American Makes The Week Interesting While Others Do Their Housekeeping

Love was in the air in Airlineville this weekend. And by that, I mean the airlines LOVED making more cuts. Too much of a stretch? Ok, well, how about Cirium LOVED to process all these changes? Alright, I give up.

Those in the frozen north continued to face reality, hacking away at their winter and spring dreams. But the Maple Leaf went even further, doing some summer cleaning outside the Americas.

The Eagle and the Eskimo took their shots at April. Now we wait to see if they were right or if further changes are required. Really, the Eagle was the most interesting player this week, including planning to spend a lot more time with the cacti in Phoenix this summer. The rest spent more time doing housekeeping.

All this and more this week. Like sands through the hourglass, so are the skeds of air lines.

Air Canada Cuts International

Air Canada took time out from slashing and burning through the next couple of months to do some long term work. It’s not going to fly a whole host of international routes through the summer:

• Calgary – Tokyo/Narita
• Halifax – London/Heathrow
• Montreal – Bucharest
• St Johns – London/Heathrow
• Toronto – Berlin, Bucharest, Budapest, Lima, Oporto, Prague, Warsaw, and Zagreb
• Vancouver – Brisbane and Osaka

Alaska Takes April Down

Alaska has made its April cuts, actually April 4 through May 19. Right now, March is down 28 percent vs last year and April is down 21 percent vs 2019. There is room for more to come down if needed. Beyond that, Austin – San Diego and Missoula – Portland will each get an extra flight this summer.

American Also Does April, Boosts Phoenix

American has also made its April cuts, earlier than normal. March is down 31 percent vs last year with April down 28 percent vs 2019, so this may very well be what American is hoping to fly. There is some real growth here. Interestingly, Washington/National, both New York airports, and Los Angeles see the most growth vs March. The airline is planning to restore several routes that haven’t flown in many months. Internationally, American is betting on London coming back with the return of flights to LA, Miami, Philly, and the start of Seattle.

Looking into the summer, American was busy boosting Phoenix up with an additional daily flight to Grand Junction, Honolulu, Kahului, Los Angeles, Salt Lake, and Sioux Falls. In addition, flights to Cedar Rapids, Madison, Nashville, New Orleans, Tampa, and Tulsa will go year-round instead of just flying through the winter. Lastly, new routes will start to Bozeman (summer only), Eureka/Arcata, and Idaho Falls.

Other new routes were loaded this week including Miami to Tel Aviv, but you can read about those in the press release.

Delta Continues to Target the Mountain West

It was another mild week of Delta adding routes around the West through the summer and increasing frequency:

• Atlanta – Denver (+2 daily), El Paso (+1 daily), Ontario (+1 daily), and Portland OR (+2 daily),
• Minneapolis/St Paul – Albuquerque (new), Boise (+1 daily), Bozeman (+1 daily), Kalispell (+1 daily), and Missoula (+1 daily)
• New York/JFK – Cabo San Lucas (extended through summer)

Frontier Thinks Cleveland Rocks

Frontier made a lot of tweaks as usual, but it also added Cleveland – Cancun service through the summer. And that’s all there is to say about that.

Southwest Adds Where It Can

As usual, Southwest is looking for places where it can add back flying in the March schedule. Florida is again the big winner, especially Orlando and Tampa. All of these routes get at least 10 more flights in March:

• Charleston – Nashville
• Denver – Houston/Hobby, Kansas City, Las Vegas, Louisville, Phoenix
• Fort Myers – Milwaukee
• Las Vegas – Chicago/Midway, Houston/Hobby
• Orlando – Atlanta, Baltimore, Dallas/Love, Houston/Hobby, Nashville, Raleigh/Durham
• Phoenix – Chicago/Midway
• Tampa – Atlanta, Baltimore, Chicago/Midway, Columbus

Southwest is also expanding its 737 MAX trial runs. Saturdays go from 24 to 44 flights in the first month with new markets: Baltimore – New Orleans and Orlando, Denver – Chicago/Midway and Phoenix, Houston/Hobby – Kansas City and Las Vegas, Orlando – Chicago/Midway and New Orleans, and Phoenix to Portland and Salt Lake.

Spirit Adds a New Route

Huge news. This summer, Spirit will fly… Akron/Canton to Myrtle Beach. I know. Huge.

United Does Some Housekeeping, Delays International

It wasn’t a busy week for United, but it did push back international flying in the markets where it’s most bearish. Havana loses all its flying through the summer schedule, the biggest cut of the bunch. Meanwhile, in Hong Kong, Newark won’t come back until June now, Chicago is gone through October, and San Francisco goes down from 2x to 1x daily through October. Singapore – San Francisco drops from 2x to 1x daily through the summer as well.

Down in Oceania, Auckland is now down from daily to 3 days a week from SFO through the summer. Houston – Sydney is gone through the summer schedule. LAX – Melbourne is gone through June, and then it’s reduced from daily to 3x weekly. San Francisco – Melbourne has it worse; it’s gone entirely through the summer schedule.

Two more things of note. United’s return to JFK has been delayed again, this time to March 28. And United will launch Honolulu – Orange County flights with the 737-700, the only airplane that can make it with a full load.

Other Randomness

• Air Europa won’t fly to JFK until late June at the earliest.
• The mini-Air France hub in Miami is following Delta’s lead. Port-au-Prince won’t resume until late June at the earliest. Guadeloupe is gone through the entire summer season.
• Alitalia’s pandemic schedule to the US has been extended through May.
• British Airways will run its pandemic schedule to the US through April.
• China Eastern’s pandemic schedule to the US has been extended through May.
• Eastern changed its mind again. It had ditched Boston – Santo Domingo for Boston – Mexico City. Now it’s reversing that plan.
• Iberia’s pandemic schedule to the US has been extended through May.
• Jeju Air is feeling bullish. It is bringing back Incheon – Guam in April/May when it wasn’t supposed to operate, and it’s doubling service starting in June. Meanwhile, Busan – Guam has extended through the summer.
• LATAM is making changes through the summer, including LAX-Lima being cut in half and Miami – Recife and Salvador out of the schedule.
• WestJet will extend its reduced Europe schedule into June.

That’s it for this week. Stay tuned for next week’s episode of Skeds of air Lines.