British Airways’ (BA) transatlantic subsidiary OpenSkies will operate to New York JFK from Paris Orly and not – as was first intended – Charles de Gaulle.

Part of the reason is that it will be forming a partnership with Orly-based business-only carrier L’Avion from its launch.

L’Avion’s code will be placed on OpenSkies flights between Orly and JFK, although the new airline’s code will not be on any of the French carrier’s flights.

Though no details of schedule co-ordination have been announced, it seems extremely likely that this will happen.

“OpenSkies would be looking to deepen this relationship with L’Avion – this will be the first stage of cooperation,” a BA spokesman told ABTN.

Regarding the switch of airports – which comes as a surprise after OpenSkies managing director Dale Moss said in an online statement on 21 February that CDG slots were in the bag – he said that the codeshare and partnership with L’Avion was one of the driving reasons.

“Orly is closer to the main business area in Paris, so it is more suited for point-to-point airlines,” said the spokesman. “The cost structure hasn’t come into it.”

There is still no date in June confirmed for OpenSkies’ inaugural service, but BA seems confident that the impending High Court hearing - which will decide whether its pilots can strike legally regarding the outsourcing of jobs for the new airline – will not delay its plans.  

Pending regulatory approval, OpenSkies aims to fly to the New York from other European cities.

Question marks have been raised on the viability of the business-only model in the face of such extreme fuel prices at a time of economic downturn, especially following Eos’ collapse at the end of April.

However, L’Avion released exceptionally strong first-quarter figures, with an average load factor of 71% (78% just for March) - which equated to more than 13,000 passengers, two-and-a-half times more than it carried in the same period in 2007.

 
L’Avion managing director Marc Rochet said the results “confirm the development and strategy of L’Avion. This success confirms our innovative business model in a difficult economic world context.”