The residents of Airlineville were again busy this week. It seems like they’re hustling to get everything buttoned up before the quiet holiday season arrives. And by that, I mean the quiet holiday “planning” season. The season will be plenty busy in executing those plans… or so we hope they actually execute.
The Cirium data this week showed the Eagle as remarkably active. There were many changes on multiple levels. This wasn’t any kind of blunt force move; the Eagle clearly plotted well in advance. The Widget was feeling a little prickly this week as he shot some daggers at “friends.” And let’s not forget about the Animal which decided once and for all to walk away from one of his biggest ideas.
All this and more this week. Like sands through the hourglass, so are the skeds of air lines.
Air Canada Gives Up on China
As the world continues to reopen, China continues to lag. And now Air Canada has given up on flying from Canada to China through the end of the schedule. That’s a pretty big statement right there. It will continue with 4x weekly flights via Incheon to Shanghai/Pudong, and that’s it.
In other news, Vancouver – Brisbane is gone for good. Budapest and Zagreb service won’t operate next summer.
Alaska Works on Spring Break
Alaska brought down March and April by a couple percent each. They’re both mostly impacted by reduced frequencies in existing markets. The one winner, however, is Austin. It gets more service to Palm Springs, San Francisco, and San Jose. (Partner American also boosted Austin as I’ll talk about below, but remember, they aren’t able to coordinate.) Interestingly, Dulles – LA also gets a bump up from 1x daily to 10x weekly and Paine Field gets a little more Palm Springs, Orange County, and Tucson.
American Sets January and February
American pulled down January and February schedules about 20 percent, trying to get close to reality. As part of this, there were a slew of new and canceled routes.
- Austin – Albuquerque starts in January while Dulles and Denver get extended. (Dulles is now 1x daily instead of 2x.)
- Boston – Grand Cayman, Raleigh/Durham won’t operate next year.
- Charlotte – Champaign/Urbana, Toledo won’t operate next year; El Paso, Ontario, Sioux Falls won’t operate in the winter.
- Chicago/O’Hare – Charlottesville won’t operate next year; Boise, Grand Cayman, Ontario, San Jose (CA) won’t operate in the winter.
- Dallas/Fort Worth – Grand Cayman, Montreal won’t operate in the winter.
- Fort Lauderdale – Port-au-Prince won’t operate in the winter.
- New York/JFK – Liberia, Montreal, San Antonio, Toronto won’t operate next year; San Jose (CR) won’t fly next summer; Worcester will fly in the winter and there are frequency increases to midwest business markets.
- New York/LaGuardia – Asheville, Bangor, Boston, Charleston (SC), Martha’s Vineyard, Myrtle Beach, Nantucket, Orlando, Pensacola, Philly, Portland (ME), Savannah, Traverse City won’t operate next year but there are frequency increases primarily to AA hubs.
- Philly – Baltimore, Charleston (WV), Ottawa won’t operate next year.
- Phoenix – Calgary, Vancouver won’t operate next year.
That Boston – LaGuardia cancellation is most notable with flights all being operated by JetBlue going forward.
Delta Strikes Back
It was another week of minor cuts for Delta with January and February each losing about a point and a half. But there was some growth in ULCC markets. New/increased frequency markets are:
- Minneapolis/St Paul – Asheville, Burlington, Jackson Hole (as a summer market), Myrtle Beach, Portland (ME), Providence, Savannah
- New York/JFK – Sarasota
- New York/LaGuardia – Albany, Myrtle Beach, Pensacola (as a summer market), Providence
Boston – Nassau won’t operate. And Delta did add frequency from Detroit to Lansing, notable because United just pulled out of that market entirely.
Frontier Leaves Newark
As was publicly announced this week, Frontier is walking away from Newark. Service ends in February. Routes that remained until this point were Atlanta, Cancun, Dallas/Fort Worth, Miami, Montego Bay, Nassau, Orlando, San Juan, Tampa, West Palm Beach with most ending after the holidays and only Atlanta, Cancun, Miami, and Orlando staying until the end on February 16.
United Cuts Down on Regional Again
United continued with a slew of regional cuts, but this week it was just frequencies in January and February. But there was also a new regional destination buried in there. Houston – Texarkana starts in February.
In other news, Amman service is now official, starting in May from Washington/Dulles. There were also filings for one-off flights to CES in Las Vegas in January and a variety of college football flights.
Other Randomness
- El Al won’t fly from Tel Aviv to Chicago through the winter.
- Finnair filed flights from DFW to Helsinki starting in February.
- Gol has delayed the restart of US services to May.
- Porter has now gone from 78 seats back to 74 seats again in its filing. I give up.
- Public Charters has filed flights from Scranton to Atlantic City. Hurry up and book, because this route is clearly going to be in high demand. I’m not sure who this is operating for.
- Singapore must be seeing some success on LA – Tokyo/Narita, so it’s going from 3x to 4x weekly.
- Vietnam Airlines will fly 2x weekly from SFO to Ho Chi Minh City starting this month.
- Zip Air will start flying 3x weekly from LA to Tokyo/Narita.
That’s all for this week. Stay tuned for next week’s exciting episode of Skeds of air Lines.
