A Quiet Week of Schedule Changes Still Has a Few Surprises

Schedule Changes

At long last, a breather. The residents of Airlineville all took a collective breath this week and just relaxed. Ok, maybe not all of them, but the Cirium data shows a pretty quiet week indeed.

In what has become a time-honored tradition, several residents including the Eagle and the Globe kicked their Asian plans down the road. They’ll get back there someday. Meanwhile closer to home, in something of a surprise, the Eskimo decided to defer a Mexico beach vacation that was planned for next summer.

Up north, it was the Maple Leaf who found his spurned lover fighting back. Nothing like a good spat.

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

Air Canada Prunes Some, Grows Others

Air Canada has pulled the plug on Casablanca flights this winter. It was planning on flying from Montreal but had already reduced capacity before killing it entirely this week. It will, however, extend 1x daily flying from Vancouver to Orange County through the summer. It will also fly Montreal – Deer Lake and Quebec City to both Calgary and Vancouver.

Alaska Takes Mexico Down

Alaska is reducing summer plans from LA and San Diego to Mexico.

  • Los Angeles – Loreto 1x daily –> 3x weekly
  • Los Angeles – Mazatlan 1x daily –> 4x weekly
  • Los Angeles – Ixtapa/Zihuatanejo 1x daily –> 2-3x weekly
  • Los Angeles – Manzanillo 4x weekly –> 2x weekly
  • San Diego – Los Cabos 2x daily –> 10x weekly
  • San Diego – Puerto Vallarta 1x daily –> 3x weekly

It will also add new service as announced earlier this week from Boise to Idaho Falls and Las Vegas.

American Pulls Down Asia Again

Blaming both delays in receiving 787s and COVID demand suppression, American says it will keep Tokyo/Haneda to both Dallas/Fort Worth and LA along with Hong Kong to DFW suspended through the winter season. The Tokyo routes were to come back in December previously with Hong Kong starting at the end of October. American will also cut DFW – Buenos Aires from 1x daily to 4x weekly from January through March. China service will also remain suspended through the end of this year, but I don’t think that has anything to do with 787 issues.

And starting next year, Washington/National will drop from 3x to 2x daily over to Minneapolis/St Paul. It looks like that slot will go to Rochester (NY) through March and then it will shift over to extending the Tulsa flight through the summer.

Avelo Increases Again

Avelo will grow its Florida operation once again. It will fly New Haven to Fort Lauderdale, Fort Myers, and West Palm Beach 6x weekly each, up from 5x. Tampa will actually drop from 4x to 3x weekly, but Sarasota will join the network in January with 3x weekly, dropping to 2x during the summer.

Out on the West Coast, Avelo has added yet another Vegas route, this time to Redding 2x weekly.

Delta Makes a Few Tweaks

It wasn’t a busy week for Delta, but it did make a few moves. Atlanta – Palm Springs will return this winter, starting in December. Boston – Washington/National gets 1-2x additional daily starting next April. Oh, and Boston – Milwaukee gets an extra 1x daily.

Frontier Adjusts Again

Frontier increased March and April capacity by about 5 percent. Notable changes, however, are cuts. The airline won’t fly Denver – Boise, Orlando – Washington/Dulles next summer. It looks to be gone from both Miami and Newark – Providenciales for good.

JetBlue Cuts January Again

JetBlue brought January down another 3.7%. Some of this was due to JetBlue delaying the finish of its A320 retrofit to have more seats from January 5 to February 17. There were also some frequency cuts in a variety of markets.

Southwest Adjusts December

Southwest brought December holiday schedules down just a bit, about 0.3%. This doesn’t look like a response to the airline’s operational woes, but rather just a minor pulldown.

United Works on December and January

United brought both December and January down by about 2.5%. Denver – Tokyo/Narita, San Francisco – Hong Kong and Tokyo/Haneda, and Melbourne – LA and San Francisco won’t operate in December.

Other than that, there was a gauge shifting with 737NGs losing flights in favor of MAXs, 767-300s moving to 767-400s, and 777s losing flights to 787s.

