The preparations for summer have been relentless, and this week, the residents of Airlineville took a little breather. Oh sure, there was still plenty to find in the Cirium data, but the volume just wasn’t at the frenzied level that had taken over the town in recent weeks.
With the Globe, Pualani, and the Heart all making changes to June, it’s now accurate for just about everyone. The residents are all looking at June differently, so it will be fun to see who is right.
Meanwhile, the Eagle and the Taxi are thinking beyond June. They’re making plans for the 4th of July. After last year being spent away from everyone, they’re hoping it’ll be a better holiday this year.
All this and more this week. Like sands through the hourglass, so are the skeds of air lines.
Alaska Gives Paine a Boost
It was really quiet for Alaska this week, but it did find the time to actually add service at Paine Field for the first time in awhile. Both Boise and Spokane will get a second daily flight this fall. Boise also gets a second daily to Sacramento, as does the LA – Salt Lake City market.
American Sets the 4th
The biggest change for American this week involved filing a holiday schedule over the 4th of July weekend. I know, it’s not that exciting, but over 1,400 flights were cut on July 4th alone.
There were some new routes filed, including a new city on the map. Columbus (GA) will get 2x daily from Charlotte and 1x daily from Dallas/Fort Worth. And now you know there is a city called Columbus in Georgia. Charlotte will get 1x daily to El Paso and to Ontario while Dallas/Fort Worth gets 1x daily to Syracuse.
In other news, a handful of summer routes got extended for another month beyond early September. That includes Charlotte – Kalispell, Reno, Traverse City; Chicago/O’Hare – Billings, Fresno, Spokane; and Washington/National – Asheville, Hilton Head, Myrtle Beach.
Delta Gives Up on a June European Miracle
There may be talk about the EU letting vaccinated travelers into Europe this summer, but Delta has decided that’s not going to happen in June. It has now pulled June schedules down to basically the same level as May with only minor changes. The one route that is still showing as restarting in June is JFK – Barcelona. But hey, Iceland is still a bright spot. The flight from JFK to Keflavik has been upgauged from a 757 to a 767 starting after the 4th of July weekend.
The big European cuts hid some actual growth in domestic markets in June. Surprisingly, we see Tuesday/Wednesday/Saturday gaining in a variety of routes, though peak days saw some net decreases.
Hawaiian Sets June
At least, I think Hawaiian set June. It pulled interisland flying down for the month and capacity is now down 20 percent vs 2019. Most of that capacity cut is in international, which we saw come down last week. Mainland capacity is way up.
Southern Air Express Is Busy
Normally, I wouldn’t give Southern Air Express its own section, but it did a whole lot of changing this weekend. First, the airline is now selling 10 seats on its Caravans instead of 9. Is it going with a single pilot operation? I’m not sure. Update from Southern: This seems to be a misfile of some sort, and they are not going to single pilot operations or adding a seat or anything like that.
Next, it is launching a slew of new routes. This summer it will fly Nantucket to New Bedford, Hanscom, and Norwood in Massachusetts along with Providence. It is going to open up a Washington/Dulles operation with flights to Bradford, DuBois, and Lancaster in Pennsylvania along with Morgantown (WV). These cities will also have their regular service to Pittsburgh.
In warmer climes, the airline is launching its new longest flight within Hawai’i from Kahului to Hilo at 121 miles. It’s also going to fly from Memphis to Destin (the tiny Destin airport which is too small for most commercial service) and then on to Tampa from there.
Southwest Also Sets June
Southwest had waited awhile before pulling the trigger, but it has now adjusted June down to an accurate level. June is now down 11 percent vs 2019. A whole bunch of new routes were added, and you can read about them in the press release. But as usual, several routes were eliminated too, and those weren’t discussed. This is just Southwest looking at trends and adjusting the schedule to fit demand.
Notably on this list, both Chicago/O’Hare and Houston/Intercontinental are getting a boost with several daily flights being added.
Spirit Takes Down the 4th
Like American, Spirit made some hefty cuts around the 4th of July. It also moved some Denver flights around in June. Instead of flying to Chicago/O’Hare and Detroit, it will instead fly to Atlanta and Baltimore.
United Makes Longer Term Cuts
United has finished up its June schedule, but it also made bigger cuts beyond. Chicago took the brunt of the cuts that were mostly in the fall and through the winter. Some of the capacity cuts are thanks to aircraft downgauging. In the month of August, for example, A320s and 737-900s lose a lot of flying while the A319 picks some up.
The airline also gave up on trying to fly to Oporto this summer, pulling the plug on that route this year. Several Pacific flights have been pulled in June too, as have some longer haul destinations from San Francisco: Baltimore, Columbus, Indianapolis, Philly, Pittsburgh, and San Antonio.
Other Randomness
- China Southern looks to be canceling flights to Wuhan from JFK and San Francisco along with Shenyang from Los Angeles through the end of schedule.
- Good news. Cape Air is still an airline after all. It refiled its schedule after deleting it last week.
- El Al has canceled flights through the summer to Boston, Chicago/O’Hare, Las Vegas, and San Francisco.
- LATAM has given up on flying Boston to Sao Paulo through the summer. It has also pulled down LA and JFK – Santiago service along with LA to Lima… all will operate less than daily through the summer season.
- Lufthansa Group has extended its pandemic schedule through June, but it has cut service beyond that. There will be service reductions through the summer season on Munich – Boston, Charlotte, Washington/Dulles; Frankfurt – Detroit; and Zurich – Boston,
- Seaborne looks to be pulling out of the St Croix to San Juan market. Update: This looks like a code switch. It will now be operated by Silver instead, the parent company.
- Silver must be liking what it’s seeing in Charleston and Savannah. It’s increasing frequency starting in June from 2x to 3x weekly in each market.
- Sun Country had a really interesting week of adds, but you can read about that in the press release.
- Surinam Airways’s short-lived experiment with flying to Miami is done at least until November.
That’s it for this week. Stay tuned for next week’s exciting episode of Skeds of air Lines.
