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It was a busy and rainy week in Airlineville this week. It wasn’t raining water, however. It was raining doom and gloom. Cut after cut filled resident plans this weekend, and more cuts may need to come. It took quite some time to roll through the massive amount of Cirium data this time around.
The Globe made its plans for March, and they are conservative. It has cut more than any other US airline by far. That doesn’t mean others didn’t join the party. The Eskimo, Ms Blue, and the Heart all piled on more cuts on top of the previous ones.
In a rare change, the Animal looked into the future and made some cuts through the year. Cuts here, cuts there, what’s the difference?
All this and more this week. Like sands through the hourglass, so are the skeds of air lines.

Alaska Does All Kinds of Things
There was a lot going on for Alaska this week. It had previously pulled down Mexico flying for March after the US testing plan was announced. Apparently February didn’t hold up well enough, because it has now pulled a fair bit of that flying down in February too. March saw more general cuts to bring down capacity. Meanwhile, in April it extended its Canada cuts.
Separately, Alaska made some long term route changes with a hefty transcon pulldown.
- Gone for good: San Francisco – Philadelphia, San Jose – Newark
- Won’t operate until the fall: Anchorage – Kona; Los Angeles – Chicago/O’Hare; Seattle/Paine Field – Portland, Palm Springs; San Diego – Fort Lauderdale; San Jose – Redmond/Bend
- Lose 1x daily through the summer: San Francisco – Washington/Dulles
- Add 1x daily through the summer: Anchorage – Chicago/O’Hare, Los Angeles; Los Angeles – Bozeman, Reno; San Diego – Honolulu, Kahului; Seattle – Denver, San Luis Obispo
- Jackson Hole – San Diego will operate in the summer
Allegiant’s New Flights
Allegiant loaded the new flights it announced earlier this month including its first service to Portland (OR), Key West, and Jackson Hole. Details here.
American Adds More Leisure, Pushes Back Long Haul
American is back to beefing up its summer leisure flying once again.
- Extended into and in some cases through the summer: Chicago/O’Hare – Key West, Palm Springs, Puerto Vallarta, Sarasota; Dallas/Fort Worth – Ixtapa/Zihuatanejo; Philadelphia – Daytona Beach, Salt Lake City
- Increase from weekly or sub-daily to daily during the summer: Chicago/O’Hare – Cabo San Lucas, Ft Walton Beach; Philadelphia – Hilton Head, Key West, Nantucket, Traverse City
Also, the start of service has been pushed back in several markets. Philly – Madrid goes back from March to April while Philly – Amsterdam gets pushed back to May. Most China flying (including Hong Kong) has been delayed from restarting in March to now restarting in May. In the meantime, American will beef up DFW – Incheon flights and tag on Beijing/Capital (not Daxing as previously planned).
Delta Shuffles
Delta also is pushing back some international service. Amsterdam flying gets hit hard thanks to the pending Dutch testing rules that are going into place. Some of that is getting replaced in Paris, however, which sees more flying from Atlanta and the return of Seattle in March. Atlanta – Jo’burg gets pushed back to June. Boston – Dublin and Minneapolis – London are delayed to May. Plans to ramp up Asia in April are gone with most new flying canceled. Latin America saw that same fate for March.
Frontier Cuts Long
Frontier took an axe into the summer, a surprisingly long view for the airline.
- Gone through the spring: Cincinnati – Dallas/Fort Worth; Denver – Boise, Burlington; Islip – Atlanta, Las Vegas; Las Vegas – Charlotte; Miami – Hartford; Nashville – Chicago/O’Hare; Newark – Atlanta, Cancun, Phoenix; Orlando – Colorado Springs; Philly – Boston; Salt Lake City – Atlanta, Austin; San Juan – Baltimore, Boston; Tampa – Atlanta, Austin; Trenton – Charlotte, Raleigh/Durham, Sarasota; West Palm Beach – Cleveland
- Gone through the summer and beyond: Austin – Atlanta, Chicago/O’Hare, Miami, Philly, San Diego, Washington/Dulles; Denver – Huntsville, Jackson (MS); Los Angeles – Cincinnati, Orlando, Philly; Miami – Buffalo, Providence; Newark – Fort Myers, Myrtle Beach, Ontario, West Palm Beach; Philly – Cincinnati, Kansas City, Phoenix, West Palm Beach; San Antonio – Atlanta; Tampa – Albany
JetBlue Cuts Again
JetBlue was feeling bullish once again in March with a nearly 23 percent cut. That puts it down 31 percent YoY, but I’m guessing there’s more to come. I didn’t see any particular trends here, though it was interesting to see Newark – San Francisco gone completely for the month.
Southwest Cuts March Too
Southwest took another swing at March. It had hoped to be able to fly more, but bookings just aren’t shaping up. The 9.5 percent cut brought Southwest down to -30 percent YoY for the month, still fairly aggressive.
Buried in here, Southwest also did some market tweaking. Miami to Tampa failed quickly. Instead of using that to connect people throughout the Southeast, Southwest is now going to try 2x daily to Atlanta and 1x daily to Dallas. We’ll see if that works better for the airline. Atlanta – Sarasota also joined the network. Oh, and Long Beach gets Kahului flights on airplanes that were probably going to be used for Lihu’e flying until that market shut down.
United Cuts Deep
United has put out its March cuts, and while most airlines are down about 30 percent YoY at this point, United is down 44 percent. The airline continues to be very bearish, and it has often been right so far. This isn’t a great sign for the industry.
Other Randomness
- Air China has extended its US pandemic schedule through May.
- ANA won’t fly Narita to Honolulu or JFK until April.
- Cayman Airways will fly Denver – Grand Cayman from May.
- Eastern looks to be getting rid of most plans to fly to the Dominican Republic. It will, however, start Boston – Mexico City in May.
- JAL has pushed most of its Hawai’i flying back another month to April.
- Silver continues expanding throughout the Southeast with Savannah to Fort Lauderdale and Tampa coming online in April.
- Sun Country loaded its new summer and fall route schedules detailed here.
That’s it for this week. Next week, we’ll see what cuts are to come on the next exciting episode of Skeds of air Lines.