanting!) a bit of an adventure. Most carriers only permit North Atlantic crossings for that award. Diamond Club permits South Atlantic crossings, too. So I’m taking one. Award seats form Johannesburg to Buenos Aires and Sao Paolo are pretty readily available.
Seats from there back north are a bit harder but I found some availability with Air Canada from Santiago to Toronto. Getting from Toronto to New York City is pretty easy with a ton of frequencies and a couple airports to choose from. To get from Buenos Aires to Santiago there is really only Star Alliance routing. It just so happens to leave 40 minutes before the flight from Johannesburg arrives. So I have a 23 hour 20 minute connection in Argentina. That’ll be fun.
So I’ve made it back to New York City and I’m home. That’s the end, right? Not for me. Diamond Club considers Puerto Rico part of their South America/Caribbean zone. And award flights from South Africa to South America are less expensive than those to North America. Based on straight geography that sortof makes sense – it should be fewer total miles flown – but getting to Puerto Rico can only be done via North America with the existing partners and routes. So I have a stopover in New York (one stopover is free on the bmi award) and then, two months later, a flight in first class from Newark to San Juan. It was actually many fewer miles to take the extra flight. Plus, I’ve been looking for a good excuse to get back to Puerto Rico, possibly in daylight this time. Given that the flight down there is better than free, I see no reason to skip that bit.
Put it all together and I’ve got this 31,586 mile masterpiece:
And all the flights save two short ones are in business class. All but one of the lines are new and a few of the aircraft are, too. All for under 200,000 Diamond Club points. I could’ve done it as cash & points for even fewer but I’m trying to use up my stash and this is a great way to do it.
The booking process was bit more frustrating than I generally enjoy, partly because my Skype connection was flaking out but mostly because the agents at the Diamond Club call center don’t have the best grasp of geography nor of the rules of their program. They initially tried to charge me 5 separate awards rather than the three I booked and all at higher rates than I should have paid. Fortunately I was able to eventually get a supervisor to understand and put it in correctly, but that was two extra hours of annoyance on the phone that I didn’t really need. Still, at the end of the day, completely worth it for this trip. Retail value on the ticket is somewhere north of $10,000; getting it on points for the routes and dates I wanted is just phenomenal.
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Tags: Africa, Air Canada, Airbus, Argentina, award, Bangkok, bmi, Canada, frequent flyer, New York City, points, Puerto Rico, RTW2011, San Juan, South Africa, Star Alliance, Thai Air, Thailand, Toronto
Posted by Seth on February 9, 2011 under frequent flyer, News, points |
Since its acquisition by Lufthansa, British regional carrier bmi has seen many bits of its operations aligned to their parent company’s operating model. Some routes have been cut and others aligned to partner hubs. Other changes have been announced, too, including a previous claim that their frequent flyer program, Diamond Club, would be subsumed into the Miles & More organization. Some reports suggested that change would come as early as the middle of this year.
Apparently someone has had a change of heart.
The latest reports, included in a FaceBook/Twitter-based chat with the CEO say that the end of Diamond Club is, in fact, not going to be happening this year as previously suggested.
Now that bmi is a part of the Lufthansa group of airlines, we are evaluating being part of Miles & More in the long term. A final decision has not been taken and such a move would not happen in 2011. For the foreseeable future we are firmly focused on ensuring that our Diamond Club scheme meets the needs of our loyal customers. Therefore we will continue to improve and develop Diamond Club. We will be launching Star Alliance Upgrade Awards in Q2 this year, which will enable Diamond Club members to upgrade on the majority of Star Alliance airlines using their miles, as well as bringing a number of new partners on board.
This is quite good news for most folks who have been collecting points in the Diamond Club program. It has a number of benefits over the Miles & More program, including cash & miles redemptions and a very flexible award chart. Adding in the Star Alliance upgrade option will improve the program even more.
