Flights to London from Newark

Continental Airlines said Friday that it will increase flights between its hub at Newark Liberty International Airport and London's Heathrow Airport this year.Continental, which already has three daily non stops on its Newark Heathrow route, said it will add another daily non-stop in March and one more in October. Continental also has a twice daily service from Houston to London.New York Heathrow is a flagship route for Continental, Jeff Smisek, Continental chairman, president and chief executive officer said in a statement.

The news comes a month after the airline announced that it wouldn't resume flights between Cleveland Hopkins International Airport and Heathrow in the summer of 2010. The seasonal service was Northeast Ohio's only nonstop to Europe.Continental said the two developments were unconnected.The takeoff and landing rights at Heathrow that were tied to the Cleveland service went back to the carrier that owned that slot, an airline spokeswoman said. It was not made available to Continental again in 2010.

Continental said it checked with all 33 carriers at Heathrow that had suitable times for Cleveland service, but none was willing to part with a slot.Still, Continental did locate enough space at Heathrow to accommodate two additional year round flights from Newark.Aviation consultant Robert Mann said Continental probably got more Heathrow takeoff and landing rights by trading with one of its partners in the Star Alliance, the international confederation of airlines it joined in October. One new partner is bmi, the second-largest slot holder at Heathrow after British Airways.

bmi uses a lot of its takeoff and landing rights at Heathrow for short haul flights, in essence under-utilizing slots that are valued at millions of dollars, Mann said.In a trade with Continental bmi would give up a slot in exchange for the ability to put its code on certain Continental flights, Mann predicted. That would give the British carrier access to the U.S. market without actually flying a plane across the Atlantic, an investment risk of $1 million or more roundtrip.Delta Air Lines used the same strategy to get Heathrow slots from its Skyteam partners.