A subsidiary airline specially created by British Airways to take advantage of the transatlantic 'open skies' policy will start flights tomorrow. Called OpenSkies, the new airline will fly from Paris's Orly airport to JFK airport in New York.
Just 82 passengers will fly on the Boeing 757 planes which will be used on the daily service between the two cities. There will be 24 passengers in business class, where their seats will convert into fully-flat beds, while the premium plus passengers will have extra legroom.
The economy section will consist of just 30 seats, allowing passengers more room and more service.
The open skies deal between EU and the US came into effect at the end of March 2008 after years of negotiation. Before, it would not have been possible for BA or any other EU carrier to fly direct to America from a destination outside their own country.
The deal has also allowed any EU or US airline to use Heathrow Airport in west London for flights to America. Before March, just four carriers - BA, Virgin Atlantic, American Airlines and US airline United - were allowed to fly to America from Heathrow.
However, there have been complaints from Europe that, so far, American carriers have got the best of the deal in that they can fly within Europe, while the within-America option is not yet available to EU airlines. BA and other EU carriers are hoping that a complete 'go anywhere' open skies deal can be achieved eventually.
The BA OpenSkies initiative has come at a time when three business-class-only UK-US airline ventures have failed. MAXjet and Eos, which operated between Stansted and America have gone out of business, and Silverjet, which flew to the US and Dubai from Luton, has also just ceased flights.
'This is an exciting new chapter in our history as, for the first time, we will be flying directly between continental Europe and the US,' commented BA's CEO Willie Walsh.
'We are confident that OpenSkies will have a successful future. It will benefit from BA's experience in the transatlantic market and have the ability to be innovative and respond quickly to changing customer demands. OpenSkies will become a test-bed for new customer services and onboard products that we hope to integrate into BA fleet.'
BA said a second Boeing 757 was scheduled to join OpenSkies' fleet later this year and the new subsidiary would have six aircraft by the end of 2009. Other European destinations being considered for the airline include Amsterdam, Brussels, Frankfurt and Milan.
