UK airline bmi has announced the addition of five new USA flights to its codeshare agreement with United Airlines.

Passengers will be able to fly from Heathrow Airport to Chicago, Los Angeles, Washington, San Francisco and Denver through bmi on services operated by the American carrier from March 30th 2008.

The airline also said that it intends to expand the agreement to include domestic USA destinations in the future. The new additions come as part of an expansion that takes advantage of the open skies pact.

"Whilst delaying the introduction of our own services from Heathrow to the USA, we said that we would still take full advantage of an open skies agreement between the EU and the USA," commented Nigel Turner, bmi chief executive officer.

"This codeshare agreement with United Airlines allows us to do just that."

Yesterday bmi also announced that it intends to begin flights to Dammam in Saudi Arabia in early 2008. In addition, it began its codeshare arrangement with EgyptAir for services to Cairo earlier this week.

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