The day has finally arrived. After years of waiting for Ms Blue to learn how to fly across the ocean, she has finally made her plans official by revealing details in Cirium. While she will be visiting the fancy airport on the west side of town, she’ll also spend some time down south at Gatwick.

And now a word from our sponsor.

With Ms. Blue heading to Gatwick, I started thinking about others who have served the airport before. I pulled up TheAirchive.net and found an extensive photo tour of the airport from 2014. When I say extensive, I mean it. There are 151 photos you can browse. including this one showing the departure board from the North Terminal.

Take a walk through TheAirchive.net to find all sorts of historical items, trip reports, memorabilia, and just random avgeekiness.

And now, back to our show.

The other airlines watched Ms Blue make her moves, but they mostly sat wondering what they’d be able to do this summer. It’s a highly uncertain world right now, and it’s tough to make firm plans.

Of course, those residents who spend most of their time inside the US don’t have that same problem. The Taxi, for example, firmed up plans for August as did the Globe, at least domestically. And the Heart, well, the Heart rekindled its luv affair in Burbank.

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

Alaska Gooses a Few Markets

Alaska didn’t do much at all, but it did bump up service in a few markets. Austin – Portland (OR) goes from 1x to 2x daily starting in September. LA to both Kona and Lihu’e goes up to 1x daily during the winter season.

American Hits Back at Delta

Remember how Delta filed Boston – Charlotte and Dallas/Fort Worth last week? Well, this week, American decided to add an additional 1x daily flight in Phoenix – Atlanta and Detroit as well as Charlotte – Minneapolis/St Paul and Salt Lake. It also upgauged both Phoenix – Minneapolis/St Paul flights from A319s to A321s. Game on.

American also extended some of its Orlando non-hub flying beyond summer into September. That includes Orlando – Birmingham, Dayton, Indianapolis, Louisville, Memphis, Nashville, Pittsburgh, and Raleigh/Durham. Lastly, Miami – Little Rock weekend service has been extended to year-round.

Delta Makes Europe Tweaks

Delta has made some changes to Europe in July and August. It’s bulking up in Italy now that Italy is officially reopened. It is also giving up on heavy business markets in Brussels and Zurich through August. Some non-hub flying from Amsterdam, London, and Paris has been pulled back through August while some frequencies in hub-to-hub markets have been pulled down. Spain was also cut back in July, along with Lisbon and Dublin. In those, Delta must be waiting to see what happens.

Frontier Finalizes LAX

Frontier pulled the rest of its schedule out of LAX this week, as expected. All flights past September have been canceled.

Hawaiian Changes July Interisland

Hawaiian pulled down interisland flying for July by about 20 percent. This is likely to be the final planned July schedule for the airline.

JetBlue Files London

As was already announced, JetBlue has filed flights from JFK to both Heathrow and Gatwick. Look for another post on that soon. There was also a lot of upgauging in July and August. That’s mostly A320 retrofits with the higher seat count.

Southwest Lights Up Burbank

There wasn’t much attention paid to Burbank before, but now Southwest is back with a vengeance. The weekday schedule will ramp up by fall with short-haul flights getting more frequency. Denver does well too, and Southwest will bring back Salt Lake City earlier. It will also start a brand new Reno flight.

Spirit Sets August

Spirit has filed its August cuts, and the month looks almost identical to July. It’s now up 7 percent vs 2019 in August.

United Pulls Down Summer

United did a lot this week, but it was mostly what was announced via press release. It looks like it also pulled down August, but that was domestic. Apparently United is still holding out hope for international to come back, so it too is waiting to see what happens. There were some changes that go through the end of schedule, however. Those are:

• Chicago/O’Hare – Burlington and Newark; Denver – Williston; Newark – Charlotte; San Francisco – Las Vegas and Washington/Dulles; and Washington/Dulles – Allentown all lose 1x daily.
• Chicago/O’Hare – Chattanooga loses 2x daily.
• Chicago/O’Hare – Portland (OR) and Sacramento; Los Angeles – Orlando; and Washington/Dulles – Nashville gain 1x daily.

Other Randomness

• Air Canada is bumping Mexico City flying from both Vancouver and Toronto up to daily from July through the rest of the summer.
• ANA will bring back Dulles – Narita flying at 3x weekly starting in July.
• British Airways won’t fly to Atlanta or Austin through June.
• Condor won’t operate Anchorage, Baltimore, or Fairbanks in June.
• Denver Air Connection has filed its EAS flying to Watertown (SD) from Chicago and Denver while Pierre (SD) gets a flight from Denver.
• Eastern continues its erratic moves by canceling Santo Domingo from Boston and Miami starting immediately.
• Porter has extended its service shut down by another month. We’ll see if it ends up actually flying in July or not in about another month when it’ll probably just extend again.
• Virgin Atlantic won’t fly to Dulles through July.

And that’s it for this week. Stay tuned for next week’s exciting episode of Skeds of air Lines.