Southwest
sets Dulles strategy
Southwest said it would begin service from
Washington Dulles Airport on Oct. 5 with seven
daily nonstops to Chicago (Midway), one to Las Vegas, two to
Orlando and two to Tampa.
Dulles will
become the 63rd destination for Southwest. The Virginia location
will also bracket the nations capital for the carrier, which
already has a major operation at Baltimore Washington
Airport.
Expedia
to power Conde Nast site
Conde
Nast agreed to make Expedia.com the exclusive online travel
provider and booking engine for the Conde Nast Web site at www.concierge.com.
Expedia said it
will get access to customized content from Conde Nast.
El Al
adds nonstops for Los Angeles
El
Al next week plans to convert three of its five weekly Los
Angeles-Tel Aviv flights to nonstops. Beginning July 23, the
Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday flights will operate nonstop with 777
aircraft, while the Monday and Wednesday flights will continue to
operate one-stop, via Toronto, on 767s.
Spirit
Airlines gets cash infusion
Spirit
Airlines received an undisclosed amount of new equity
capital from Indigo Partners and Oaktree Capital
Management.
Indigo is a
private equity fund that invests in airline ventures, including
low-cost carriers Tiger Airways in Singapore and WizzAir in Poland
and Hungary. Its investment gave it a controlling stake.
Bill Franke, an
Indigo managing partner and former America West CEO, became Spirits
chairman.
New
E&O policy offered to trade
A new
errors-and-omissions option for the travel trade is approved for
sale in 32 states and the District of Columbia, according to the
product provider, Travel Professionals Insurance
Network (TPIN) in Shawnee Mission, Kan.
TPIN launched
three products in May using the name Specialty Global Insurance
Services, but rebranded almost immediately with a name more clearly
tied to the travel professional.
In states where
approvals are pending agents selling more than $5 million a year
can buy the coverage through a broker on a nonadmitted
basis.
Eos joins
ARC, upgrades GDS link
Eos joined ARC and IATAs Billing and
Settlement Plan in the U.K., boosted its participation level in the
GDSs and said it would add a second flight between New York
(Kennedy) and London (Stansted) Sept. 8.
The enhanced GDS
participation allows agents to obtain electronic tickets for the
all-premium airline immediately on Sabre, Galileo and Apollo, and
on Amadeus and Worldspan beginning in August. Agencies also will
get real-time, direct access to seat inventory.
Shorts
Travel buys agency assets
Shorts
Travel Management, a mainly corporate agency in Overland
Park, Kan., has acquired the assets of Executive
Travel of North Kansas City. Executive Travel had annual
sales of $20 million and operated on-site locations and a res
center in Kansas City. Its 20 full-time employees were offered
positions with the expanded firm.
Shorts ranked
38th on Travel Weeklys 2006 Power List, with annual volume of $177
million.
Baltic
cruise lines agree to merge
Two Baltic Sea
cruise operators, Silja Line and the
Tallink Group, agreed to merge and form what they
said will be the largest cruise operation in the Baltic Sea. The
two lines carried more than 6 million passengers in
2005.
The merged entity
will have 21 vessels on routes connecting Finland, Estonia,
Germany, Latvia and Sweden. No name changes are planned, and the
ships will continue to operate under the same flags as
before.
OneTravel
Holdings files bankruptcy
OneTravel
Holdings, parent of FS SunTours (which formerly operated
as SunTrips), Farequest Holdings and Flightserv, filed for
Chapter 11 bankruptcy in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court
for the Western District of Texas. In a continuing shake-up,
several company directors resigned the day of the filing. Ed Wegel,
who was designated chief restructuring officer on May 30, became
president and CEO.
Yahoo
integrates travel planning tool
Yahoo has integrated its Trip
Planner tool across the Yahoo network, including Yahoo
Travel, Yahoo FareChase, Yahoo Search and Yahoo Travel Guides. Trip
Planner enables consumers to plan trips; add maps, photos and
journals; and share them with others. Trip Planner occupies
prominent real estate on http://travel.yahoo.com, which features Travelocity as
the air, car and hotel booking engine.
Friends
& Colleagues
Ronald
Warwick will retire as commodore on July 31 following 36
years of service with Cunard Line. Warwick joined Cunard as a third
officer in 1970 and first sailed as a captain aboard the Cunard
Princess in 1986. He was promoted to commodore of the Cunard fleet
in 2003, a title that had also been held by his father, William
Warwick, in the 1970s. " " " Bill Peeper,
president of the Orlando/Orange County Convention & Visitors
Bureau since it formed in 1984, will retire on Dec. 31. " " "
Marsha Miller has been promoted to executive
director of travel at Conde Nast Traveler magazine. Miller has been
with Conde Nast Traveler since 1996. " " " Patrick
Burke, managing director of the Atlantic Hotel on Jersey
in the U.K.s Channel Islands, has been named chairman of Small
Luxury Hotels of the World. He succeeds Jonathan
Slater of the Chester Grosvenor Hotel in Chester, England,
who remains on the SLH board. " " " Kedrick Malone
has been named managing partner of FreemanGroup Destinations, a
tourism consultant for destinations. Malone was the British Virgin
Islands director of tourism. " " " JAL Hotels Co., which operates
the Nikko Hotels brand, has announced the retirement of its
president, Shosuke Machida. JAL Hotels has
appointed Mamoru Tsutsumi to replace Machida.
Tsutsumi was senior executive vice president.