At the same time, customers who were banking on the transition happening this year (like me) now have to make a decision on whether to extend their current loyalty or not.
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Posted by Seth on January 3, 2011 under Trip Reports |
It is now the new year, with new goals and new milestones on the horizon. But not too late to take a quick look back at 2010 and the travel milestones I hit during the year. Not surprisingly, the more I travel the harder it is to reach new and different accomplishments. Indeed, 2010 had many fewer than 2009, though in a couple categories it surpassed the previous year.
Perhaps the most significant numbers of the year are the total amount of time in the air:
- 151 segments
- 208378 miles
- 18 days 13:31
Those numbers are “butt-in-seat” and based on the distances between the starting and ending airport as calculated on www.openflights.org. They do not include 500 mile minimums or the like. In most cases the durations are based on wheels up to wheels down as tracked by the appropriate authorities, not the block time of the flight or estimates. The 208K miles is the most ever for me in a calendar year as is the 151 segments.
Of the 151 segments flown, more than half (86, to be precise) were routes I had not flown previously. It is certainly becoming more and more difficult to find new ways to get to different places but I continue to try. New lines and new dots are still of value to me and I’m finding that I’m paying a bit more to get them.
I also passed through 77 airports during the year located in 18 different countries. I actually Immigrated 31 different times, including the various times I returned to the United States. On four of my trips there were multiple foreign countries involved.
I visited 15 distinct countries, plus the USA. Eight of those countries (St. Maarten, Sint Martin, Dominican Republic, Ghana, Togo, Guyana, Morocco and Tunisia) were new to me. Two of the crossings (into Togo and back into Ghana were on foot while the Sint Martin/St. Maarten crossing were by car; The others were all by plane. I also added a new state visited – Idaho – to my list even though I drove over from Spokane to get there rather than flying in.
My travels included flying on 24 different airlines (possibly a few more if regional/express carriers are included by I’m not great at tracking those). Of those 24, 13 were airlines I had not previously flown on (AC, AT, BA, BD, BE, HA, LC, RW, SN, TGY, VS, YV & YX). Again, it is getting much harder to find new ones at reasonable prices but I’m doing my best, including a couple booked for the early part of 2011.
None of my milestones north, south, east or west were new extremes for me this year. Nor was my longest flight (SYD-SFO) longer than previous records. I did get a new shortest flight for my list, one that will almost certainly never be broken.
Somewhat amazingly, of the 151 flights I only had three instances where I was struck by operations so irregular that they caused a missed flight. One of them – during my JetBlue AYCJ adventures wasn’t a big deal and I got back on track without really missing anything along the way. Two others – a US Airways delay out of Belgium and a Royal Air Maroc fiasco in Casablanca – caused me to overnight unexpectedly. The US Air incident wasn’t so bad but the Air Maroc one was pretty awful.
Finally, I managed to pick up five new aircraft types during the year. My favorite was probably the smallest, the Cessna 208 Caravan I, though the
| Saab SF340 was fun, too, and the Embraer 175LR was the best ride of them all.
And I got robbed once where the guy took money directly from my hands and probably a couple more times due to bad negotiating skills in markets. At least I robbed the guy who physically took the cash out of my hand back. |
And while I sit on the airplane now, enjoying a flight from Lufthansa into Frankfurt and on to Munich, I realize that I may only be three days into the new year but I’ve already got a new line for my map and tomorrow will bring another one, along with a rubber duckie souvenir. Not a bad way to start the year.
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Tags: Air Canada, bmi, British Airways, Brussels, Dominican Republic, Embraer, FlyBE, Flying, Ghana, Guyana, LoganAir, Lufthansa, Morocco, Togo, Tunisia, Virgin Atlantic
Posted by Seth on July 5, 2010 under frequent flyer, points, Trip Reports |
So I’m somewhere vaguely south of Greenland right now. I’m sitting at the Upper Class bar of a Virgin Atlantic Airbus A340-300 on the late night flight from London to Newark. This isn’t the flight I originally booked and certainly not the flight I expected to be on tonight but, well, life is funny sometimes.
