Flights

Qatar Airways will add Philadelphia to its nonstop routes next year, making the city the carrier's fifth gateway in the United States. Qatar Airways chief executive officer Akbar Al Baker announced new routes on three continents Monday at the opening day of a Middle East travel exhibition in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. The airline flies to 126 destinations worldwide from its hub in Doha, the capital of Qatar, which borders Saudi Arabia. "Philadelphia is one of the major hubs of the soon-to-be merged American Airlines/US Airways and will provide Qatar Airways' customers with onward connections to over 100 cities," Al Baker said in a statement.

US Airways Group and American Airlines say their pending merger should win regulatory approval because their networks are complementary and out of more than 900 domestic nonstop routes, only 12 have overlapping nonstop flights. But a study released Tuesday by the Consumer Travel Alliance says that the merger would eliminate connecting-flight competition between the airlines on 761 common connecting routes, and that the new American would be able to raise ticket prices on those flights.

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina - Stiff winds blew ash from a Chilean volcano Tuesday in a widening arc across Argentina to the capital, grounding most air travel in the country for much of the day. Airborne ash can severely damage jet engines, and the state-owned airlines Aerolineas Argentinas and Austral canceled all flights. At least six international carriers also suspended flights between Buenos Aires and cities in the United States, Europe, and South America, and flights from Chile over Argentine territory also were suspended.

An airline subsidiary of Air Canada, airAlliance, plans to start flights between Philadelphia and Montreal June 4, with introductory round-trip fares of $183. The twice-daily flights are scheduled to take one hour, 40 minutes to Montreal and one hour, 55 minutes to Philadelphia. The airAlliance service using 37-seat Dash-8 turboprop airplanes will go head-to-head with three daily USAir jet flights, which fly the route in about 1 1/2 hours. United Airlines will handle ground servicing for airAlliance at Philadelphia International Airport.

The U.S. government is planning to propose a new rule that, for the first time, would limit the number of flights planes can make in their lifetimes, the New York Times reported today. The newspaper said the proposal by the Federal Aviation Administration focuses on the number of flights that metal-fatigue tests show a given type of plane can safely endure. Each type of aircraft would be allowed to make half that number of flights. Work on the proposal began months ago, the newspaper said, but was speeded after an accident in which an Aloha Airlines jet lost part of its roof during a flight over the Pacific Ocean on April 28. If the proposed rule had been in effect, the Aloha jet would have been grounded prior to the flight.

Passengers traveling from Philadelphia International Airport after Labor Day will be spared the deep cuts in flight schedules that some other cities will see as airlines grapple with soaring fuel costs. Published airline schedules for October show domestic flights and seat capacity here will be reduced less than 2 percent, compared with October 2007. "Philadelphia will lose 1.8 percent seat capacity in October compared to a year ago," said deputy aviation director James M. Tyrrell.

Is there room for another search engine for flights? If Hipmunk.com can truly save us time, then absolutely. The "agony" sort feature takes into account the price, duration and number of stops. I tested Hipmunk for an October round trip between Los Angeles and New York. It returned a great $279 fare on three airlines, matching results from another search site, Travelocity.com . (That fare may no longer be available.) - Jen Leo, Los Angeles Times

The Philadelphia area is the No. 3 source of visitors to the Bahamas - nearly 50,000 of them in the first nine months of 1990 - and that's enough to prompt Carnival Air Lines to offer regular service between here and Nassau, starting Thursday. Flights will depart and return every day except Wednesday. A down-and-back "play day" package costs only $99 round-trip, including airfare, transfers and a buffet. The flights are designed mainly to carry customers to Carnival's Crystal Palace Resort & Casino, but air-only service also is available for $240 round trip.

LATE NEWS. Planes are stacking up over European airports in record numbers this summer, causing delays for connecting flights to such distant destinations as New York. In June, 30.8 percent of flights landing in Europe were more than 15 minutes late, the worst monthly figure ever. (Last June, 22 percent of flights were delayed.) Pan Am reported almost 20 percent of its July flights from Europe to Kennedy Airport were more than 15 minutes late. Analysts blame the backups on ever-increasing traffic and a poor, fragmented European air-traffic control system.

Francisco Rojas desperately wanted to attend his mother's funeral in the Dominican Republic this week. But yesterday, like hundreds of others, he found himself at Philadelphia International Airport, wondering what to do about his canceled U.S. Airways flight and his family's six missing pieces of luggage. With no hope of flying out of Philadelphia, he spent more than $1,000 to book a flight on another airline out of New York. His son was driving from their home in Passaic, N.J., to pick up Rojas, his wife and his sister and take them to Kennedy International Airport.