Other Randomness

  • Air India won’t fly Chicago – Hyderabad through the winter. It is also cutting SFO – Bangalore and Delhi each by 1x weekly.
  • Air Transat will fly from Montreal to LA 3x weekly and San Francisco 2x weekly starting next summer.
  • China Airlines has extended its pandemic schedule through the winter season. It will continue to fly LA 3x weekly and SFO 2x weekly from Taipei.
  • Eastern won’t fly from JFK or Miami to Belo Horizonte through the winter, but Miami – Montevideo will now fly through next summer.
  • Gol won’t fly to the US through the winter season.
  • Jeju Air looks to be pulling out of Incheon – Saipan.
  • LEVEL gets a boost with Barcelona – JFK increasing from 4x weekly to 1x daily while San Francisco goes from 3x to 4x weekly. LA returns with 4x weekly.
  • Lufthansa is out of Austin through February.
  • Royal Air Maroc is feeling bullish. It is now bringing Miami – Casablanca back in December instead of waiting until next May.
  • Spirit won’t fly from Miami to Port-au-Prince from December through May.
  • Sun Country extended its schedule through summer 2022. You can see full details in its press release.
  • WestJet brought December and January down to be realistic now.

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

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8 comments on “A Quiet Week of Schedule Changes Still Has a Few Surprises

  1. The Alaska (really Horizon) hublet in Boise tends to ebb and flow a bit. It has currently grown to ~15 destinations. It is interesting to me that Alaska is willing to fly on so many routes where there is competition — there is competition on more than half of their routes. For whatever reason, Alaska has been willing to be more aggressive in Boise lately. I’m sure they are aware of the population growth in the area. Depending on how they bank these flights, they could build a bit of a connecting hub if they want to … I’m thinking of IDA-PDX/GEG/SAC, GEG-SAC/AUS, PUW-LAS/PHX/SAN/LAX, etc., as a few possibilities that could work where there aren’t direct flights and Boise is as logical (geographically) for connections as the alternatives.

    1. I had a very similar thought. Almost a Southwest strategy. (The only time I ever connected through San Diego was on a Southwest flight from Sacramento to San Antonio!)

  2. Outside of the earnings reports, it seems to me that it’s been a pretty slow week in the airline industry as a whole. Maybe that’s a good thing.

  3. With all the entry requirements for both passengers and crew going into Hong Kong there is no way any one actually believed AA would resume DFW-HKG in December. First of all there is no way AA’s pilot union would ever allow their membership to be subjected to the invasive COVID test crews go through on arrival into HKG. Extending the suspension of DFW-HND isn’t surprising and it has nothing to do with delays in 787 deliveries, American has more than enough widebodies in their fleet that if demand was actually there the would shuffle some things around and find a few 787s to operate the route. What is shocking is the continued suspension of AA’s LAX-HND for now AA still has no nonstop passenger service flight from LAX to Tokyo HND/NRT. AA does operate cargo only flights between LAX and NRT but no passenger service flights again I don’t think the delay in 787 deliveries have anything to do with the continued suspension.

    Moving on to United again no surprise United is continuing the suspension of SFO-HKG and SFO-HND. I don’t see SFO-HKG resuming until the situation upon arrival into HKG improves. Even though United will extend the suspension of their SFO-HND service United is operating passenger service flights between SFO and NRT as well as LAX-NRT. Moving on to Australia United has served SFO-SYD continually throughout the entire pandemic they were the only carrier who didn’t suspend daily passenger service on that route, I don’t see United resuming LAX-MEL or SFO-MEL until October or November of 2022. Even once Australia re-opens to tourist I believe there would need to be overwhelming demand for travel to MEL for United to resume operation to MEL before next fall 2022.

  4. Could you please explain what “WestJet brought December and January down to be realistic now” means.

    1. LoriW – Sure, so airlines have been filing placeholder schedules which aren’t really grounded in reality. It’s only closer to departure that they bring them down. WestJet has finally gotten around to bringing December and January down to realistic levels.

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