Airlines Beginning to Restore Several Flights to Europe

Reflecting confidence that Americans are returning to European travel, US Airways is restoring most of the transatlantic service that it cut after the Sept. 11 attacks. In the next three months it will add 37 round-trip flights. Only Charlotte, N.C.-Paris and Philadelphia-Brussels, routes cut last fall, are still off the schedule, said spokesman David Castelveter.

Castelveter declined to provide numbers to support the decision to restore flights, but he did say, “Clearly we wouldn’t be adding service if the demand didn’t exist.” The airline earlier reported that its revenue passenger miles were down 7.9% in January and 4.4% in February on international routes overall compared with last year.

Other carriers have announced modest service increases, although not all had released their transatlantic schedules for summer by last week. British Airways will add one daily flight each to its Boston-London, Washington-London and New York-London routes, starting March 31. The moves will restore service between the U.S. and Heathrow airport to pre-Sept. 11 levels. In April, BA will add another weekly flight between New York and London on its supersonic Concorde jet. In February the airline carried 3.6% fewer passengers in the Americas than last year.

Air France plans to restore its second daily flights between Paris and Los Angeles (May 20), Boston (March 31) and Washington (April 16), which were suspended last winter; increase flights to Newark, N.J., and New York; and restore daily Concorde service on June 1. Overall, however, it still plans to provide about 14% fewer seats this summer than last to North America; Dallas service is being eliminated, and some 747s are being replaced with smaller planes on some routes.