Virgin Atlantic Airways is temporarily suspending its services between London Heathrow and Cape Town and instead opting for year-round codeshares via Johannesburg with South African carrier Nationwide Airlines. The two weekly Cape Town services will cease on 26 March and 21 April respectively, resuming in November. Mesa Air Group, operating as Frontier JetExpress under a codeshare agreement with Frontier Airlines, will begin twice-daily service from Denver to Ontario, California, and twice weekly to St Louis, Missouri, on 7 April, using Bombardier CRJ200s. British Midland and Aer Lingus have been identified as possible partners for Belgium's SN Brussels Airlines (formerly DAT), which is to begin scheduled services from Brussels to Kinshasa, Kigali (Rwanda) and Entebbe next month using wet-leased aircraft with DAT cabin crew. Lufthansa Cargo has resumed its operations to Pakistan from Sharjah, starting with a new service which routes to Karachi and Lahore and back to Sharjah. Two flights a week are flown each week by Boeing MD-11s. British Airways franchise carrier GB Airways has introduced services from London Gatwick to Montpellier, France. US low-fare carrier Spirit Airlines will restore some of the 40% capacity cuts made following 11 September and begin services from Denver when it adds 12 daily frequencies on 9 May. From Denver, Spirit will operate two daily flights to Detroit and one to Fort Lauderdale. Finnair has begun three-times weekly services between Helsinki and Hong Kong. Israeli private airline Arkia will operate a series of charter flights to Osaka, Japan, from March as part of its policy to compete with El Al. From 27 March Lauda Air will begin twice-weekly scheduled services from Vienna to Dubai. US low-cost carrier JetBlue Airways will launch twice-daily service between Washington Dulles and both Long Beach and Oakland, California, on 1 May, using Airbus A320s.
Source: Flight International
