Delta Air Lines on Wednesday announced that the U.S. Department of Transportation and the European Commission granted permission to Delta to expand its service at London’s Heathrow Airport (LHR).
(Photo by Matt Molnar)
Delta Air Lines is now allowed to operate new daily, year-round flights between London’s Heathrow Airport and Boston and Miami international airports. The new services will begin on March 27 and the flight schedules and fares will be announced next week.
“Delta appreciates the efforts of the U.S. Department of Transportation and the European Commission to expand competition between the U.S. and Heathrow by making slots available for new entrants on these routes,” said Glen Hauenstein, Delta’s executive vice president of Network Planning, Revenue Management and Marketing.
The new flights will be operated within the scope of Delta’s trans-Atlantic joint venture with Air France-KLM and Alitalia. Delta, Air France-KLM and Alitalia will serve Amsterdam, London-Heathrow, Paris and Rome from both cities while Miami will serve the same routed and an additional service to Milan operated by Alitalia.
Earlier this year, Delta applied for the rights to serve Boston and Miami from Heathrow as part of a divestiture of slots required following the U.S. and EU’s approval of an alliance between American Airlines and British Airways.
Delta said that its proposed Heathrow service would bring the most benefit to consumers because SkyTeam, its global alliance, holds the smallest percentage of slots at London’s airport. Delta began operations at Heathrow in March 2008 after the United States reached an Open Skies agreement with the European Union.
The Open Skies agreement eliminated decades-old restrictions on the number of U.S. airlines allowed to serve the market. Since then, Delta began offering seven daily round-trip flights in the Heathrow market.
