.bmp)
.bmp)
LONDON-A Continental Airlines flight from New York arrived at London's Heathrow airport Sunday morning, marking the beginning of the ground-breaking "Open Skies" agreement to free up transatlantic air travel.The accord, which allows airlines freedom to fly between Europe and the United States, replaced previous agreements which meant only four airlines were allowed to fly between the United States and Heathrow, the world's busiest international air hub."What 'Open Skies' has done is open up the market, and it's good news for the passenger and certainly for Heathrow," a spokeswoman for BAA, the airports operator which owns Heathrow as well as six other British airports told AFP.Under 30-year-old rules, only British Airways, Virgin Atlantic and US carriers United Airlines and American Airlines were allowed to fly between Heathrow and American cities, with non-US airlines only permitted to fly from their country of origin and the United States.From Sunday, however, transatlantic routes are opened to all airlines, with Air France and US company Delta Airlines set to launch a joint-venture transatlantic service from Heathrow on Monday.In addition to those two airlines and Continental, US Airways and Northwest Airlines will also be launching new services to Europe's busiest airport,which served about 62.1 million passengers last year. Heathrow has been in the news in recent days for considerably more negative reasons, however, with its newly-opened Terminal 5, used exclusively by British Airways, suffering from cancelled flights, passenger delays and lost baggage.The terminal has been blighted by logistical problems since it opened to much fanfare on Thursday, with troubles compounded by a major computer glitch in the luggage handling system.On Sunday, BA confirmed it had scrapped 37 of its 331 flights that were planned to and from the terminal, and added it was working to return some 15,000 pieces of luggage to their rightful owners.As in the days of Noah....
