The Most Notable New Airline Routes This Week

I've covered a selection of new routes that took place in the last week. I'm delighted to say that subscribers have now passed 10,000. Why not sign up and receive my newsletter in your email inbox every week?

JetBlue begins Boston-Europe

JetBlue has started its third Europe route: Boston to London Gatwick. It joins JFK to both London Heathrow and London Gatwick. A fourth route, Boston-Heathrow, takes off in September.

I was delighted to be on its first Gatwick-Boston flight, in Mint to the US and Even More Space back. I enjoyed both classes and found its long-haul product very pleasant, unfussy, and decent. The crew was great. JetBlue operates Boston-Gatwick 1x daily with its high-premium and low-capacity 138-seat A321LRs.

While JetBlue has no direct competition on Boston-Gatwick, it is the sixth airline on the city pair. It competes indirectly with five airlines from Heathrow: British Airways (2x daily, 1x by the A380), American (1x daily), Delta (1x daily), United (1x daily), and Virgin Atlantic (1x daily).

JetBlue's first Gatwick to Boston flight

Yours truly joining in the celebration at London Gatwick. Photo: Simple Flying - James Pearson.

Take off: India's new airline

India has a new airline. On August 7th, Akasa took off on its first flight. It utilized VT-YAA, one of two 189-seat B737 MAX 8s in its fleet thus far.

That first day intentionally had minimal flying – just four sectors, two roundtrips on the short, 275 miles (442km) between Mumbai and Ahmedabad. The first flight was QP1101, which took off from Mumbai at 10:34. The last flight was QP1108, which landed back in Mumbai at 17:36.

In mid-August, Akasa is the fifth airline on the airport pair. There are 122x weekly flights and up to 18x daily. With up to 8x daily, IndiGo is obviously number one, followed by Go First (up to 4x daily), Vistara (3x), Akasa (2x), and Air India (1x). SpiceJet returns at the end of October, making six airlines, although at just 4x weekly.

As of August 7th, Akasa will have a total of eight sectors a day across a wider network, and later this month 12, 14, and more. By year-end, it'll have 20 daily flights.

In what is already a highly competitive domestic market, it seems that Akasa will actively attempt to reduce costs as much as it can to offer the lowest fares. Photo: via Akasa.

Saudia zooms to Zürich

It has been 12 years since Riyadh had nonstop flights to Zürich, when they were by SWISS. They operated for years until February 2010. The route's back, this time by Saudia, helped by the country's air connectivity fund.

With flights on Wednesdays and Sundays, the 2,596-mile (4,178km) airport pair will run until the end of the summer season. It deploys very low-capacity, 110-seat A320s, with 20 business seats and just 90 in economy. While the market isn't large – around 12,000 point-to-point passengers in 2019 – it predictably had pretty high one-way fares of over $800.

SV235 departs Riyadh at 08:45 and arrives in Switzerland at 14:05. Returning, SV236 leaves 75 minutes later and arrives back at 21:55.

Photo: via Zürich Airport.

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Finnair takes off to Mumbai

After an absence of 13 years, Helsinki and Mumbai are finally reconnected. It happened on August 6th, with Finnair offering a 3x weekly service utilizing A330-300s.

AY125 lifted off from the Finnish capital at 18:15 arrived the following day at 05:15 local, after a flight time of 8h 30m. Returning, AY126 departed at 07:41 and arrived home at 14:07, meaning some 8h 56m.

The timings are very similar to Delhi's, Finnair's other India route. Given relatively low point-to-point demand, both rely on transit passengers, reflected in the schedule to connect passengers across Europe and to limited places in the US. The same will be true of any other proposed India route.

Finnair last served Mumbai in 2009. Photo: via Finnair.

Albuquerque & Boise get Spirit

Albuquerque and Boise have welcomed a new airline: Spirit. The ULCC has one route from both: Las Vegas. It becomes the third airline from Albuquerque to Sin City and the fourth from Boise. Based on seats for sale this month, Las Vegas is New Mexico's fourth most-served route and fifth from the Idaho capital.

