United Airlines adds flights to Africa, the Middle East and Europe

by Katie Hammel on

Starting May 2, 2010, United Airlines fans can fly the carrier from the US to Africa for the first time in the company’s history. United will offer flights from DC to Accra, Ghana (and then on to Lagos, Nigeria). Beginning April 18, 2010, passengers flying from DC to Kuwait can also continue on to Bahrain.

Chicago to Brussels nonstop on March 28, 2010. The carrier also added several other new routes this year, including DC to Moscow, and DC to Geneva.

“Our first-ever non-stop service to Africa will offer customers convenient and comfortable travel opportunities to visit two of the fastest-growing cities in the continent,” United’s senior VP of planning said in a press release. “In addition, our new services to Bahrain and Brussels will open more international routes to our customers throughout Europe and the Middle East.”

Spring Airlines gets international approval

by Stephen Greenwood on

Remember that story about China’s Spring Airlines considering standing-room only tickets?

Well, if they ever get around to realizing that glorious dream, standing-room only could be slowly making it’s way closer to you.

The General Administration of Civil Aviation of China (CAAC) ruled on Thursday that the airline will be able to operate specific international routes. Spring Airlines is the second private firm that has received this approval by the CAAC.

This will initially open up short-distance routes, such as flights to Hong Kong, Macau, Japan, South Korea and Russia. The airline was founded in 2005 and currently has 13 Airbus 320 passenger jets, with 30 domestic air routes.

Any volunteers for when Spring Airlines decides to take standing room to trans-Pacific flights?

Yet another new travel startup

by Jerry Guo on

I just came across this little website: flyhere.com. It’s a really simple tool that does just about one thing. Flyhere tells you, well, which flights you can take to get somewhere. You type in a destination, and it’ll tell you all the nonstop flights to that city. Likewise, you can type in a departure point, and it’ll tell you all the places you can fly to from there.

But perhaps most helpful is when you type in both your destination and departure airports, in which case, the site will visually display all the different routes between the two points as well as a list of itineraries for your particular day.

Yes, this is pretty much a single-trick startup. You can’t really hold it up to something like Kayak, but Flyhere could be useful if you’re interested in finding out where you can visit on a direct flight, or if you want to know how to get between two out-of-the-way places.