AIRLINE & TRAVEL NEWS

KLM will begin twice-weekly Amsterdam-Khartoum-Addis Ababa-Amsterdam service March 31 2005 using 767-300ERs. Also, the airline will change the departure time from 9:30 a.m. to 11:25 a.m. for its flight from Amsterdam to Newark effective Jan. 10. The schedule change will not affect the return flight. Nov 15, 2004

London City Airport says that its Jet Centre, located just off the roundabout on the entrance to the airport, successfully outperformed expectations in just two years. Today the Jet Center operation accounts for 10% of the airport's overall traffic. The original forecast indicated that by 2007 the Jet Center would be handling 7,000 annual aircraft movements. LCY says that this target will be achieved in 2004. Fractional ownership aircraft, where businesses buy a percentage of an aircraft, represented in flight hours, have drastically reduced the cost of private air travel and now account for approximately 35% of the Jet Centre's business. The airport believes that executive aircraft movements will double by 2007. http://www.londoncityairport.com Nov 29, 2004

LOT Polish Airlines' new low-fare subsidiary Polishwings looks set to take off in Feb. 2005. Initial fleet will consist of five 737 Classics that will fly from Warsaw and Katowice, where it will go head-to-head with Wizz Air, with the focus on serving cities in Eastern Europe. The airline also will take over LOT's charter operations and is evaluating the possibility of cooperating with Germanwings, the low-cost subsidiary of Eurowings, linking up at the latter's bases at Cologne and Stuttgart. The new company is capitalized at eur1 million ($1.33 million). Nov 30, 2004

Lufthansa adds perks, mulls new services for top fliers. The steady evolution away from international first class in favor of enhanced business class provides a market opportunity for those carriers that remain committed to a three-class service product, Lufthansa Group Chairman and CEO Wolfgang Mayrhuber said yesterday at Frankfurt Airport. Speaking at the unveiling of the carrier's new eur14 million ($18.2 million) first-class terminal and two new first-class lounges, Mayrhuber explained that "With more carriers dropping their first class and [the end of] Concorde, we know that we can grow in this segment if we offer a very good product." Lufthansa is enjoying double-digit growth in its first-class business and is evaluating a revamp of its top service class to coincide with the arrival of its A380s in 2007, Executive VP- Marketing and Sales Thierry Antinori told ATWOnline. The carrier may redo its economy class at the same time. To enhance its product for ultra-premium passengers further, the airline is evaluating cooperating with private executive jet operators. "If one of our top clients is coming maybe from Singapore and wants to go, for example, to Shannon [Ireland] or a destination in Romania, we want to offer him a solution for the exclusive continuation of his journey," Antinori said. If launched, the first hub where small executive jets will feed the network will be Munich. Further information regarding this project will be announced in a few weeks. The new first class terminal at FRA will go into regular operation on Dec 1, as will the new lounges, which are in Terminal 1 in sectors A and B. Including the lounges, LH has invested eur30 million to please its top customers. The new terminal offers separate rooms furnished as offices or luxury suites including full bathrooms. There is a separate restaurant as well as a cigar lounge. First class passengers will be transferred directly from the lounge to the aircraft via Mercedes S-Class and Porsche Cayenne automobiles. In addition to first-class passengers, members of the new HON Circle status within Lufthansa's Miles & More loyalty program may use the lounges. To achieve HON Circle status, a member must collect 600,000 HON Circle miles within a period of two calendar years. These are status miles that are collected aboard flights operated by Lufthansa, Lufthansa Regional, Austrian Airlines Group, LOT Polish Airlines, Air Dolomiti, Air One or United Airlines. Nov 18, 2004