Still, I’ve taken ten flights in the past eleven days and this one is just fine. The good news is that I can still name all ten of the flights. The itinerary was EWR-LHR//LHR-ABZ-LSI//LSI-KOI-WRY-PPW//WRY-KOI//KOI-EDI//EDI-LHR-EWR.That last bit was supposed to be GLA-EWR but, well, life got in the way so there was a change of plans. It meant an extra flight and it also meant a visit to the Clubhouse and a flight on an extra new airline for me – bmi. Yes, I have over 300,000 points accrued in the bmi Diamond Club frequent flyer program but until today I had never flown with them. And I’m not alone in that aspect of my usage of the program.
In addition to bmi, I also go my first flights on FlyBE, British Airways and LoganAir during the trip. Six new airports, four new airlines and one trip on the world’s shortest commercial flight. Plus some awesome experiences in Scotland. Not bad at all.
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Posted by Seth on July 2, 2010 under frequent flyer, News, points |
The writing has been on the wall for bmi’s loyalty scheme Diamond Club since Lufthansa bought out the remaining share of the company around a year ago. The program is different from Lufthansa’s Miles + More – many say better than M+M – and Lufthansa is generally not a fan of having variety in their subsidiary carriers where efficiencies can be realized. Their CEO once noted (roughly paraphrasing here – see below for video of the actual quote) that you might get chips on bmi, spaetzel on Austrian and kartoffel klöße on Lufthansa but they would all come from the same order of tons of potatoes back at the kitchen. And while many loyal users of the Diamond Club program hoped that their inclusion in the Lufthansa family would be different, it appears that is not going to happen.
Musings of The Global Traveller notes that a recent Lufthansa investor presentation has outlined the timeline under which the parent company expects the program to no longer have an impact on its financial performance (note pages 11 and 15). In other words, the date by which the program will be dead. And the answer is relatively soon. Under the bullet heading “Restructuring will show full effect in 2011 and 2012, examples…” is a line that reads “LH integration will be completed, e.g. sales, M&M…” Quite simply, they expect the integration to start soon and to be completed in either 2011 or 2012.
For folks who have accrued large piles of Diamond Club points the day of reckoning is rapidly approaching. The points are not going to disappear, but moving them into M+M raises a number of potential devaluation scenarios. I’m sitting on a rather large pile of points and I won’t be wasting any time looking for reward redemption opportunities in a hurry.
Watch Lufthansa CEO Wolfgang Mayrhuber talk about potatoes in the kitchen at Lufthansa during Star Mega Do 2009 in Frankfurt, November 2009:
Watch Thierry Antinori, Lufthansa’s Executive Vice President Marketing & Sales and Member of the Executive Board discuss bmi and Miles+More versus Diamond Club during Star Mega Do 2009 in Frankfurt, November 2009:
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Posted by Seth on May 1, 2010 under Flying |
At least American Express seems to think so. They actually shut down my card for a few minutes yesterday while I was in the midst of booking a number of reward seats using my bmi account.
Yes, it is the first time I’ve actually spent money with bmi as it was the first time I actually redeemed some of my miles there. And, yes, it was three transactions over a two day period, covering four tickets of which none were in my name. So I cannot say that I really blame them. But it was somewhat awkward when the agent I was speaking to via Skype informed me that the transaction was denied. Fortunately my cell phone was ringing at the exact same moment – and I decided to take the call from an unknown number – with a call from the fraud department at AmEx. It was all touch-tone menus to get through and it only took a couple minutes to clear up the confusion, but it was definitely interesting.
As an added bonus, they were nice enough to send an email late yesterday with some additional details:
Dear Sir:
To protect our Cardmembers, we regularly monitor accounts for possible fraudulent activity. On occasion, we contact our customers to verify certain charge attempts. Please review the charge attempt(s) referenced below. Please remember that some transactions, including those at gas stations, hotels and car rental merchants are pre-authorized before the final sale. The amount shown below may not reflect the exact amount of your final transaction.