The exit of Allegiant from Las Vegas-Albuquerque in May this year helped Spirit's entry. Allegiant served the route since June 2016.

The carrier has a 1x daily service – its normal amount – on both routes. From Albuquerque, it's against 3x daily flights by Southwest and 2x weekly by Frontier. From Boise: Southwest (8x weekly; 2x on Saturdays), Alaska (1x daily), and Allegiant (2x weekly).

The entry of Spirit means that Albuquerque-Las Vegas again has four airlines. Photo: via Spirit.

4th airline on Muscat-Trabzon

Located on the Black Sea coast, the Turkish city of Trabzon recently welcomed multiple new routes, including from across the Middle East. Trabzon has become increasingly popular as a tourist destination partly from its climate and greenery.

Now it's the turn of Oman Air, which has started a 5x weekly service using B737 MAX 8s. It'll run at that frequency through August and September, reducing to 3x in October. It'll end for the season on October 28th.

Perhaps surprisingly, Oman Air is the fourth airline on the 1,608-mile (2,588km) airport pair. It joins a 9x weekly service by Salam Air, 4x weekly by Turkish Airlines, and 2x weekly by Pegasus.

There are 20x weekly flights between Muscat and Trabzon. Photo: via Oman Air.

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Second aircraft at Kutaisi

The ULCC now has two aircraft based at Kutaisi, Georgia, welcoming back the number it had in 2018.

Wizz Air first served the Kutaisi in 2013, which wasn't for the city itself. While Kutaisi is the country's second-largest city, it's small. Instead, it was to serve the whole country, with the capital, Tbilisi, 155 miles (250km) away by regular buses. That's a long way, but Tbilisi had no real demand stimulation to Europe from ULCC/LCCs. That's more or less the same today.

The development comes as Wizz Air relaunched two routes. First came Tallinn on August 1st, last served in June 2020. Then Beauvais, for the wider Paris area, three days later, last linked in March 2020. They're two of 22 Kutaisi routes for the Wizz Air Group.

Wizz Air's August Kutaisi seat capacity is 3% above what it had in August 2019. Photo: via United Airports of Georgia.

Vistara takes off to Jeddah

India's Vistara has become the sixth airline between Mumbai and Jeddah. The route is large: in 2019, it had 360,309 roundtrip passengers. In fact, it was Jeddah's second-biggest Indian market that year, behind only Kozhikode (398,446).

Vistara runs on Tuesdays, Tuesdays, and Saturdays, with its first flight on August 2nd. UK235 leaves Mumbai at 18:05 and arrives at 20:50 local time. Returning, UK236 departs at 21:50 and arrives back at 05:30. It uses 164-seat A320neos.

In the week starting August 15th, Vistara's 3x weekly is against Saudia (9x weekly), IndiGo and Air India (1x daily each), SpiceJet (3x weekly), and Air India Express (2x weekly).

It's the first time Vistara has served Saudi Arabia. Photo: via Swissport.

Breeze arrives in Provo

Located some 45 miles (72km) south of Salt Lake City, Provo has welcomed Breeze. It comes as the airport opens its new terminal. Breeze has one nonstop route so far – San Francisco – but with continuing, same-plane service San Bernardino, which began the same day. It means San Bernardino now has passenger service.

Served 1x daily using Embraer 190s, the launch of Provo-San Francisco marks Breeze's entry into Utah, the state where its headquarters is located. No other airline serves the route. In fact, none ever has. However, Allegiant linked the airport to Oakland between June 2013 and January 2018.

Come November, Breeze will have three nonstop routes from Provo: San Francisco, and also Las Vegas (1x daily; starts October 5th; A220-300) and 1x Los Angeles (1x daily; November 2nd; A220-300). It'll have direct competition with Allegiant to Las Vegas and Los Angeles.