US Airways begins Phila.-Belgium nonstops

US Airways launched service yesterday between Philadelphia International Airport and Belgium, one of three new nonstop flights it is adding this summer to cities across Europe.

The flights come at a time when US Airways and the airport have increased staffing in an effort to help the airline improve on its ragged performance last summer and this spring.

US Airways launched the Brussels route a week after beginning flights to Athens, Greece and a week before it plans service to Zurich, Switzerland. That would bring to 19 the number of European destinations it will serve from its Philadelphia hub through early fall.

The flights between Philadelphia and Athens will be the longest nonstops the airline ever has operated, scheduled for almost 10 hours eastbound, and 11 hours, 15 minutes, returning, spokesman Philip Gee said.

Other seasonal flights resumed in May to five cities: Barcelona, Spain; Lisbon, Portugal; Shannon, Ireland; Stockholm, Sweden; and Venice, Italy. Service to Glasgow, Scotland, is to resume June 9.

US Airways flies to the 10 other cities year round, as do the three European carriers here: Air France to Paris, British Airways to London, and Lufthansa to Frankfurt. US Airways' growth in European service is one of the reasons the number of overseas visitors to Philadelphia increased to 434,000 in 2005, compared with 390,000 in 2000, according to the Philadelphia Convention and Visitors Bureau. Because of more stringent requirements for foreigners entering the country, only Philadelphia and New York saw an increase in visitors between those two years, the bureau said.

US Airways, the airport's dominant airline with more than 60 percent of the passengers, has added hundreds of baggage handlers and customer-service agents to its 6,100-person workforce here, said Tony Grantham, managing director of the Philadelphia hub.

"We're in a hiring blitz," he said.

Grantham and city aviation director Charles J. Isdell expressed concern that the Transportation Security Administration and the Customs and Border Protection Service will have adequate personnel this summer. Isdell said the agencies were ready to use overtime to ensure efficiency.

US Airways ran into massive problems with baggage service last summer because of a shortage of workers and dilapidated equipment. Airline officials have said the carrier has spent more than $20 million over the last 18 months or so upgrading facilities.

Because of the additional destinations this year, US Airways will have to use some of its gates in the A-West international terminal for more than one European flight a day. After passengers from a flight disembark, the airline will park the jet away from the terminal so another plane can move in and take on outbound passengers, the officials said.

If a departing flight is delayed by weather or other problems, the airport is prepared to offer US Airways "passenger transport vehicles" to unload people on an inbound flight a few hundred yards from the terminal, Isdell said. The six vehicles are oversized buses that have a door at the same height as an airplane door, and can transport as many as 125 passengers at a time, he said.