LOS ANGELES, Dec. 11, 2007 (PRIME NEWSWIRE) -- Delta Air Lines (NYSE:DAL) customers will be able to start booking nonstop travel between Los Angeles International Airport LAX and London's Heathrow Airport later this week as a result of a joint venture agreement signed between Delta and Air France in October. That agreement will make it possible for the two airlines to share both costs and revenues on trans-Atlantic flights beginning in April 2008. The flight, which will be operated by Air France, will begin operating on March 30 from Los Angeles and from London on March 31.
With the new Los Angeles route, Delta will offer customers service on four daily Heathrow flights beginning March: twice daily from New York-JFK, once daily from Atlanta and once daily from Los Angeles. All Heathrow service from Atlanta and New York-JFK will be operated by Delta while service between Los Angeles and Heathrow will be operated by Air France. Each of the flights will be operated on a codeshare basis ensuring that Delta and Air France customers can earn reciprocal frequent flyer miles on either carrier's flights.
"Access to London's Heathrow Airport has long been in the top of Delta's list of priorities and we are pleased to offer our customers access to the world's largest trans-Atlantic market from three of our U.S. gateways beginning in 2008," said Glen Hauenstein, Delta's executive vice president -- Network Planning and Revenue Management.
Passengers on the Los Angeles to London-Heathrow flight will travel on an Air France Boeing 777 aircraft featuring First (Espace Premiere), Business (Espace Affaires) and Economy (Tempo) classes. Flights from Atlanta and New York-JFK will be operated by Delta with Boeing 767-300 ER aircraft featuring both award-winning BusinessElite and Economy class service.
Flights between Los Angeles-LAX and London-Heathrow are scheduled as follows:
--------------------------------------------------------------------- Flight Departs Arrives Begins Frequency --------------------------------------------------------------------- AF061/ Los Angeles-LAX London-Heathrow March 30, Daily DL8399 8:25 p.m. 2:40 p.m.* 2008 --------------------------------------------------------------------- AF060/ London-Heathrow Los Angeles-LAX March 31, Daily DL8306 5 p.m. 8:15 p.m. 2008 --------------------------------------------------------------------- * arrives next day
In addition to service to London-Heathrow, Delta will continue flights to London's Gatwick airport in 2008 with four daily flights from Atlanta, Cincinnati and New York's JFK. In total, Delta will offer customers eight daily flights between London and the United States -- three to New York, three to Atlanta, one to Cincinnati and one to Los Angeles (operated by Air France).
Delta Air Lines operates service to more worldwide destinations than any airline with Delta and Delta Connection flights to 317 destinations in 55 countries. Since 2005, Delta has added more international capacity than any other major U.S. airline and is the leader across the Atlantic with flights to 35 trans-Atlantic markets. To Latin America and the Caribbean, Delta offers nearly 500 weekly flights to 58 destinations. Delta's marketing alliances also allow customers to earn and redeem SkyMiles on nearly 15,000 flights offered by SkyTeam and other partners. Delta is a founding member of SkyTeam, a global airline alliance that provides customers with extensive worldwide destinations, flights and services. Including its SkyTeam and worldwide codeshare partners, Delta offers flights to 479 worldwide destinations in 104 countries. Customers can check in for flights, print boarding passes and check flight status at delta.com.
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