Other North & South America Frequent Flyer Programs - SilverJet is GONE!

Yesterday the THIRD All-Upper-Class airline SILVERJET has folded. This comes after MaxJet folded in December and EOS in May.

Information is available on their website: http://www.FlySilverJet.com

Your belief in us was shared by our investors - but regrettably, due to unforeseen circumstances, they were unable to unlock the finance that we needed. As a result, we are very sad to announce that from 30 May 2008, we will cease operations and we are no longer able to honour flight reservations.

We extend our sincerest apologies to those of you who have travel plans with Silverjet in the future and at present. You are advised to seek alternative travel arrangements with other carriers, and contact your credit card company or travel agent directly for information on obtaining refunds.

We are working actively with new investors who are prepared to inject new funds so we can recommence operations. If we are able to achieve this, we will make an announcement as soon as possible and we hope to be able to bring you our very 'sivilised' flying experience again.

That is indeed a shame :(

wow, are there any like these left?

No More from NY to London. But still to other European Cities.

1) L'AVION flying New York (JFK / EWR) to Paris Orly.

Their website is:
http://us.lavion.com/

2) There is a airline called OPENSKIES (partnership with British Airways) which is supposed to start flying NY-PARIS sometime in June.

Their website is:
http://www.flyopenskies.com/

3) And also there is a company called PRIVATAIR which does All-Business flights for major airlines under their name. They do flights for Lufthansa / Swissair / AF-KLM. On their WEBSITE (http://www.privatair.com/cda/privatair/display/main/privatair_content.jsp?zn=privatair&cp=1-2-7-30_4000_0__) the following is stated regarding their filghts:

Here is a list of the flights PrivatAir is currently operating on behalf of partner airlines ( valid as of 1st May 2008).

If you are looking to book a flight on either our Lufthansa, Swiss International Air Lines or Air France-KLM joint operations please contact our airline partners with the links provided.

Lufthansa operations:

Route: six days a week (not operating on Tues night / Wed morning)

Flight Number Departure time Arrival Time Aircraft
Munich - Dubai LH 638 21:30 05:30 A319 LR
Dubai - Munich LH 639 07:45 12:10 A319 LR

Route: six days a week, except Sat
Flight Number Departure time Arrival Time Aircraft
Frankfurt - Newark LH 484 08:15 11:15 BBJ
Newark - Frankfurt LH 485 15:50 05:40 (next day) BBJ

Swiss International Air Lines operation:

Route: six days a week, except Sat

Flight Number Departure time Arrival Time Aircraft
Zurich - Newark LX 018 17:00 20:00 BBJ 2
Newark - Zurich LX 019 21:30 11:30 (next day) BBJ 2

Air France-KLM operation:

Route: six days a week, except Sat

Flight Number Departure time Arrival Time Aircraft
Amsterdam - Houston KL663/NWA3835 14:40 18:25 BBJ
Houston - Amsterdam KL664/NWA3836 19:40 12:25 (next day) BBJ

Not a surprise. Oil at $125-$130/barrel. The U.S. economy is not doing very well. The mainline carriers are not going to easily give up their bread and butter high paying biz and FC pax w/o a fight. Tough market for all premium air service. Still it would be nice if one or two could make a long term go of it.

Now it's interesting that the battle has shifted to Paris. Even though L'Avion (all business class) and OpenSkies (which, btw, is a fully-owned subsidiary of BA) are not exactly the same thing (OpenSkies has 3 classes of service), I think it will be tough for both of them to survive in a market where they compete with AF, DL, CO and AA - and that's only mentioning the nonstops PAR-NYC.