British Airways launches its all-business-class service between London City and New York JFK today. The service, which will be offered twice-daily by mid-October, will be operated on specially configured A318s with 32 lie-flat business class seats. The launch flights bear numbers formerly used for Concorde services, BA001 to BA004. “For the first time, New York has a tailor-made premium service to the London Canary Wharf area on its doorstep,” said BA Executive VP-Americas Simon Talling-Smith. The flights will feature OnAir inflight connectivity enabling passengers to use their mobile and smart phones to send and receive text messages and e-mails and for Internet access. Passengers departing LCY will be able to check in for a flight as late as 15 min. before departure. Westbound flights will stop for refueling at Shannon, where passengers will be able to clear customs and immigration before reaching New York. by Sandra Arnoult Air France is still studying the possibility of launching high-speed train services in Europe under its own brand in cooperation with a partner, although the project will not take off as initially planned in 2010 when the intra-European rail transport market opens up, the carrier confirmed to ATWOnline. AF declined to comment on a report in Les Echos that talks between the airline and Veolia about a partnership have stopped. “The marriage between Air France and Veolia Transport in rail transport seems to be going nowhere,” the newspaper said, adding that the partners were “no longer on the same wavelength”. AF never publicly detailed its plans, but a company official confirmed to this website that in a potential first stage the carrier was interested in operating the Brussels Midi railway station to Paris Charles de Gaulle route in cooperation with Veolia but could not secure enough slots to run the service with sufficient frequency. Currently, AF rents seats on the five daily return TGV trains on the route from French railway company SNCF. It stopped flying between Brussels and CDG in 2001. by Cathy Buyck Perth-based Skywest Airlines is moving to acquire up to four A320 family aircraft to satisfy an upswing in demand for resource industry charters and to launch new international routes to Southeast Asia destinations. The airline deferred its announced plans to acquire the aircraft when the economic downturn struck last year, but yesterday MD Hugh Davin said it has “dusted off plans” to order up the aircraft, a new type for the regional. While he was coy on details of the international expansion, insiders told ATWOnline that planning is underway for a range of options including services to Bali, Singapore and Phuket. Last month Skywest, which is the country’s largest operator of fly-in/fly-out charters serving the resource industry, said it would add a ninth 100-seat F100 for delivery in November to meet demand. In the past three years its fleet of F100s has tripled and the fleet of 46-seat F50s has increased from five to seven. The industry expects that the first aircraft could be put into service as early as the first quarter. “We are now out seeking suitable aircraft,” Davin said. by Geoffrey Thomas Japan’s transport minister said on Japanese TV Sunday that he will not force Japan Airlines, Asia’s largest carrier by revenue, into bankruptcy, according to the Associated Press. “We will not crush and liquidate [the airline],” Land, Infrastructure and Transport Minister Seiji Maehara said on a TV Asahi talk show. “It’s just impossible,” AP reported him as saying. The government set up a team of corporate doctors last Friday to create a restructuring plan for JAL, whose own draft reconstruction plan Maehara called “insufficient.” The team is expected to make recommendations to the transport minister by early November. The airline, which lost ¥99 billion ($1.09 billion) in its fiscal first quarter ended June 30, received government-backed loans from the Development Bank of Japan totaling around ¥100 billion in June and is in talks with American Airlines and Delta Air Lines about a potential stake sale (ATWOnline, Sept. 25). Last week it revealed that it needs ¥450 billion through March 2011 for debt repayment. Air India’s flight schedules could be disrupted this week after nearly 400 management pilots proceeded with a threatened wildcat strike beginning last Friday to protest cuts in their flying allowances, according to India’s Economic Times. The pilots are not allowed to form a union, which is why they resorted to wildcat action. A spokesperson for AI said the airline “had not heard anything from the pilots [about the strike]. They have gone to the media rather than coming to us. Air India management will do all to maintain normal flight operations to prevent any inconvenience to the passengers.” At the same time, the airline’s 800 pilots who belong to the Indian Commercial Pilots Assn. have been invited by management for talks Wednesday to sort out pay-related matters. They claim that AI has cut flying allowances, reducing salaries by up to 70%. US Airways closed its previously announced common stock offering, raising $137.3 million in aggregate net proceeds from the sale of 29 million shares including an overallotment of 2.7 million shares. Proceeds will be used for general corporate purposes. Citi underwrote the offering. Air Berlin and Pegasus Airlines started their cooperation Monday by cross-linking their websites. Passengers will be able to book 17 additional connections from Germany to Turkey as well as 26 routes within Turkey. Pegasus belongs to ESAS Holding, the second-largest industrial and financial group in Turkey. ESAS also is AB’s largest shareholder with an 18% stake. Separately, AB announced that it will add 10 new destinations and 54 new nonstop services, especially from Cologne, Stuttgart and Memmingen/Munich West, starting Nov. 1 following its takeover of TUIfly’s scheduled flight operations. AB will add 13 TUIfly 737s to its schedule in the coming winter season and 14 in the summer 2010 schedule. Finnair introduced daily Helsinki Vantaa-New Delhi service Sept. 25. Alaska Airlines last week launched daily Houston Intercontinental-Seattle Tacoma service using 737-800 equipment. Jet Airways begins daily Hong Kong-New Delhi service Sept. 30 using an A330-200, complementing existing service from Mumbai to HK, It will launch twice-weekly Bangkok-Gaya-Varanasi service Oct. 6. Turkish Airlines began operating 777-300ERs on its daily Istanbul Ataturk-New York JFK service Monday, replacing a mix of A330s/A340s previously used on the route. It said the switch will enable it to carry at least 40 additional passengers per flight and boost cargo capacity up to 18 tons per flight. Porter Airlines will operate thrice-daily seasonal Quebec City-Toronto City Centre service starting Nov. 26. Timco Aviation Services will provide on-call line maintenance services for USA 3000 Airlines A320s at all current Timco line locations. AJW Aviation expanded its power-by-the-hour contract with Czech Airlines to include an additional two A320s and two A321s. The program is set to cover the entire OK fleet of 33 aircraft by 2016. Lufthansa Consulting signed a deal with UTair to identify new network growth opportunities for the Russian carrier, starting in July and due to be completed in September.