I've covered a selection of new routes that took off or relaunched in the last week. Why not sign up and receive my newsletter in your email inbox every week?

Condor begins THREE US routes

German leisure carrier Condor has launched Frankfurt to Boston, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. Boston operates on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays; Los Angeles on Tuesdays, Fridays, and Sundays; and San Francisco on Mondays, Thursdays, and Saturdays.

The 3,670-mile (5,906km) link with Boston initially used D-AIYD, a 13.3-year-old, two-class, ex-Etihad A330-200. However, like with Los Angeles and San Francisco, the B767-300ER (for now Condor's main widebody) is scheduled for all other Boston flights.

Boston is one of 12 US airports served by Condor from Frankfurt this summer. In order of flights, it joins Seattle (restarted June 3rd, 2021), JFK (November 8th, 2021), Las Vegas (March 3rd), Los Angeles (new), Portland (May 19th), San Francisco (new), Anchorage (May 21st), Minneapolis (May 27th), Baltimore (June 4th), Phoenix (May 21st), and Fairbanks (June 9th).

Glasgow welcomes WestJet's 2nd route

Canadian carrier WestJet now has two routes to Scotland's largest city. It has launched Toronto, which is served 4x weekly using B737 MAX 8s until the end of September. It competes directly with a year-round service by Air Transat, 4x weekly during the summer but which reduces to 2x in the winter.

WestJet's entry was helped by the exit of Air Canada Rouge, which served the route between June 2016 and September 2019 using B767-300ERs. Air Canada itself serves Edinburgh from Toronto (which started May 30th), which will soon be another new route for WestJet (begins June 2nd).

At the start of May, WestJet relaunched Halifax-Glasgow after last flying in October 2019. After all, the route, which started in May 2015, was summer-seasonal and would have returned in 2020 but for coronavirus. It previously used B737-700s, but now sees larger and more fuel-efficient MAX 8s.

PLAY introduces Brussels & more

Iceland's PLAY has started yet another route: Keflavik to Brussels. It has 3x weekly flights, rising to 4x weekly from July 2nd in time for the peak summer. It is against up to a 1x daily Icelandair service. PLAY uses A320neos and A321neos, the larger model appearing between June and August.

As you'd expect, Brussels is timed for connections to/from the US. It leaves Keflavik at 06:10 (fed by arrivals from Baltimore, Boston, Stewart between 04:30-05:00) and arrives home at 13:45 (feeds 15:05-15:30 departures).

The Belgian capital is the latest new route in the past few weeks. It joins Baltimore (started on April 20th), Dublin (April 28th), Prague (May 5th), Boston (May 11th), Lisbon (May 13th), Gothenburg (May 20th), Stavanger (May 26th), and Trondheim (May 31st).

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Avelo inaugurates four routes

Four new routes have joined Avelo’s network, three from its second base at Tweed New Haven and one from Burbank, its original base. It has started New Haven to Baltimore, Chicago Midway, and Raleigh Durham, each up to 5x weekly this summer.

Due to New Haven’s very short runway, all routes use the B737-700, and none have head-to-head competition. But a different picture emerges historically. United served Chicago O’Hare from New Haven until 1996 (B737-300s/500), while Boston-Maine Airways, for Pan Am Clipper Connection, linked Baltimore in 2007 (Jetstream 31).

From Burbank, it has introduced Boise (2x weekly) with the B737-800. It competes directly with Alaska Horizon (4x weekly), which took off on May 27th, three days after Avelo. Not coincidentally, the airport pair was unserved and two carriers came at once.

Air Canada takes off to Milan

After a 20-year absence, Montréal and Milan are finally reconnected, thanks to Air Canada. The 3,809-mile (6,131km) link initially operates 3x weekly but will rise to 5x weekly from June 14th. It comes soon after United launched Chicago-Milan.

Based in point-to-point demand (~24,000 in 2019) and passengers transiting over its growing Quebec hub, AC894 departs Montreal at 20:40 and arrives in Milan Malpensa at 10:25 the next day. Returning, AC895 leaves at 13:15 and arrives back at 15:45. It uses three-class, 297-seat A330-300s.

Milan is Air Canada’s third destination in Italy from Montréal, joining Rome and Venice. As you'd expect, the ever-popular Venice is summer-only, while Rome and Milan are year-round. Milan will have more weekly flights than Rome.

Virgin Atlantic launches Austin

Austin now has another European carrier: Virgin Atlantic. It has 4x weekly year-round flights from London Heathrow to the Texas capital utilizing 264-seat B787-9s. Austin is one of Virgin’s 11 US destinations this summer.

London-Austin now has up to 11 weekly flights, joining an up to 1x daily British Airways service using A350-1000s.

This summer, Austin has 278,000 non-stop Europe seats, more than Phoenix, up by 5% over 2019. There are four airlines: the two mentioned above, plus KLM from Amsterdam (3x weekly, B787-9, launched March 28th, 2022) and Lufthansa to Frankfurt (3x weekly, A330-300, resumed April 8th).

Swoops in and starts another city

Canada's Swoop, the low-cost offshoot of WestJet, has inaugurated another new airport and city: Deer Lake, in the province of Newfoundland and Labrador. It is its latest addition, joining Moncton and Saint John, both in New Brunswick.

It began Toronto Hamilton to Deer Lake, which will run for the rest of the summer and end on October 29th. It generally has 2x weekly flights and faces no head-to-head competition.

Indeed, no other carrier has operated the airport pair, at least not in the past 20 years. However, Air Canada and WestJet operate from Toronto Pearson, and Swoop will join them from June 20th, existing alongside Hamilton.

That's it for the 39th edition of my routes newsletter. Please sign up to get something like this in your inbox each week.