Delta Air Lines wins approval to expand operations at London Heathrow

Delta Air Lines (Atlanta) has won approval to expand operations at London’s Heathrow Airport. The U.S. Department of Transportation and the European Commission yesterday (November 10) granted Delta Air Lines’ request to operate new daily, year-round flights between London’s Heathrow and Boston and Miami international airports. The new flights will begin on March 27, 2011.

The new routes will be operated within the scope of Delta’s trans-Atlantic joint venture with Air France-KLM and Alitalia. They will bring to four the number of trans-Atlantic routes operated by the joint venture partner airlines from Boston and to five the number of routes offered from Miami. Delta, Air France. KLM and Alitalia serve Amsterdam, London-Heathrow, Paris and Rome from both cities; Miami customers enjoy additional service to Milan operated by Alitalia.

Delta applied for the rights to serve Boston and Miami from Heathrow earlier this year as part of a divestiture of slots required following the U.S. and E.U. governments’ approval of an immunized alliance between American Airlines and British Airways. Delta argued its proposed new Heathrow service would bring the most benefit to consumers because its global alliance – SkyTeam – holds the smallest percentage of slots at Heathrow.

Delta began serving Heathrow in March 2008 following the conclusion of an Open Skies agreement between the U.S. and the E.U. that eliminated decades-old restrictions on the number of U.S. airlines allowed to serve the market. Since that time, Delta has expanded from zero to seven its number of daily round-trip flights in the Heathrow market, with a current offering of three daily flights to New York-JFK; two peak-day flights to Atlanta and Detroit; and one daily flight to Minneapolis/St. Paul. In March 2011, this number will grow to 10 daily round-trip flights when Boston and Miami are added.

Copyright Photo: Bruce Drum. Please click on the photo for additional details.