Lufthansa's A380 takes off on maiden flight

Lufthansa currently flies Boeing 747-400 aircraft on the route. With the new service, Miami joins the following North American airports that have existing or looming A380 service: Los Angeles, Montreal, New York JFK, San Francisco, Toronto and Washington Dulles. For Lufthansa, Miami will be its third A380 destination in the U.S., joining New York JFK and San Francisco.

"We are extremely excited to introduce our new, flagship A380 aircraft as the very first in the Miami market," Jens Bischof, Lufthansa Vice President, The Americas, says in a release. "I applaud Miami International Airport's management team for their determination to become A380-ready." And, as you might expect, the news was enthusiastically received by officials at Miami International. "Lufthansa's announcement of the A380 coming to MIA is a pinnacle moment we have eagerly anticipated for many years," Miami-Dade Aviation Director José Abreu says in the Lufthansa release. "We are honored to be one of the first U.S. airports Lufthansa has chosen for A380 service and we greatly look forward to welcoming the historic first flight from Frankfurt in June."

American Airlines suspends 2 of 6 daily flights to Japan

American Airlines is suspending two of its six daily flights to Japan next week due to a slump in traffic since the big earthquake and tsunami.American said Wednesday it will suspend the flights on April 6 and resume them on April 26. One goes from New York to Tokyo's Haneda Airport, and the other flies between Dallas and Tokyo's Narita Airport. The move by AMR Corp.'s American Airlines follows Delta Air Lines Inc.'s decision last week to suspend service to Haneda, although Delta continues flying to Narita.
American said it will continue operating the other four daily flights to Tokyo Narita from New York's Kennedy Airport, Dallas, Chicago and Los Angeles. Demand for travel to Japan has been hurt by power shortages and fear about radiation leaking from a damaged nuclear power plant. Japan Airlines said this week that its international traffic had fallen 25 per cent since the March 11 earthquake, and it cut flights to Honolulu and Hong Kong.
American declined to say how much its traffic on U.S.-Japan routes has fallen."I can say demand out of Japan is higher than demand into Japan," said American spokesman Ed Martelle. American said it will go ahead with Friday's scheduled launch of a trans-Pacific joint venture with Japan Airlines, or JAL. American's vice-president for Asia, Theo Panagiotoulias, called it "a difficult decision" but one that would support customers and Japan. AMR, the only big U.S. airline company to lose money last year, has pinned much of its hopes for renewed profit on the American-JAL business deal, which it expects will boost lucrative international ticket sales.

Delta, SkyTeam partners take aim at Florida

Delta and its SkyTeam partners are beefing up their presence in Florida, combining to add three new trans-Atlantic routes as well as three routes within the state. Delta on Saturday began nonstop service between Miami and London Heathrow with one daily round-trip flight on Boeing 767-400 jets. The London route follows another added from Miami by Delta partner KLM, which on Sunday began flying four nonstop flights a week to its hub in Amsterdam. KLM is using MD-11 jets on that route.

On June 7, Air France -- another of Delta's key partners -- will begin nonstop service between Orlando and Paris Charles de Gaulle. Air France will operate three flights a week on that route using Boeing 777-300ER aircraft. Delta says in a press release that "the airlines will operate the new Florida flights under their trans-Atlantic joint venture, an agreement, which also includes Alitalia, that allows the partners to coordinate flights and share costs and revenues of the service. For customers, it means more choices for booking, destinations and schedules, additional opportunities to earn and redeem miles and consistent service regardless of which airline operates the flight."

Emirates On Track For 'Record' Year

Emirates said on Sunday that it had repaid a USD$500 million bond that was due this month and it is on course for a "record breaking" financial year. The bond, listed on the Luxembourg Stock Exchange, was originally issued in 2004 with a seven year term. "The repayment of this bond is part of Emirates overall financing strategy," the airline's chairman and chief executive Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed al-Maktoum said in a statement. He said the airline would continue to use normal diverse range of options available to finance its growth. Emirates dropped plans for a bond to finance expansion after the uprisings in North Africa made rates more expensive, its president Tim Clark said earlier this month. The carrier is on track for another record breaking financial year, the company said in a statement. "The results for the first half of the 2010-11 financial year are incredibly robust," said Sheikh Ahmed.
"We continue to invest our profits in growing the business and our healthy financial position enables us to successfully meet all of our financial commitments and raise financing for future aircraft deliveries." He said that the 62 new aircraft ordered in the first half of 2010 will help the airline develop its growth plans. The Dubai-based airline last year announced a multi-billion dollar increase in its fleet to include 120 Airbus A380 super jumbos. Emirates is Dubai's flagship company and one of the biggest contributors to a local economy hit hard by a property crisis. The government-owned airline rivals longer established names for traffic between Europe and east Asia.

