Open Skies starts

The long-heralded Open Skies agreement between the European Union and the US has started. It means that any airline in the US can fly to any airport in the UK - including Heathrow, which was previous closed to all but two US airlines. The EU says a fully Open Aviation Area between the EU and the US must remain the objective, but airlines on both sides of the Atlantic have warned darkly of the consequences if Phase II of the Agreement does not go further in liberalising aspects such as ownership.

There's been a fair amount of schedule juggling at Heathrow. Delta now flies to the US from Heathrow after its SkyTeam partner Air France dropped some London-Paris flights. And it has also used its slots, to allow Air France to launch a direct Heathrow-Los Angeles service today. Continental, Northwest, Delta and US Airways will all join their compatriots of United and American Airlines at Heathrow. The focus has clearly been on the London gateway as existing hubs at Frankfurt, Paris and Amsterdam for example, all have multiple runways where slot allocation is much less of an issue.