US commercial carrier Continental Airlines is set to increase its transatlantic flights between London Heathrow Airport and Newark Liberty International Airport later on in 2010, it emerged at the end of January. The airline currently flies between these two destinations three times each day, but with effect from March, a further service will be added, and a fifth will be put in place six months later.

Newark to Heathrow

While Continental Airlines also operates two flights each day between London Heathrow and another airport in the US, Houston, it’s these flights from Newark to Heathrow that – according to the firm’s chairman, Jeff Smisek, represent a “flagship route.”

“As the leading airline in the New York market, we are excited about introducing these schedule and product improvements for our New York-London travellers”, Smisek added, in a company press release issued on January 29th.

”All our New York-London customers will benefit from more flight options, while those traveling to London in BusinessFirst - whether from New York or Houston - will be assured of a flat bed seat whenever they choose to fly with us.”

Continental Airlines Flights

This news emerged just weeks after the announcement of the continued suspension of Continental Airlines flights between Ohio’s Cleveland Hopkins International Airport and Heathrow, although the airline stressed that the two developments were not linked. Rather, it said, the slots it had had at Heathrow were repossessed by the airline carrier that had used them previously.

Newark Liberty International Airport is one of Continental’s three prime operations hubs: the other two being Cleveland Hopkins and George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Texas. The airline’s fleet of passenger aircraft is made up exclusively of Boeing products and, numerically, is dominated by Boeing 737 aircraft, of which it has over 100. The flagships of its fleet are its Boeing 777s, while it has ordered 25 of the brand new Boeing 787 Dreamliners to serve it in future years.

The majority of the Newark-to-Heathrow flights currently involve – and will continue to involve - twin-engined Boeing 757s.

In January 2009, Continental carried out a pioneering flight using aviation biofuels to demonstrate the viability of new, renewable fuel sources as a means of powering aircraft.