Throughout 2023 and 2024, airlines have competed to expand their U.S.-to-Europe network with flights to smaller European cities that would have formerly only been accessible by regional airlines and ones that leave from secondary U.S. cities like Denver and Portland.
A new report from travel intelligence firm ForwardKey shows that, after several years of rebounding, the number of visitors to countries that make up the European Union has finally reached pre-pandemic levels, even before the popular summer travel period.
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While it already runs flights to the capital of the Netherlands from 20 U.S. cities, flagship Dutch carrier KLM (AFRAF) just announced that it will launch a new route this coming October. As broken by Travel + Leisure, the new flight from Portland to Amsterdam will launch on Oct. 27 and run three times a week on Tuesdays, Fridays, and Sundays.
‘Provides passengers of Portland convenient connections’
The flight will replace an existing Delta Air Lines (DAL) route between the two destinations. That flight has been around for several years. It will run for the last time on Oct. 25. Delta and KLM are part of the same SkyTeam alliance so which airline will run the route is simply a matter of logistics around existing planes and pilot numbers. However, Delta has not been publicly commenting on the changes.
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“The service provides passengers of Portland convenient connections to KLM's extensive network across Europe and beyond,” Air France-KLM Vice President of Commercial for North America Boaz Hulsman said in a statement. “KLM’s transatlantic network and [reaffirms] our commitment to connecting people and places.”
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Here is what you need to know about the new Portland-Amsterdam flight
The new KLM flight will run on a Boeing 787-9 (BA) plane and, by the summer, see its frequency upped to five times a week with extra flights on Thursdays and Saturdays. Each plane is equipped with 30 seats in World Business class, 21 seats in Premium Comfort class, and 224 economy seats.
The route will span 5,004 miles and take 10 hours west to east and 9 hours and 25 minutes east to west.
Delta, meanwhile, recently launched new flights to Naples and Venice in Europe from several U.S. cities and to Aruba and St. Maarten in the Caribbean from Minneapolis on top of increasing the frequency of the routes it runs to Puerto Rico and the Cayman Islands — the entire area in the Caribbean has been seeing high demand from sun-seekers looking for new places to go on that annual trip to the tropics. Competitors like American Airlines (AAL) and JetBlue Airways (JBLU) have also been setting their sights on the region with new flights of their own announced over the last few months.
"As the leading carrier from MSP to Latin America and the Caribbean, we're looking forward to increasing our seats to these popular destinations, offering unmatched convenience and expanded choices for our customers," Delta's Senior Vice President of Network Planning Joe Esposito said in a statement. "With the addition of Aruba, St. Maarten, and recently-added Mazatlán, customers have three brand-new sunny destinations to look forward to this winter."
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