Business Travel Tips

Southwest announced the names of six more cities where it will discontinue AirTran service.
The list includes: Allentown, Pa.; Lexington, Ky.; Harrisburg, Pa.; Huntsville, Ala.; Sarasota, Fla. and White Plains, N.Y.

The airline had announced last November other nine AirTran cities — Asheville, N.C.; Atlantic City, N.J.; Bloomington/Normal, Ill.; Charleston, W. Va.; Dallas/Fort Worth; Knoxville, Tenn.; Miami; Moline/Quad Cities, Ill. and Newport News, Va. — where it decided to discontinue AirTran service.

Also Southwest announced 22 AirTran airports that will continue to operate and will eventually join the Southwest route map — domestic airports include: Akron-Canton, Ohio; Branson, Mo.; Charlotte; Dayton, Ohio; Des Moines; Flint, Mich.; Grand Rapids, Mich.; Key West, Fla.; Memphis; Pensacola, Fla.; Portland, Maine; Richmond, Va.; Rochester, N.Y.; San Juan, Puerto Rico; Washington Reagan National and Wichita, Kan; international airports include: Aruba; Bermuda; Cancun, Mexico; Montego Bay, Jamaica; Nassau, Bahamas and Punta Cana, Dominican Republic.

Virgin America will add nonstop flights between Philadelphia and California in April.

The carrier will begin three daily round-trip flights from Philadelphia to Los Angeles starting April 4.  
Philadelphia – San Francisco service — with two daily round-trip flights — will begin April 10.

To celebrate the new routes, Virgin America is offering introductory one-way fares as low as $129 between Philadelphia and Los Angeles and $149 between Philadelphia and San Francisco, excluding taxes and fees.

Virgin America will also offer connecting flights between Philadelphia and San Diego, Seattle and Las Vegas.

Long haul low cost AirAsia X — AirAsia affiliate — announced it will stop service to Europe and India.

Beginning on March 30, 2012 AirAsia X will suspend Kuala Lumpur – Paris service (currently four weekly flights), as Kuala Lumpur – London service (currently six weekly flights) will see its last flight on March 31, 2012.

AirAsia X will stop flying to Mumbai (four weekly flights) on January 31, 2012 and to New Delhi (currently daily service) on March 22, 2012.

Southwest Airlines will start a daily service between Atlanta and Los Angeles on June 10, 2012. The carrier will fly one daily round-trip flight on this new route.

Southwest subsidiary AirTran currently flies four daily round-trip flights between Atlanta and Los Angeles.
Beginning June 10, one of those four AirTran flights will shift over to Southwest.

On Feb. 12, 2012, Southwest will start 15 daily nonstop flights from Atlanta to five destinations — Baltimore/Washington, Chicago Midway, Denver, Houston Hobby, and Austin, Texas — and on March 10, 2012 it will add daily, roundtrip flights to Las Vegas and Phoenix.

Salt Lake City (SLC) and New York JFK have been added to the TSA Pre™ pilot program.

SLC will offer TSA Pre Pilot to participants traveling on Delta, as JFK will offer the program to pilot participants traveling on American.

Also two more airports, Minneapolis St. Paul (for Delta passengers) and Los Angeles LAX (for American Airline passengers) will begin offering TSA Pre™ pilot.

TSA says it received positive feedback from the overwhelming majority of the nearly 200,000 passengers who have experienced the program at the participating airports — Atlanta (ATL), Dallas-Fort Worth (DFW), Detroit (DTW), Miami (MIA) and Las Vegas’ McCarran (LAS).