Daily non-stop Connecticut to Europe flight from Northwest canceled

Northwest Airlines, headquartered in Eagan, Minnesota, the United State, is pulling the plug on its daily, non-stop service to Amsterdam, the Netherlands, from Bradley International Airport, Connecticut, the United States, with effect from October 1, 2008. The airline has blamed the stoppage of the service on the exorbitant prices of aviation fuel.

Northwest launched the Connecticut- Amsterdam service was launched in July 2007.

Northwest Airlines also announced that it would suspend flights between Minneapolis-St Paul Airport and Paris, France, and from Detroit, the United States, to Dusseldorf, Germany, from October 1, 2008.

Northwest Airlines Incorporated, a major airline of the United States, is the principal subsidiary of Northwest Airlines Corporation. It has three major hubs in the United States: Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport, Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport, and Memphis International Airport. Northwest Airlines also operates flights from a small hub in Asia at Narita International Airport near Tokyo, Japan, and also operates transatlantic flights in cooperation with partner KLM from Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam, besides having focus city operations at Indianapolis International Airport, Honolulu International Airport, and Seattle-Tacoma International Airport.

The website mercurynews.com quoted Oz Griebel, president and chief executive of the business alliance Metro Hartford Alliance as commenting on the stoppage of Northwest Airlines’ Connecticut-Amsterdam service: “The loss of the direct flight to Europe from Connecticut, which began a year ago, undermines – but does not cripple – the ability by regional officials to boost economic development. We lost a very significant arrow, but we did not lose the quiver.”

“What the Amsterdam air service did for us,” added Griebel, “was allow us to put a spotlight on the region which we were not able to do otherwise. “Were optimistic that when some kind of normalcy returns to oil pricing – whatever normalcy means – Bradley will be back in the mix, particularly for Amsterdam.”

In a statement, Kiran Jain, director of marketing and route development at Bradley International Airport, Connecticut, said: “With oil reaching record-breaking prices, the reductions come in response to soaring fuel costs and decreased customer demand. There was little, if anything, the airport or state economic development officials could have done to prevent Northwest Airlines from pulling the plug on the trans-Atlantic flight.”

The announcement by Northwest Airlines came just a day after Delta Air Lines, headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, the United States, said it will end its flights in September 2008 from Bradley International Airport, Connecticut, to Los Angeles.

Delta Air Lines’ flight to Los Angeles was Bradley International Airport’s only non-stop service to the West Coast. Again, soaring fuel prices were cited as the reason for the action.