Skeds of air Lines has been the #1 soap opera in the world* since its launch last year, but as they say, all good things must come to an end. This will be the final episode as the residents of Airlineville have all decided to retire and move to Florida, free to pursue a life of religious fulfillment.

*among those that target people in the airline industry

This week, the residents were incredibly busy as they tried to close up shop for the holidays. The drama was thick as the Maple Leaf turned her back on Edmonton and the Widget cut ties between Salt Lake and the Midwest. The Eagle set spring break plans, and the Heart, well, the Heart rode off into the summer sun.

Don’t worry, the residents may check in from time to time. Maybe there will be a holiday spectacular or a reunion special. But more likely is that I’ll focus on writing up individual occurrences in more detail instead of summarizing everything that happened. Those summaries will be reserved for Cranky Network Weekly subscribers.

So for the last time in its regularly scheduled spot… like sands through the hourglass, so are the skeds of air lines.

Air Canada Takes Down Edmonton, Shifts Other Routes

Air Canada slashed Edmonton this week, continuing the suspension of service through end of schedule to Kelowna, Fort McMurray, Grand Prairie, Saskatoon, and Winnipeg.

It also shifted a variety of flying this summer:

• Gone through summer: Montreal – Santa Clara; Ottawa – Boston; Toronto – Holguin, Panama City, Samana
• Gone for good: Montreal – Hartford; Toronto – Grenada, Memphis, St Vincent; Vancouver – DFW
• Reduced frequency: Halifax – St Johns (5x->3x daily); Ottawa – Washington/National (2x->1x daily); Toronto – Detroit (4x->3x daily), Havana (1x daily -> 4x weekly); Vancouver – Castlegar (3x->2x daily), Chicago/O’Hare (2x->1x daily)
• Increased frequency: Calgary – Kamloops (2x->4x daily); Montreal – Miami (1x->2x daily), Washington/National (2x->3x daily); Toronto – Charlottetown (2x->3x daily), Indianapolis (2x->3x daily), Sydney, NS (1x->2x daily), Thunder Bay (3x->6x daily); Vancouver – Kamloops (4x->5x daily)

Alaska Begins to Pull Down Q2

Alaska has started to bring down some of its Q2 flying that it knows won’t make the cut. Overall, it cut less than 2 points of capacity, and it was mostly just frequency. Going further into summer, both Bozeman and Kalispell saw frequencies pulled down in larger numbers. Ft Lauderdale also sees only 1x daily to Seattle instead of the previous plan for 2x. Las Vegas – Portland is a winner, going from 3x to 5x daily.

Allegiant Adds New Markets

As announced, Allegiant added flights from Appleton to Denver, Fort Lauderdale, and Sarasota; Flint to Boston and Jacksonville; Knoxville to Minneapolis/St Paul and Phoenix/Sky Harbor; Phoenix/Mesa to Toledo; and St Pete to Clarksburg (WV). It also extended Key West – Indy through the summer.

American Brings March Down

American brought March to reality this week. Capacity came down more than 11 percent, putting the airline down 4 percent for the month vs 2019. It was a broad pulldown, but there were also some longer term standouts through the end of schedule.

In the Caribbean, Miami – Anguilla and Dominica went up from 3x weekly to 1x daily and Bermuda from 1x weekly to 1x daily. Santiago (DR) goes down from 4x to 1x daily and Port-au-Prince drops from 3x to 1x daily. Knoxville will fly through the summer. Austin sees Cancun drop from 1x daily to 4x weekly and Nassau from 4x weekly to 1x weekly. Charlotte – Santo Domingo goes from 1x daily to 1x weekly. DFW sees 1x daily Cancun flight move to Chicago and Hilton Head drops from 1x daily to 1x weekly. It also sees San Juan and San Luis Potosi lose a flight, but Idaho Falls goes from 1x to 2x daily, so that seems to be going well.

Along with the expansion of the Northeast Alliance, American will fly Boston – Louisville and Memphis (each 6x weekly) along with Halifax, Pensacola, and Traverse City (1x weekly).

And in Phoenix, American moved things around. Cincinnati, Cleveland gets extended through June while Montrose and Pittsburgh go through August. Cancun, Memphis, Milwaukee, and Sioux Falls go from 2x to 1x daily.

Lastly, American will move all of its flights from Tegucigalpa to the new Comayagua airport starting this month.

Delta Gets to Work on Summer

Delta took down May through August capacity between 2 and 3 percent. Much of this is just frequency cuts in existing markets, but there were some standouts.

Cincinnati non-hub routes to Chicago, DFW, and San Francisco are now delayed until at least after Labor Day.

