Airline News

Lufthansa's new $350 million business class product, which includes a new flatbed seat concept and upgraded in-flight entertainment system, will first appear on Lufthansa's new Airbus A340-600, which will begin service next week. The carrier will also add the new product on its new A330-300 aircraft and retrofit existing aircraft with the business class product early next year.

Northwest Airlines said it selectively matched an $8-$9 roundtrip domestic price increase imposed by Delta Air Lines on all of its fares in markets served with connecting flights.

OneWorld partner airlines continue to expand their code sharing links. The latest is between American and British Airways, now that the AA code has been placed a number of BA flights at London Gatwick. BA also has placed its code on American flights to 26 destinations in the U.S. and Latin America. BA also has increased its code sharing with Iberia. The Spanish airline now code shares on BA flights from London Heathrow to Dubai, Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver. Iberia also places its code on U.K. carrier Comair to Cape Town, Durban and Port Elizabeth from Johannesburg. BA is placing its code on Iberia flights between Barcelona and Munich. Swiss, which will join the alliance later this year, is also code sharing with BA.

Orbitz has added activities and services to its online offerings. Users can now book airport shuttles, theme park tickets, sightseeing tours and activities such as deep-sea fishing and winery tours. The activities can be booked at the same time as the air, hotel or vacation package.

Qantas will be the major investor in a new Singapore-based low-fare airline that intends to fly on intra Asian routes. Qantas CEO Geoff Dixon says the airline will fly to cities within five hours of Singapore. It will operate either the 737-800 or the A320. Qantas currently does not fly in any of the main routes being planned by the new airline. Qantas will own 49.9 percent of the yet-to-be-named venture. Well-known Singapore financiers Tony Chew and F.F. Wong will own 21.1 percent and 10 percent, respectively. Holdings Limited will own the remainder. Separately, beginning in December Qantas, will offer the only direct link between Adelaide and Auckland, New Zealand. It will fly three times a week with two classes of service.

Singapore Airlines signed a code share agreement with bmi. The carrier added its code on five bmi routes, Belfast, Brussels, Dublin, Edinburgh and Glasgow, that connect from any of SIA's thrice-daily Singapore- London Heathrow flights.

Singapore Airlines has become the launch customer for Boeing's new Airplane Health Management system that monitors the health of aircraft in flight and relays the information in real time to the ground. Primary source of the data is the central maintenance computer or condition monitoring system. Boeing said AHM also can collect electronic logbook data from the new Electronic Flight Bag being introduced on the 777-300ER.

Song, Delta Air Lines' low-fare carrier, said that 75% of its fleet has been outfitted with its in-flight entertainment system and it is on schedule to complete the entire fleet by March 31 2004. Song's IFE system will feature live satellite television, video on demand pay-per- view movie programming, MP3 audio programming and interactive video games.