It was feast or famine this week in Airlineville. There were three airlines vying for the center of attention while others hid in the back, making sure nobody saw them at all in the Cirium data.
The big three? Well, they were so excited about their plans that they even issued press releases. One was the Sun, which rolled out a host of new routes this week that it had announced earlier in the month. The other two — the Eagle and Ms Blue — made the details of their love affair public.
On the flip side, the Eskimo, the Heart, Pualani, and the Taxi did absolutely nothing at all. Good for them. They all deserve a break.
All this and more this week. Like sands through the hourglass, so are the skeds of air lines.
Allegiant Files Its New Summer Routes
On February 9, Allegiant announced 34 new summer routes plus special Sturgis service via Rapid City. Those flights have finally made it into the schedule load. You can read the press release for details, but I should point out that there’s one route that was added this summer that didn’t make the release… Austin to Des Moines. Presumably that’s because it’s a market that also operated last summer.
Allegiant also cut a handful of flights for Tuesday and Wednesday. And by that, I mean tomorrow and the day after. Late cuts for the end of a February to forget.
American Files Its Northeast Routes and Codeshares
American announced its first step in its northeast alliance with JetBlue last week, and the schedules were filed over the weekend. American put its code on 22 JetBlue routes from Boston, 25 from JFK, and 2 from LaGuardia. These routes fan out around the US, all domestic, and give American instant presence in a ton of markets where it wasn’t competitive before. American also filed new routes that were announced last week as part of the deal. I’ll have more on that tomorrow.
Separately, it looks like some winter seasonal routes were extended deeper into April, hoping to squeeze a little more revenue out of the winter before it’s done. At the same time, Canada is a lost cause from Phoenix. Those flights have been canceled through the spring. Last thing of note… there is a haircut from LA to Hawai’i with what looks like 3 flights per day being cut this summer.
Delta Sets April
With a 20.5 percent cut this week, it looks like Delta is finalizing April. Compared to 2019, Delta is now down 32 percent. It looks like the Northeast and West Coast do best compared to March, finally rising from the bottom similar to what American did last week.
Delta also took the opportunity to delay JFK – Madrid and Dublin now into April. It was supposed to have been operating in March, but all those St Patrick’s Day revelers are out of luck. Meanwhile, Detroit is getting a boost with more weekend flying through the end of schedule. That is consistent with a shift in demand toward leisure.
What’s not getting a boost is Asia. Delta has gone and slashed Asia flying in May and June. Detroit to Nagoya comes back in April and operates weekly from then. In May, only LA – Haneda and Minneapolis/St Paul – Incheon return. A handful of other flights get frequency bumps, but that’s it until at least July.
Finally, Delta has pulled out of Atlanta – Cartagena and Los Angeles – Paris. Of course, its partner Air France continues to fly the latter.
Frontier Cuts April and May
Looking into April and May, Frontier cut another 3 to 4 percent of available seat miles. I see Raleigh/Durham lost a handful of destinations, but in general the cuts were spread around. Like Allegiant, Frontier also did some last minute cuts in February, but that’s pretty normal.
JetBlue Did Less Than Expected
I figured JetBlue would do a lot as part of its American partnership rollout, but it didn’t do much. The airline did file its initial codeshare, but it’s very light. Outside of codesharing on flights to American’s hubs, there is only JFK – Las Vegas and San Francisco along with LaGuardia – Jackson Hole and Orlando..
United Crushes Canada
United seems to be giving up on Canada for awhile. It has extended its pandemic schedule through the summer season to the end of October. There is a slight bump up in there from the bottom, but consider it a lost cause for the airline. That’s an awfully far-out cut.
It wasn’t a busy week for United anywhere else, and that’s good, because there was too much going on elsewhere. But United did add flights from Denver to Twin Falls in Idaho, furthering its small city strategy.
Other Randomness
- Air France won’t resume JFK to Paris/Orly at least until the very end of May.
- Avianca has pulled out of Newark – San Salvador. It will continue to fly there from JFK. The airline has also extended its pandemic schedule through March.
- Copa has extended its pandemic schedule through March.
- Japan Airlines has extended its suspension of service on US beach routes in Hawai’i and Guam through May. Only Haneda to Honolulu will operate twice weekly.
- Jeju Air has reversed its plan to resume flying to Guam from South Korea that was filed last week.
- LATAM has suspended Boston – Sao Paulo and JFK – Santiago into June. American, remember, has announced it will start JFK – Santiago.
- LOT Polish will not operate Warsaw – San Francisco this summer.
- Lufthansa and Austrian have extended their pandemic schedule through April.
- Viva Air Colombia will start flying Medellin to Orlando in June.
- WestJet will stop flying Halifax – St Johns; Calgary – Lloydminster, London (Ontario), and Medicine Hat; and Toronto – London (Ontario) during April and May. Considering London is only 89 miles from Toronto, that’s not exactly an essential route.
That’s all for this week. Stay tuned for next week’s exciting new episode.
