D/FW to announce historic non-stop flight to Heathrow
By DAVID WETHE
[email protected]
Top executives for Dallas/Fort Worth Airport and British Airways are expected to announce an historic new nonstop flight from North Texas to London Heathrow Airport on Wednesday.
Jeff Fegan, the airport's chief executive, is expected to announce the flight on a conference call along with Willie Walsh, the chief executive of British Airways, according to a source, who was not authorized to make the announcement and declined to be identified.
British Airways operates a daily nonstop from D/FW to London's smaller airport, Gatwick. It's expected to switch that service to Heathrow, Europe's largest air hub.
The changes are happening because of the so-called "Open Skies Agreement" between the United States and the European Union struck in late April. It allows any airline to fly any route between the United States and Europe and, most importantly, it opens U.S.-Heathrow routes to competition for the first time.
Under previous treaty, only four airlines were allowed to fly between the U.S. and Heathrow: United, American, British Airways, and the U.K.’s Virgin Atlantic Airlines.
The D/FW route switch promises to be significant for North Texas, because it opens up far more connections to Europe, Africa and Asia. The new flight is expected to significantly add international traffic to D/FW's new Terminal D.
Flights to Heathrow are expected to begin sometime around March 30, 2008, when the agreement takes effect.
In a news release distributed Monday afternoon, D/FW Airport said it would be making a “major announcement on new international service." The release also said Fegan would make the announcement from the United Kingdom. The airport declined to comment further.
D/FW sends about 28,000 passengers a year to Heathrow through other airports.
American Airlines, a code-share partner with British Airways and the dominant carrier at D/FW, has two nonstop daily flights from North Texas to Gatwick Airport.
The Fort Worth-based carrier "has it under consideration" to switch one of its two D/FW flights to Heathrow from Gatwick, said Tim Smith, a spokesman for American.
It also has a number of flights from other U.S. cities to Heathrow. And the airline could switch any number of those flights to D/FW Airport if it wanted to, Smith said.