If we have already reached you and discussed the charge attempts below, please disregard this email, as the concerns have already been resolved.
04/30/10 $168 British Midland Airways
The charges all went through and the tickets have all been issued. And I’m only a little sad that they are all tickets for other people to use. I guess I’ll have to be a bit more cautious with bookings going forward, or at least make sure I answer the call when AmEx is trying to verify things.
Posted by Seth on April 9, 2010 under Trip Reports |
File this week’s mileage run under “it seemed like a good idea at the time.” And it mostly still does, though the more I look at my itinerary and the timing on some of the flights the more I’m questioning my sanity. A total of more than 17,000 miles flown and the calculator says a hair under 100,000 bmi Diamond Club points earned. Not bad for a few days in the air and less than $500 in total airfare. Oh, and almost all of it is in first class. But, like any good story, there’s more to it than that.
The trip starts this morning with a positioning flight from Newark to Minneapolis, via Milwaukee. I think I’m earning a few points for my Delta SkyMiles account on these flights but I’m not positive. I’m also not too worried about it. The flights are short and the ticket was cheap. Plus, it is my first time flying on Midwest – way too late to get the classic experience, but better late than never – and a couple new lines for my map.
Tomorrow the real meat of the trip starts. A trip from Minneapolis to Spokane, Washington, routed via Chicago, New Orleans and Denver. The return on Sunday routes via Denver and Houston before finishing up in Chicago. I’m stopping in Chicago on Sunday night – and giving up a few miles – because bright and early on Monday morning I’m headed back to Spokane, this time on US Airways and via Phoenix.
Monday afternoon I actually stop flying for 26 hours and take advantage of the positioning to visit Idaho and play a round of golf at the Coeur d’Alene Resort. The course is supposed to be beautiful. Hopefully it still is when I’m done with it on Tuesday morning. I’m driving that afternoon and I’ve got an 8:40am tee time so I’ll probably be sober for the round, too. It has been a while since I’ve played golf and even longer since I did it without a few beers. Should be interesting.
Tuesday afternoon the crazy flying starts right back up, with Spokane – Chicago via Phoenix. Wednesday morning, about 6 hours after I get to Chicago, I turn around and do the Chicago-Phoenix-Spokane-Phoenix-Chicago run all over again. A 17 hour day of flying that should pretty much push me over to the top in terms of insanity. That wraps up the bmi earning for the week and is 98,738 Diamond Club points, give or take a few.
Finally, Thursday morning I fly Midway – LaGuardia on Delta. That one segment should earn me about 20,000 points thanks to the fly together bonus scheme Delta is running right now.
That was supposed to be the end of my travel week. Then I got a call from a potential client about a sales call in Maine on Friday. So Thursday night, after swapping out my suitcase at home, I get JFK – Portland, ME. I think I’m coming home on Saturday by train. That adds up to 17,466 miles flown according to the Great Circle Mapper.
All in all, a pretty ridiculous schedule but also a lot of potential for fun. And it could have been worse. At one point I had a trip to Germany for the day penciled in on Thursday night/Friday rather than Maine.
Up, up and away…..
Tags: bmi, Chicago, Delta, Denver, frequent flyer, Mileage Run, Minneapolis, New York City, points, United, US Air
Posted by Seth on January 29, 2010 under News |
Continental Airlines announced this morning that they will be increasing service between London and their Newark hub starting this summer. The increases – up to four daily departures beginning at the end of March and five daily beginning at the end of October – will be mostly operated by the carrier’s Boeing 757-200 aircraft; one of the daily flights will remain on the 777-200s.
