Venezuela will have a new air carrier by mid 2004 to cover both domestic and international flights. Logistics and technical support will be provided by the country’s Air Force.

As soon as the project is completed, CONVIANSA (Spanish acronym for Venezuelan Consortium of Aviation Industries and Air Services) will fly with fourteen aircraft, Venezuela’s Trade Minister Wilmar Castro explained.

In the beginning, the new airline will be a state-run company supposed to open up to private capital later on.

In a joint venture with the Gran Caribe Group, the Spanish hotel chain Barcelo will open this month a new hotel in Cayo Largo de Sur, a major tourist destination in southwestern Cuba. The 306-room Barceló Cayo Largo Beach Resort Hotel is a property of the Group Gran Caribe and will be run by the Spanish chain Barceló.

Worldspan introduced Worldspan Cruise, a new Web-based booking solution providing real-time access to cruise line information and complete reservations capabilities.

The German cabinet has approved plans to allow hijacked aircraft to be shot down in order to prevent a terror attack. Germany´s ruling coalition agreed that the power could only be used if a plane had failed to respond to other attempts to halt it.

Continental Airlines decided to set up a strategic alliance with Aeromexico through code share flights in an effort to ease travel flow between the United States and Mexico.

This alliance –scheduled to remain in force for the next ten years- will permit Aeromexico to offer a larger number of flights between both countries and guarantee top-quality service to passengers, the carrier’s CEO Arturo Barahona wrote in a joint press release published in the U.S.

Mr. Barahona for the Mexican side and Gordon Bethune of Continental Airlines signed the agreement.

Korean Air is codesharing with Delta, its SkyTeam partner, on Atlanta-Santiago route beginning December 8. The two carriers will jointly operate between U.S and Chile to provide additional travel opportunities to customers and to expand their cooperative efforts through their SkyTeam network.

Delta currently operates one daily flight between the two cities. The flights from Atlanta depart at 22:10, arriving Santiago at 9:30 the next day. Conversely, departing flights from Santiago leave at 22:40 to arrive in Atlanta at 6:20 the next day.