Routes: Air Italy at SFO + Southwest & Hawaiian to Maui, Delta, Virgin, AA, Air France, more

In this week's news, Air Italy will launch the San Francisco-Milan service in a few days; Maui gets a new service in southwest Oakland and Hawaiian flights departing from Sacramento; Delta upgrades LAX-Sydney aircraft; new routes to Korea launched from Minneapolis and Boston The "big move" takes place this weekend in Istanbul; Delta and Virgin Atlantic will add new routes to London next year; American starts driving his first new A321neo; Air France starts DFW flights; Ethiopian comes to Houston and Royal Air Maroc starts service in Miami; United launches its new Polaris cabin from Newark to Hong Kong; Air Canada delays some new American routes; and Avianca of Colombia reduces its American network.

After launching a new service on April 3 between Los Angeles International and Milan Malpensa four times a week, Air Italy will do the same with San Francisco International Tuesday (April 10th) also with four weekly return trips. The flights will leave the SFO at 19:10. Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays, arrival at Malpensa the following afternoon. The carrier uses an Airbus A330-200 on the road, with 24 business clbad seats almost flat and flat configured in 2-2-2 and 228 economy seats in 2-4-2 configuration. Air Italy, backed by the deep pockets of Qatar Airways, also serves New York JFK and Miami.

In Oakland, Southwest Airlines is scheduled to begin its second flight to Hawaii on April 7 by introducing daily return flights to Kahului, Maui. The airline's first air route between Oakland and Honolulu began on March 17. Next month, Southwest will move to Hawaii for San Jose. It plans to launch the SJC-Honolulu link on May 5th, followed by SJC-Maui on May 26th. Meanwhile, Hawaiian Airlines inaugurated this week a new daily service to Kahului. Hawaiian uses one of its new A321neos on the road with 16 seats in first clbad, 44 extra premium comfort seats and 129 in the main cabin. (On the East Coast, meanwhile, Hawaiian on Friday launched the A330 Boston-Honolulu non-stop service – the nation's longest non-stop domestic flight at 5,095 miles.)

This week, Delta rolled out one of its newly refreshed 777-200ERs on the Los Angeles-Sydney route. The revised aircraft offers the company's four international seats, including the Delta One business clbad, with 28 individual suites with private access doors; the company's new premium Premium Premium cabin with 48 seats; 90 additional Comfort + seats and 112 main cabin seats (configured as new instead of 10), for a total capacity of 296 pbadengers. The aircraft also features ambient light-emitting diodes and file screens providing unlimited access to the Delta Studio's free entertainment range. .

Elsewhere, Delta launched this week a new daily transpacific service from Minneapolis-St. Paul in Seoul Incheon as part of its joint venture partnership with Korean Air. This 13-hour flight also uses a refurbished 777-200ER. And to complement Delta's growing presence in Boston Logan, Korean Air will begin on April 12th in Seoul as part of the joint venture. Korean will use a 787-9 Dreamliner to make this link five days a week.

Delta also announced this week that it will offer a new British option next summer as part of its partnership with Virgin Atlantic. This new option will consist of daily flights from Boston and New York JFK to London Gatwick Airport. With the London-Heathrow flights of the two carriers, Delta / Virgin will benefit from a total of 18 daily flights between Boston and New York to London. "The details of Gatwick's schedule will be announced later this year," Delta said. The carrier is also improving planes on Boston-LHR flights this week with an Airbus A330-200, which it is already using on its JFK-LHR route. And from November, Delta announced, it will deploy refurbished 767-400s on both Heathrow routes, offering Delta One, Premium Select, Comfort +, and main cabin seating options.

Turkish Airlines said: "Turkish Airlines has started its big move to Istanbul Airport, the largest airport project in the world. After the first stage of opening last October, the big move began at 3:00 am today. Unique in the history of world aviation, the move will last a total of 45 hours and end on Saturday, April 6 at 23:59. [The new] Istanbul Airport and [the existing] Atatürk Airport will be closed for all pbadenger flights for a period of 12 hours between the last Turkish Airlines flight departing from Ataturk Airport to Singapore on Saturday, 6 April at 2 am and the flight from Istanbul Airport to Ankara Esenboga Airport at 14:00 the same day. Following this, Turkish Airlines flights departing from the Istanbul airport will be increased gradually, in accordance with the established plan. "The airline also announced that the new airport would get the IATA code from the old airport: IST.The former Ataturk airport code will switch to ISL.

American Airlines this week launched its first brand new Airbus A321neo on the Phoenix-Orlando route. It has a total of 100 A321neos on order and will gradually integrate them on the Phoenix-Anchorage road this summer and then LAX and Phoenix in Hawaii later this year, replacing the 757. The new engines of these aircraft will give them an extra battery life. 'about 400 nautical miles over the older A321,' said American. New AA "neos" will carry 196 pbadengers; its current A321s have a capacity of 181 or 187 people, depending on the model (not counting its A321T, specially configured for transcontinental connections with a first clbad cabin and a business clbad, these planes can only carry 108 pbadengers). The new A321 will be equipped with ViaSat Wi-Fi, streaming entertainment, including live television, and Airbus XL baggage bins, which "dramatically increase capacity". AA said its current A321 fleet will also have these larger bins starting later this year.

In other routes, the American launched this week a new service between Los Angeles International and Louisville, Kentucky, using a 128-seat A319; the eastbound segment is a red eye, starting at LAX at 22:55. And from October 27, American will participate in a second daily departure from Miami to London Heathrow.

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Air France has launched this week the new Paris CDG-Dallas / Ft., with plans to operate up to five flights a week during the summer season. Air France uses an A330 with 36 fully flat seats in business clbad, 21 in economy clbad and 167 in main cabin. The French company also put into operation this week a giant 580-seat Airbus A380 on one of its two daily Atlanta-Paris CDG flights. The other flight uses a 777.

Starting this week, the Newark-Hong Kong line from United Airlines is using a 777-300ER offering its new Polaris business clbad with 60 sleeper seats as well as its Premium Plus economy cab. Last year, United opened a Polaris show in Newark for international pbadengers in its new front cabin.

On June 23, Ethiopian Airlines will add Houston Bush Intercontinental as a new American gateway, using a 787-8 Dreamliner to operate three flights a week to Addis Ababa. The new Houston service will be operated via a stopover in Lome, Togo. In other news on African roads, Royal Air Maroc started this week to fly between Miami and Casablanca, using 787 Dreamliners to operate three flights a week.

In the Western Hemisphere, Air Canada attributes to the 737MAX the cause of some changes to its transborder schedule. Seasonal service between Portland and Toronto was postponed from May 24 to July 1, and Vancouver-Boston was delayed from June 1 to 16. Colombia, Avianca, is making serious cuts in its US service. On May 1, Avianca will stop JFK-Cartagena flights between Boston and Bogota, Chicago-Bogota and New York, and on June 1, flights from Boston to San Salvador and flights between Chicago, New York JFK and Orlando and Guatemala City.

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Chris McGinnis is the founder of TravelSkills.com. The author is solely responsible for the content above, which is used here with permission. You can reach Chris at [email protected] or on Twitter @cjmcginnis.