British Airways launches new airline

Diane Clarkson | January 09, 2008, 06:52 PM

British Airways announced plans to launch a new airline in June offering direct service between New York and Brussels or Paris.
Open Skies’ managing director describes the airline as "a very special point-to-point application."

Of course, Open Skies is not alone in this special point-to-point’ness. Eos Airlines, Silverjet, and l'Avion are in the business-class space with Virgin Airlines moving in too. (MaxJet, another business-class focused airline, filed Chapter 11 a couple of weeks ago, citing increasing fuel costs.)

Open Skies is not exclusively selling business class tickets. Of the 82 seats on the plane, 30 will be economy class and the rest will be split between business class and “premium economy”.

In the US, companies are implementing business travel cost containment policies. Sixty four percent of frequent business travelers (those traveling 10 times per year for business or more) report that their companies have implemented policies designed to contain costs such as encouraging advance bookings, encouraging teleconferencing, etc.

This data point doesn’t suggest that another business-class focused airline is a bad idea. It does, however, suggest the wisdom of Open Skies’ class variety and that business-class airlines have just gotten a bit more competitive.