A start-up airline is rumoured to planning to go head to head with British Airways on flights from London City to New York.
The new venture, named Odyssey Airlines aims to start a non-stop all-business class service from the Docklands airport, possible from the end of 2013, according to the news agency Reuters.
It will use CSeries jets, a new small passenger jet being built by Canadian aircraft manufacturer Bombadier, which will give it the advantage of being able to fly the route without refueling. British Airways' twice daily New York flights from London City are forced to refuel in Shannon in the west of Ireland.
Bombardier has confirmed that it sold two sets of 10 aircraft to customers that prefer to remain anonymous, one of which was an "unidentified European buyer" and the other was an already established airline.
Reuters said two website addresses, odysseyairlines.com and odyair.com, had been registered for future use by Odyssey Airlines, but no-one involved in the project was prepared to confirm its plans.
By Linsey McNeill
