New Airline May Rival BA on All-Business Class Route to NYC

Mysterious Odyssey Airlines might soon woo executive flyers with all-business class flights to New York from London city. The airline is predicted to strike a concrete blow to British Airways with use of Cseries jets eliminating an enroute refuel stopover.

Odyssey Airlines, a new entrant in the British air travel industry which is yet to be launched, is anticipated to woo business class flyers with its non-stop all-business class services. Various online sources indicate that the venture would fly the aircraft in an all business class configuration with an unspecified number of seats from London City Airport to New York and several other locations.

If analysts are to be believed, the yet-to-be-launched venture directly targets British Airways and help the CSeries jets manufacturer, Bombardier, strike a more concrete blow to Airbus.

The mysterious airline is expected to offer direct and non-stop flights to New York. Odyssey airline is expected to use the future CSeries jet that would eliminate the necessity of fuel stop in Ireland for those taking its flights to New York. This could actually give the new carrier an edge over BA as its twice-daily flights from London City to New York airport, by contrast, must stop and refuel in Ireland on westbound flights because of Airbus A318’s fuel carrying limitations.

According to one online source, the new airline aims to target the bankers and other professionals by offering a non-stop transatlantic business travel. While the key users would mainly be corporate executives, it is no surprise that some business class leisure travellers and holiday makers would also like to take advantage of the shorter transatlantic travel time, though definitely with some premium on ticket price – the airline by no means seems to make cheap tickets its USP.

Cheap flights or no cheap flights, the airline is sure to grab the attention of the frequent business class travellers to New York and offer enough incentive, perks and advantages to tempt off business flyers to renounce their loyalty program points.

However, considering the past closure of many all-business airlines due to the high costs and the difficulty in matching benefits offered by several big players it can be said that Odyssey’s path may be strewn with financial hazards. Numerous projects in North America and Europe also failed in the last few years, like the U.S.-based Maxjets, that filed for bankruptcy in 2007 and UK-based Silverjet, which foundered in 2008.

Mystery Around Odyssey Airlines

Adding to the mystery of the yet-to-be-launched airline, online sources cited Bombardier spokesperson John Arnone as saying, "We do have unidentified customers for the CS100."

Furthermore, the company confirmed sale of 10 CSeries to an unidentified European customer back in June, which has further added to the mystery over the newest industry entrant.

Bombardiers Advantage

Several online sources reported that Bombardier, primarily a train and plane building organisation, has long sought its CSeries to penetrate the $100 billion-a-year jet market, a decision which partially instigated the Airbus and Boeing into enhancing their top selling narrow body jets’ fleet.

John Arnone was cited as saying, "Yes, the aircraft will be certified to fly over water. That's the intention."

As per the online sources, Bombardiers CSeries passenger jet, a transcontinental aircraft, intends to obtain certification to cover intercontinental routes.

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