On the surface, the Cirium data made it look like a relatively quiet week in Airlineville. Maybe they were all masked up, isolating in their homes just like I was. Or maybe they were quietly hatching plans for the future.
It was most certainly the latter for both the Widget and the Globe. It may not have looked like much, but they both seem to have made their plans all the way until the holidays hit in December. That just seems so far away.
Meanwhile, the Animal behaved like a fast-growing giraffe and just kept going up, up, and up. And wait, what’s this? The Eagle’s family in New York is planning on going to the Caribbean this winter? That’s an odd change of pace.
All this and more this week. Like sands through the hourglass, so are the skeds of air lines.
Air Canada Gets Ready
Air Canada is ready for Americans, and it has started to build in more frequency. In particular it looks like Vancouver and Toronto are the ones that gain. Montreal, well, it is losing Cairo for the winter and sees a few other trims. Lastly, the bustling route of Halifax – Goose Bay is gone, and I know we’re all sad about that.
Alaska Plays In Its Namesake State
Alaska is making some changes to its intra-Alaska schedule through the winter and beyond. Anchorage – King Salmon is back as a roundtrip, as is Anchorage – Dillingham now that they’ve been decoupled. Barrow will get Anchorage instead of Fairbanks. Fairbanks also loses Prudhoe Bay.
Paine Field is back to getting beaten up again. It will have Boise and Spokane cut down to daily this fall. LA, San Francisco, and San Jose are now gone through February. Portland is gone beyond that. Frequencies are cut elsewhere into the new year.
Lastly, Alaska pulled down about 1 percent of seat miles in October. It’s mostly shorter-flying, higher-frequency flying from Seattle that gets trimmed.
American Does More Caribbean with a Focus on New York
American is back to building up Caribbean flying this winter. JFK gets a noticeable bump with Antigua increasing from 6x weekly to 1x daily, Providenciales operating 1x weekly, and both Punta Cana and St Thomas going from 1x weekly to 1x daily. Its only loss is Bermuda, which goes away, but I don’t count that as Caribbean anyway.
Other than that, Chicago gets another daily Cancun flight and weekly Cozumel flying comes back in November, earlier than planned. It also sees more Montego Bay, Puerto Vallarta, and Punta Cana. Philly, meanwhile, will add 2x more weekly flights to Santo Domingo, and it will have new 4x weekly to Santiago (DR).
Delta Sets Pre-Holiday Schedules
Delta has pulled November down 7.6 percent with December down 3.4 percent. This gets Delta to a semblance of a flyable schedule through the first half of December. It has even set a Halloween and Thanksgiving schedule, so it has made some more nuanced cuts.
The airline has also played with frequency in a few markets, adding Salt Lake – West Yellowstone, Moab, and Cody and bumping up Colorado Springs and Great Falls. While we’re on Salt Lake, it’s out of Guadalajara for good.
Delta has also now put its 757s with flat beds on the Boston – San Francisco route through the end of the schedule. Before it was only there in the short term.
Frontier Goes Nuts Again
Frontier was busy again this week, increasing October capacity by more than 20 percent. Vegas and Orlando are the big winners while Miami is the biggest loser. It also added more new routes for the long run, but those were already announced, so you can read the release for details.
JetBlue Goes Skiing
It was a quiet week, but JetBlue did find the time to add flying to Steamboat Springs from both Boston and Fort Lauderdale this winter.
Southwest Builds Back Up
Now that Southwest has cut back September and October it’s time to start adding back. Southwest put almost a point of capacity back for September, mostly leisure markets, as usual.
Spirit Was Busy
Oh, Spirit wasn’t busy here. It filed nothing. I just assumed Spirit was far too busy trying to figure out how to put the airline back together again. No time for future schedules!
United Takes a Similar Cut as Delta
United had a remarkably similar percentage cut for November into mid-December compared to Delta. Both airlines are trying to create flyable schedules further out, but United’s looks like it’s primed for more changes. It has now canceled a lot of the West Coast overflying of Denver through January. Those flights haven’t been operating (like Madison, Detroit, Omaha), and now they won’t operate for longer. Some from Denver will get the same treatment, like Dayton and Santa Rosa. You can pick these out in every hub, like Newark – Oklahoma City and Dulles – Panama City. On the bright side, Denver gets flights to Butte from January.
Oh, and Auckland is now out through November. That is most definitely going to be extended again.
Other Randomness
- Allegiant must not have liked Reno – Orange County, because that is gone.
- British Airways may be seeing borders open for Americans, but Brits still can’t come to the US. For that reason, Vegas flights won’t operate in August.
- Cabo Verde Airlines is back in the US with 1x weekly Boston – Praia service coming back in October.
- Denver Air Connection is planning to be back white-knuckling it into Telluride this winter from both Denver and Phoenix.
- Fiji Airways will only fly a couple of repatriation flights in Oct and Nov to LA. No other US service will operate.
- Iberia will boost JFK – Madrid from 1x daily to 10x weekly starting in November.
- LATAM won’t fly Boston – Sao Paulo through the winter, it is downgauging JFK – Lima and Santiago, and LA – Santiago gets cut back. LA – Lima will grow as will Miami – Santiago. And Miami – Punta Cana will come back 1x weekly.
- Turkish filed schedules for its new Dallas/Fort Worth – Istanbul flight starting next month.
- WestJet is going to fly from Calgary to Seattle starting in November.
That’s all for this week. Stay tuned for next week’s exciting episode of Skeds of air Lines. And for those who can’t wait — and who have not previously requested a sample report — here’s what we’re talking about this week in Cranky Network Weekly.
- United, Delta Approach the Future Differently
- American Rebuilding New York – Caribbean
- LATAM Tries to Regain Its Lost US Share
- Air Canada’s Uneven International Growth
- Frontier Grows Massively Again
