Hello Everyone Houston Intercontinental Newsletter for May 5th, 2002 PLEASE NOTE: The URL of the IAH Spotters Club has changed. The club may now be accessed at the following address: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/iahspottersclub --------------------------------------------------------------------- -Allegro will be starting a summer charter program from IAH in May that features twenty-three weekly flights to five leisure destinations. Cancun will see daily service, with four flights on Thursdays and Sundays. Puerto Vallarta will get a single flight on Wednesdays and Saturdays. Cozumel will be served twice on Mondays and Fridays. Montego Bay, Jamaica will get a single flight on Mondays and Fridays. Finally, Punta Cana, Dominican Republic (a first time charter destination from Houston) will get single flight on Tuesdays and Saturdays. All of the aforementioned services will be flown with 727s. -TransMeridian Airlines will be taking over Las Vegas-Houston Funjet charters from American Trans Air effective May 2nd. They will fly a single service on Mondays and Fridays, with an A320. -Sun Country is back at IAH on a limited basis. On June 15th they will resume service to Houston on a Laughlin (AZ)-Amarillo-Dallas-Houston-Laughlin routing every Saturday and Wednesday with 737-800s. Flight schedules are tentative and everything is subject to change (all times local): *SX Flight 257 Depart DFW 11:15AM Arrive IAH 12:15PM Depart IAH 1:15PM Arrive Laughlin (IFP) 2:10PM. -Another air link from Houston to Africa may be in the works. Khalifa Airlines, an upstart Algerian airline flying A340-300s within northern Africa, Asia, and Europe, is currently in negotiations with several Houston based oil companies to supply direct air service between IAH and Southern Algeria where many of these companies have interests. This flight would be nonscheduled and likely twice a week, using one of the airlines A340s. This potential service follows in the footsteps of the collaborative and highly successful World Airways/SONANGOL MD-11 flights between Houston and Luanda, Angola aimed at oil traffic. -USAirways will be adding a fourth roundtrip on Philadelphia-Houston effective September 8th. The new service will be operated by a 737-300, and will be the last PHL-IAH flight of the day, and the first IAH-PHL flight the next day. With this new flight, USAirways will serve IAH with a total of eleven flights a day. In addition they will introduce the A320 on the late PHL-IAH flight starting in July. -February 28th, 2003 will be the last day of turboprop operations for Continental Express. On March 1st, all COEX flights out of Houston (the only remaining Continental hub with prop operations) will begin to be flown with jets, making Continental an all jet airline, one of the first major US airlines to become so. The turboprops being replaced are all ATR-42s, and they will be succeeded with a mix of ERJ-135s and -145s. -Air Jamaica is quickly increasing service on their Montego Bay-Houston route. As previously mentioned in the IAH Newsletter, they will be adding a fourth weekly frequency on Saturdays effective May 25th. In addition, they will now be introducing Thursday flights on May 23rd and Monday flights on May 27th. This will bring the airline to six weekly flights, all flown by A320s. Air Jamaica hopes to reinstate daily service later this year. -Continental Airlines started non-stop Houston-Amsterdam service on Wednesday, May 1st. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- That's all for now.... If you have any news about IAH, want an invitation to the IAH Spotter's Club, or just want to chat, you can contact me these ways: E-Mail: Lear777@aol.com AOL Instant Messenger: Lear777 Website: http://members.aol.com/lear777/index.html IAH Spotters Club: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/iahspottersclub Regards Brian Miller