Our sister publication, AvNews, rounds-up this week's news from the Americas and Caribbean including American Airlines Chicago-Beijing service to finally get off the ground; LAN's $2.83 billion fleet investment; Hawaiian to serve Haneda and strong economic growth reported for Brazil.
New Chicago-Beijing Service for AA
American Airlines will begin services from its Chicago O'Hare hub to Beijing on May 25, one month later than originally planned.
The B777 service will compete with United Airlines. From July, American will operate a full daily rotation. IATA BSP data shows that over 60,000 passengers travelled by air between the two cities between February 2009 and 2010.
LAN's Sky High Fleet Spend
Jorge Awad, chairman of Chilean carrier LAN, announced during a shareholders meeting that the airline will invest $500 million in 2010 and a further $1 billion in 2011 in new generation aircraft.
This is in addition to the $1.4 billion announced in 2009, bringing the total investment to expand the airline's fleet to $2.83 billion over the 2010-2013 period.
Hawaiian Wins Tokyo Slot
Hawaiian Airlines has been granted access to operate a new scheduled non-stop service from Honolulu as part of four new slots awarded by the US DOT for new services to Tokyo Haneda.
There are currently no non-stop services between Honolulu and Haneda, however United, Delta, All Nippon, JAL and China Airlines have transported over 1.3 million passengers from HNL to Tokyo Narita during the February 2009-2010 period.
Brazil's Economy: Reason to be Cheerful?
According to analysts from Brazil's Central Bank, the country's economy is likely to grow by 6% in 2010, and 4.5% in 2011. The bank has increased its estimate of GDP growth for Brazil from the original 5.81% to 6% this year. The report is part of a weekly edition of the bank's forecast of the Brazilian economy.
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