US Airways Group and American Airlines say their pending merger should win regulatory approval because their networks are complementary and out of more than 900 domestic nonstop routes, only 12 have overlapping nonstop flights. But a study released Tuesday by the Consumer Travel Alliance says that the merger would eliminate connecting-flight competition between the airlines on 761 common connecting routes, and that the new American would be able to raise ticket prices on those flights.

Qatar Airways will add Philadelphia to its nonstop routes next year, making the city the carrier's fifth gateway in the United States. Qatar Airways chief executive officer Akbar Al Baker announced new routes on three continents Monday at the opening day of a Middle East travel exhibition in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. The airline flies to 126 destinations worldwide from its hub in Doha, the capital of Qatar, which borders Saudi Arabia. "Philadelphia is one of the major hubs of the soon-to-be merged American Airlines/US Airways and will provide Qatar Airways' customers with onward connections to over 100 cities," Al Baker said in a statement.

Workers who push passengers in wheelchairs at Philadelphia International Airport filed complaints with the U.S. Transportation Department and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) alleging that their employer, PrimeFlight Aviation Services, and three airlines that contract with it failed to provide proper training and equipment to safely do their jobs. The complaints, filed Thursday, allege violations of the federal Air Carrier Access Act and ask the Transportation Department to impose fines and order US Airways, United Airlines, and Southwest Airlines to force PrimeFlight to correct the problems.

WE KEEP waiting for our National Voices of Reason - a/k/a Andy Borowitz and/or the Onion - to weigh in on the sequester waiver that Congress gave last week to the neediest among us: impatient airline passengers. The sequester - a major austerity program enacted by Congress to reduce the deficit and, in the process, ruin the fragile recovering economy by imposing severe across-the-board cuts to spending - went into effect March 1. Days after furloughs for air-traffic controllers were imposed as part of the sequester, Congress moved quickly to give the Federal Aviation Administration more flexibility to keep passengers from the inconvenience of waiting in line for flights.

United Airlines says it's on the way to fixing the reliability problems that have driven away travelers. Now it needs to reliably make money.   The airline's parent company reported a $417 million first-quarter loss on Thursday. CEO Jeff Smisek was disappointed with the financial result, but said the airline is making strides in customer service that will eventually help the bottom line.   United is giving customer service training to airport workers and flight attendants worldwide, including those who fly on regional airlines hired by United.

L AUREN BOGGI Goldenberg, 35, of Center City, is founder and CEO of Lithe Method, a "cardio-cheer-sculpting" fitness regimen that has evolved into a full-fledged Lithestyle brand with food, "studio-to-street" activewear and a blog, fithiphealthy.com. Q: How did you come up with the idea for Lithe Method? A: I was a cheerleader and hurt my shoulder and eventually started teaching Pilates but got bored. I missed my cheerleader routine and started doing my own thing. Q: What's behind the name?

JERUSALEM - Israel's cabinet on Sunday approved a deal to allow more EU flights, hours after the country's airlines went on strike out of concerns that the agreement would cost them jobs and possibly ruin their companies. The approval of "Open Skies" raised the possibility of a longer, broader strike by Israel's major labor union. Already, hundreds of people scheduled to fly on Israel's three carriers, El Al, Arkia, and Israir, have been stranded. Later Sunday, Israel's main airline El Al expanded the strike to include all its flights.

ISLAMABAD - Former Pakistani military ruler Pervez Musharraf fled court in a speeding vehicle Thursday to avoid arrest after his bail was revoked in a case involving his decision to fire senior judges while in power over five years ago. The harried escape broadcast live on Pakistani TV marked a new low in Musharraf's troubled return from exile last month to seek a political comeback in the May 11 parliamentary election. Musharraf, 69, made his exit with the help of bodyguards, who pushed him past police officers and paramilitary soldiers and helped him into a black SUV that sped off with a member of his security team hanging on. Lawyers shouted taunts: "Look who is running!

In the Region   Details out on Brit soccer, NBC deal   For the first time ever, a sports league with a major television presence in the United States is televising all of its games nationally and making them all available free of charge online. But it's not one of the traditional American sports giants. It's the Barclays Premier League , England's top soccer competition. NBC Sports Group , a subsidiary of Philadelphia's Comcast Corp. , paid nearly $250 million in 2012 for a three-season rights deal that will begin in August.

NEW YORK - Airlines are struggling this year to get planes to the gate on time. The government said Thursday that 80.3 percent of flights by U.S. carriers arrived on time in January and February. That's down from a record 84.9 percent during last year's storm-free winter. Mother Nature hasn't been as cooperative. The percent of flights canceled in February doubled to 2.4 percent from the same month in 2012. Hawaiian Airlines had the best on-time rating in February, 91.8 percent.