Dear reader,

The electronic newsletter 'CWT Traveler' informs you on a monthly basis about business travel related topics. This month a special Star Alliance edition. If you would like to react on the content or ask a question please send an e-mail to info@carlsonwagonlit.nl

• Website Star Alliance enhanced
• Air Canada expands Germany - Canada services with Lufthansa
• All Austrian Airlines destinations now on Google Earth
• bmi expands its network in Saudi Arabia
• LOT starts the sale of tickets to Beijing
• Lufthansa Children’s lounge
• SAS offers improved intercontinental connections
• Singapore Airlines adds the Airbus A380 to its flight schedule
• Swiss Fleet
• TAP Reinforces Brasilia

Website Star Alliance enhanced
Star Alliance, the way the earth connects, has added two Chinese language versions and enhanced the general content of its www.staralliance.com website.
"Simplified Chinese", primarily targeting mainland China and "Traditional Chinese", mainly for Hong Kong and Taiwan, are now available to the growing number of Chinese-speaking customers. This improvement has been implemented just under a year after the alliance’s internet presence was completely revamped and made available in seven languages - English, French, German, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese and Spanish. With content now available in four Asian languages, www.staralliance.com is the only airline alliance site to offer this amount of choice.

Moreover, information on Star Alliance’s environmental initiative - Biosphere Connections, as well as material on the collocation projects at airports (Move under one Roof) and the Star Alliance Connection Centres has been added to the website. The Flight Search functionality and the Round the World Mileage Calculator have also been improved and additional features will be added in the very near future.

Air Canada expands Germany - Canada services with Lufthansa
Air Canada today announced a major expansion of service between Canada and Germany in cooperation with its Star Alliance partner, Lufthansa. This expansion features new non-stop daily flights between Ottawa-Frankfurt (beginning June 1, 2008) and six times weekly Toronto-Düsseldorf (beginning May 1, 2008), as well as the addition of a second daily non-stop flight between Calgary-Frankfurt (beginning April 14, 2008).
By summer 2008, together the two Star Alliance partners will operate up to 11 flights per day in each direction between five cities in Canada and three cities in Germany, representing an increase of 23 per cent in seat capacity from the previous year.

All Austrian Airlines destinations now on Google Earth
Ever wondered exactly where Astana is or felt like taking a look around Bangkok Airport? At Google Earth, you can now ‘fly’ around the world to every one of Austrian’s destinations without leaving the comfort of your own home! All the cities Austrian flies to are marked with an Austrian logo - simply click on them, and you view your destination as if you were standing there, read information about the city and book your flight.  For more information, please click here.

Austrian Airlines Group continues to expand Focus East programme
Winter schedule with even more intensive connections between Romania, Bulgaria, Russia, Ukraine, Serbia, Montenegro and the Austrian route network.

With the forthcoming introduction of the winter schedule on October 28, 2007, Austrian Airlines is once again placing a strong emphasis on the expansion of its successful Focus East strategy. By making frequency increases to no fewer than eight cities in Eastern Europe, the Austrian national carrier is underlining its leading role and strong market presence in Central and Eastern Europe as well as setting the benchmark for connections to eastern economic centres of genuine quality.

Input your APIS data for flights to New York from the comfort of your own home
Austrian is now offering passengers yet another innovation in its Web Check-in service: for flights from Vienna to New York, Austrian passengers can not only check in online and print out their own boarding pass, they can also input the personal data, required by US authorities (passport and visa data, as well as first address where you will be staying in the USA), themselves during the Austrian Web Check-in process. This is made possible with just a few additional steps, hence saving you valuable time at the airport. Until now, it has been necessary to provide these data in person at the airport check-in desk.

Click here and read more about Austrian Web Check-in online.

bmi expands its network in Saudi Arabia
bmi is to launch flights to Damman in Saudi Arabia. This new service, set to begin in early 2008, will operate three times a week on a wide-bodied Airbus A330 aircraft. For more information, please click here.

bmi and United broaden code share agreement
bmi has added five new USA destinations to its growing code share route network from London Heathrow under its existing code sharing agreement with United. Commencing on 30 March 2008, the code share flights connect well on to bmi’s existing flights from Amsterdam to London Heathrow.
For more information, please click here

LOT starts the sale of tickets to Beijing
LOT’s connection with the capital of China will be the first Polish direct air connection with Far Eastern countries in nearly 10 years. Due to the convenient geographical location of Warsaw, suitable transfer flights from Western Europe will also be possible. LOT planes will fly from Warsaw to Beijing 4 times a week - on Wednesdays, Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays. Return flights from Beijing to Warsaw are scheduled on Mondays, Thursdays, Saturdays and Sundays.

