Air France KLM has released details of changes to its 2009 winter schedule, which includes a joint venture with Delta, the introduction of the A380 on routes to Dubai and Johannesburg, and the cutting of several routes from London City.

The group says that its overall capacity will be down two per cent compared with last year, with several frequency reductions across its long and short-haul networks including Tokyo (down from 20 flights per week to 17), Sao Paulo (down from 14 weekly services to 12), Bangalore (down from seven to six weekly flights), Birmingham (down from six to five daily Cityjet-operated flights) and Edinburgh (down from four to three daily flights, also operated by Cityjet).

Air France is also cutting several services from London City (operated by Cityjet), including Strasbourg, Paris CDG, Nice and Geneva, although a new twice-daily route to Nantes will be introduced.

There will also be a reduction in frequency on routes to both Johannesburg and Dubai, but this will be offset by the introduction of Air France’s A380 aircraft on the routes. Services to Dubai will be cut from 14 weekly flights to a daily service, with the superjumbo scheduled to operate on the route from January 18, 2010, while flights to Johannesburg will similarly halve in frequency, with the A380 operating on the route from early March. The first route to see the carrier’s superjumbo will be New York from this November.

The Air France KLM group’s joint venture with Delta on the North American network will see changes designed to ensure that “capacity and aircraft correspond more closely to demand”. This means that services to Detroit will be operated solely by Air France, while Delta will operate the Paris CDG-Philadelphia and Paris CDG-Pittsburg routes.