Eco-friendly Jet Fuel

In an RV nicknamed after an urban assault vehicle, scientists from NASA's Langley Research Center traveled cross-country this month for an experiment with eco-friendly jet fuel. NASA's DC-8 at Dryden Flight Research Center's Aircraft Operations Facility in Palmdale, Calif. Credit: NASA Dryden/Tom Tschida The Langley team drove 2,600 miles (4,184 km) from Hampton, Va., to meet up with other researchers at NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center in California.

Researchers are testing the biofuel on a NASA DC-8 to measure its performance and emissions as part of the Alternative Aviation Fuel Experiment II, or AAFEX II. The fuel is called Hydrotreated Renewable Jet Fuel. "It's made out of chicken fat, actually," said Langley's Bruce Anderson, AAFEX II project scientist. "The Air Force bought many thousands of gallons of this to burn in some of their jets and provided about 8,000 gallons (30,283 liters) to NASA for this experiment." Anderson and his team will test a 50-50 mix of biofuel and regular jet fuel, biofuel only, and jet fuel only. The jet fuel is Jet Propellant 8, or JP-8, a kerosene-like mix of hydrocarbons.

Railways have nearly Rs 200-cr losses due to Jat agitation

The Northern Railway has registered losses nearly Rs 200 crore due to Jat agitation. The Jat community had blocked railway tracks and also stopped the movement of the trains. Although the exact figure hasn't been released yet. The Jat agitation is still continuing in the neighbouring states.

The freight traffic has witnessed major losses and the transportation of perishables and on-time performance of the railways has got impacted. Moreover, supply of commodities such as vegetables, milk, coal and petroleum products were affected heavily.The Railways has bagged quantitative and qualitative losses. On March 16, 66 trains were cancelled. The Jat community has further stated that they will block all rail links between the city and other cities such as Agra, Kanpur and Ambala, from March 28.

Air India Offers low cost Flights to India

Air India has announced its special flight fares for flights from London to various cities across the country.By using this offer, Air India customers can book flights to Mumbai from London Airport starting from fares between 220 to 250 GBP approx excl. taxes. Moreover, the national flagship carrier offers direct flights to Bombay hence making the journey more convenient and time saving. The other Indian cities included in this offer are Delhi, Bengaluru, Ahmadabad, Kochi, Trivandrum and Goa flights.

Vision airlines-launch more Florida routes

Vision Airlines, formerly Vision Air, is an airline headquartered in Georgia, United States. One of the fastest-growing airlines in the country is flying just below the radar, catering largely to customers bound for the beaches of northwest Florida.
Discount airline Vision is focusing on funneling flyers to the Florida Panhandle, to the exquisite Emerald Coast. In the wake of the BP oil spill, the beaches on these reaches of Florida are still sugar-sand white, still among the best anywhere.
Ten minutes away from those beaches is Northwest Florida Regional Airport. Problem is, Airport Director Greg Donovan says, “Only three percent of tourists fly to Destin/Fort. Walton Beach. The remainder has been forced to drive hundreds of miles to get here.”
Vision is helping change the equation with nonstop flights to an array of cities, places that haven’t had direct service to the region. Up until recently, air access to Northwest Florida Regional Airport has been via Delta Connection from Atlanta, US Airways Express from Charlotte, American Eagle from Dallas/Fort Worth, Continental Express form Houston, and Delta Connection from Memphis.

Southwest hypes frequent-flier revamp with 10M-point-giveaway

Southwest Airlines has launched a frequent-flier promotion this week in which the carrier would give as many as 100,000 Rapid Rewards points to 10 different clients.

The airline will give away the points 10 million in total if trick-shot artists "Dude Perfect" hit a stunt shot over a 737, The Arizona Republic reports

So, what's behind the giveaway?

"One of the objectives of this promotion is to drive fresh membership across all demographics," Southwest spokesman Chris Mainz tells Direct Marketing News. "But the promotion is also meant to reward current members."

The Republic adds Southwest is rolling out the promotion as an effort "to celebrate the launch of its revised frequent flier program," which was plagued by technical glitches as well as common discontent from some of the carrier's long-time customers.

Japan disaster to hit premium air travel-IATA

"It is too soon to judge how the Japanese earthquake and tsunami in March will change air travel, but the market is big enough to have a materially adverse impact on the international total for that month," IATA said in a statement.

IATA, which represents over 240 airlines, made the comments in its monthly premium monitor as it said growth in demand for business and first class tickets on international flights increased to 8.1 percent in January from 7.1 percent in December.

"Momentum was strong at the start of 2011 and rising business confidence points to extra gains in the months ahead," IATA said, adding that unrest in the Middle East and the Japanese disaster would likely hit February and March figures.