In addition to the increased frequencies, Continental has committed to operating all these flights with their new fully flat Business Class product, effective June 1, 2010. It is the first time in recent memory that Continental has committed to including a specific product that only exists on a subset of its fleet on a specific route. The carrier generally avoids such commitments since they generally cycle their planes through their route network very aggressively rather than dedicating specific planes to specific routes. They get increased utilization from the planes but it also increases the troubles when they have mechanical issues and it prevents planes from being dedicated to routes.
The original timeline for the new lie-flat BusinessFirst seats is actually pretty slow; the 777s and 757s aren’t scheduled to be completed until mid-to-late 2011. But two 777s were ferried to Hong Kong – the site of the retrofits – recently increasing the speed of the deployment. And the 757s can be cycled through the upgrade pretty quickly as well. This is good news for passengers as it means getting the new product out into the fleet faster. The increased service also means more options for customers who are delayed in getting to Newark on connecting flights and more opportunities for connections to London-based Star Alliance partner bmi.
It is also worth noting that the increase in service is coming from Newark rather than the other potential option: Cleveland. Continental has previously run seasonal service to London from the Hublet but that was cut at the end of last summer. Rather than reinstating it there this year’s increase is going to Newark. This speaks to the increased flexibility of having the 757 in Newark and to the higher demand in Newark versus that of Cleveland. The good news for the folks there is that they have a lot of options (ORD, IAD, YYZ, YUL, etc.) that allow them to avoid connecting in Newark if they choose thanks to partners.
Here’s what the new schedule will look like:
Effective March 27, 2010, the airline’s Heathrow schedule will be as follows:
To London/Heathrow
New York/Newark CO18 9:00 a.m. 9:20 p.m. Daily 757-200
New York/Newark CO28 6:40 p.m. 6:45 a.m.+1 Daily 777
New York/Newark CO112 7:20 p.m. 7:40 a.m.+1 Daily 757-200
New York/Newark CO110 8:00 p.m. 8:20a.m.+1 Daily 757-200
Houston CO34 3:45 p.m. 6:55 a.m.+1 Daily 777
Houston CO4 6:25 p.m. 9:35 a.m.+1 Daily 777
From London/Heathrow
New York/Newark CO29 10:25 a.m. 1:15 p.m. Daily 777
New York/Newark CO113 10:50 a.m. 1:55 p.m. Daily 757-200
New York/Newark CO111 12:05 p.m. 3:15 p.m. Daily 757-200
New York/Newark CO19 6:30 p.m. 9:40 p.m. Daily 757-200
Houston CO35 8:40 a.m. 12:40 p.m. Daily 777
Houston CO5 11:40 a.m. 3:50 p.m. Daily 777
Effective Oct. 30, 2010, Continental’s Heathrow schedule will be as follows:
To London/Heathrow
New York/Newark CO18 9:00 a.m. 9:20 p.m. Daily 757-200
New York/Newark CO28 6:25 p.m. 6:20 a.m.+1 Daily 777
New York/Newark CO112 7:15 p.m. 7:25 a.m.+1 Daily 757-200
New York/Newark CO110 9:20 p.m. 9:25 a.m.+1 Daily 757-200
New York/Newark CO114 10:10 p.m. 10:15 a.m.+1 Daily 757-200
Houston CO34 3:50 p.m. 6:50 a.m.+1 Daily 777
Houston CO4 6:35 p.m. 9:35 a.m.+1 Daily 777
From London/Heathrow
New York/Newark CO115 8:40 a.m. 12:05 p.m. Daily 757-200
New York/Newark CO29 10:30 a.m. 1:30 p.m. Daily 777
New York/Newark CO113 11:15 a.m. 2:45 p.m. Daily 757-200
New York/Newark CO111 12:35 p.m. 4:05 p.m. Daily 757-200
New York/Newark CO19 6:00 p.m. 9:30 p.m. Daily 757-200
Houston CO35 9:20 a.m. 1:40 p.m. Daily 777
Houston CO5 11:40 a.m. 4:05 p.m. Daily 777