LaGuardia gets a leisure tilt as it brings back service to Martha’s Vineyard, Nantucket, Traverse City, and Wilmington (NC). Frequencies get cut from Charlotte, Cleveland, Des Moines, Houston, Knoxville, Louisville, Milwaukee, Omaha, and St Louis.

Lastly, Atlanta – Rochester (MN); Boston – Bermuda; MSP – Tulsa; Salt Lake – Cleveland, Columbus, Des Moines, Madison, Pittsburgh look to be gone from the network.

Hawaiian Moves on Interisland

Hawaiian has now gone further out, bringing interisland flying down all the way through May. It has also delayed Auckland through April while keeping Haneda suspended into March. Sydney will also be cut from 1x daily to 5x weekly through end of schedule.

JetBlue Boosts the Summer

JetBlue took summer capacity up 3.5 percent in May, 4.8 percent in June, and then between 2 and 3 percent beyond that. Frequencies get shifted all around. Sarasota loses service from Boston and Newark this summer, but LaGuardia will operate. LaGuardia is also connected to Portland (ME).

Vancouver joins the network with JFK and Boston flights.

Southwest Extends Through Summer

As expected Southwest has filed part 2 of its schedule extension, now going all the way through Labor Day. June and July are up 4 percent vs 2019 while August is up 10 percent. More details are here.

Spirit Files Memphis

Spirit will, as announced, fly to Memphis from Las Vegas and Orlando starting in April followed by Los Angeles in June. All flights are 1x daily.

United Extends Cuts

United also did a little housekeeping, extending some suspensions well into April and May. February and March are down just over 2 percent while April is down 3.5 percent. Many route suspension extensions are San Francisco longer-haul routes like Atlanta and Columbus, but it’s more than that. Further, Denver – Dayton, LA – Madison, and San Francisco – Oklahoma City are gone through the summer season. And United will move all Tegucigalpa flying to Comayagua.

In good news, Cleveland’s Las Vegas, Phoenix, and Tampa flying will now go into early May instead of ending in late March as planned. Hilton Head will again have flying from Newark, and Washington/Dulles. Myrtle Beach gets Chicago daily this summer.

Other Randomness

• Aer Lingus won’t fly Dublin – LA or Seattle until May now.
• Air India has brought back Chicago – Hyderabad with 1x weekly service starting again this month.
• Air New Zealand will not fly to Honolulu or San Francisco until April, Houston until July, and Chicago until September. Its LAX – Rarotonga flight is gone through the full summer season.
• ANA has extended its pandemic schedule until late March, zeroing out Narita – Honolulu and JFK along with Haneda – Chicago, Houston, and Washington/Dulles until then.
• Boutique appears to be ending Jackson (TN) – St Louis service this month. Atlanta ends in March.
• British Airways has now cut spring flying after setting summer last week. It has also announced it will bring back JFK – Gatwick in May and Pittsburgh – Heathrow in June. It will also launch Portland (OR) – Heathrow in June.
• Gol will not fly Orlando – Fortaleza through summer.
• KLM has cut frequency in 2022 with Houston, MSP, and San Francisco losing 2x weekly. LA loses 4x in the spring, dropping to 2x by summer.
• Lufthansa will move its 5x weekly San Diego flight from Frankfurt to Munich for summer 2022. It will also launch 3x weekly from Frankfurt to St Louis, bringing back the first Transatlantic service from St Louis since American dropped Gatwick in October 2003. (This assumes you don’t count WOW’s short-lived Keflavik flight.)
• Play out of Iceland has filed its first US flights with 1x daily service from Keflavik to Baltimore and Boston starting in April and May respectively. No St Louis yet….
• Porter has once again reversed its seat count from 78 to 74 seats. I don’t get what is happening here, but it’s clearly just some weird glitch.
• Qantas won’t fly LA – Brisbane until May, but then it will go to 2x daily instead of 1x.
• SAS is putting its A321neos to good use. One of the two Newark – Copenhagen flights and the sole Dulles – Copenhagen flight will be downgraded from a widebody to the neo.
• SATA will bring back Boston – Terceira in January.
• Singapore has extended its JFK – Singapore nonstop through the full summer season.
• Swoop will not fly to Vegas from Victoria this winter, but it will add service from Abbotsford instead.
• T’way will leave the Osaka – Guam market.
• World 2 Fly has filed 1x weekly from Orlando/Sanford to Madrid next July.

That’s all folks. I hope you’ve enjoyed this over the last year as much as I have, but it’s time to say goodbye to the show… for now.