LOT wins the Business Traveller award 2007
LOT Polish Airlines received for the tenth time the title of the Best Airline in Eastern Europe, awarded by readers of prestigious British magazine Business Traveller. Since 1998, LOT has been receiving awards of Business Traveller year by year.

Lufthansa Children’s lounge - Opening of new rest and recreation room for UMs
Movie corners, "chill-out" zones or snack bar - Lufthansa’s newly styled children’s lounge at Frankfurt Airport is a children’s paradise. Young travellers in the lounge have the option of playing table tennis, surfing the Net or watching Disney films with popcorn. In the games corner, they can practise their skills with Lego, try their hand painting or puzzles. The video games on game cubes offer an exciting diversion. Refreshments run from juices, to soft drinks and small snacks. For those who want a more restful moment, the lounge is equipped with a quiet corner for young flyers needing to lie down and relax on oversize "fatboy" cushions. See for more information www.lufthansaeXperts.com.

New cabin design for Lufthansa’s European fleet
Lufthansa will take delivery of the first of 60 new Airbus A320 family aircraft. The new jets will bring considerable improvements in terms of your customer comfort. Usable cabin width, for example, has been increased, which will especially benefit passengers in window seats, giving them more room at shoulder height. New window surrounds make the windows appear larger, which also adds to the feeling of space.

The overhead bins have been enlarged to provide more stowage space for passengers. Moreover, improved insulation in the outer cladding will reduce noise levels in the cabin, thereby further enhancing the travel experience.

SAS offers improved intercontinental connections
The total travel time can now drastically be shortened when flying on an intercontinental SAS flight in Economy Extra or Business Class. For the connecting flight between Amsterdam and Copenhagen or Stockholm a KLM flight can be used as well, without any additional costs.

SAS offers also perfect intercontinental connections from Düsseldorf and Brussels. For more information, please click here.

Singapore Airlines adds the Airbus A380 to its flight schedule
On 28 October 2007 Singapore Airlines (SIA) started to operate scheduled flights between Singapore and Sydney with the new Airbus A380.

The A380 operates daily between these two cities, replacing the Boeing 747-400 on one of the three daily SIA flights on this route. With effect from February 2008, SIA will also commence operating the A380 on the Singapore-London vv. route.

SIA has equipped the A380 with 471 seats in three-class configuration: 12 Singapore Airlines Suites, 60 Business Class and 399 Economy Class seats. Click here for more information in the new products onboard the SIA aircraft.

Swiss Fleet
On the regional front, SWISS is further standardizing its Swiss European Air Lines fleet by disposing of its last Avro RJ85s. As from November Swiss European Air Lines will operate an all-Avro RJ100 fleet.

From December 1st, the latest A340 will be deployed onto the Zurich-Chicago-Zurich route, restoring a First Class option to this destination. For more information, please click here.

New destinations
The Airbus A330 freed up in this process will be used to operate a new daily service between Zurich and Delhi, which will commence on November 25th. Delhi becomes SWISS’s second destination (after Mumbai) in the rapidly growing Indian market.

Strong increases in demand have also been seen for service to and from China, especially among the business community. That demand will be met from early summer 2008 onwards with new non-stop SWISS services to and from Shanghai. The first flight is now planned for May 9th 2008, operated by an Airbus A340.

TAP Reinforces Brasilia
Flights to Brasilia, started by TAP recently in July, are to be increased from five to six times a week from this coming February 12. This decision was made due to the enormous demand for this destination in international markets. For more information, please click here.

TAP Flies to Belo Horizonte from February
TAP will run five flights a week between Lisbon and Belo Horizonte from February 11 2008 by which time it will be offering 65 flights a week between Portugal and Brazil.
Thus TAP now flies to eight destinations in Brazil: in addition to Belo Horizonte, it also flies to Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo, Brasilia, Salvador, Natal, Recife and Fortaleza.
For more information, please click here.