Welcome to our 15th routes newsletter! Doesn't time fly? This week includes a selection of the many routes introduced at the beginning of the aviation winter season. Why not sign up and receive our newsletter in your email inbox every week?
A shower of new routes for Ryanair
Around 250 routes are set to be introduced by Ryanair between October 18th and November 18th – a phenomenal amount – partly from opening bases at Agadir, Billund, Riga, Stockholm Arlanda, and Turin. A good number of routes began on and shortly after the start of the winter season on October 31st.
Introduced routes include multiple from Stockholm, Helsinki, Paris Beauvais, and Lithuania (such as Kaunas to Aalborg, Gothenburg, Helsinki, Malaga, and Madrid and Vilnius to Birmingham, Kharkiv, and Tel Aviv). Among many others, there were Liverpool to Arlanda, Milan Bergamo, Tallinn, Paris Beauvais, and Sibiu; Cardiff to Dublin; Port to Frankfurt Hahn; Kosice to Dublin; and many more. The photo celebrates the inauguration of Košice to Dublin.
HVN is now served by Avelo
The Connecticut airport of Tweed New Haven (IATA code HVN), well-known for its short runway of just 5,600 feet (1,707 meters), once again has airline service. And not just to a hub, but non-stop to Florida aboard Avelo's 147-seat B737-700s. This is the new entrant's first operation on the East Coast.
Avelo now serves Orlando (four-weekly, rising later to seven-weekly), Fort Lauderdale (four-weekly, later seven-weekly), and Tampa (three-weekly, up to five-weekly). They'll be joined by Fort Myers (November 11th), West Palm Beach (December 16th), and Sarasota (January 13th).
Air Canada introduces Montréal to Delhi
Montréal to Delhi has launched, with Air Canada operating the 7,017-mile (11,293km) link three-weekly using 298-seat B787-9s. The type is its most common widebody, with 30 fully-flat business seats. AC50 leaves Canada at 20:10 and arrives in India at 20:00 local time the following day. Returning, AC51 departs at 01:55 and arrives home at 06:10.
Montréal-Delhi had ~41,000 round-trip point-to-point passengers in 2019, booking data reveals. The airport pair's average one-way fare was $421 (excluding taxes and fuel surcharge), higher than to Toronto and Vancouver.
Edelweiss begins Muscat and Phuket
It's not often the A340-300 is used nowadays, but that is what happened when Swiss leisure operator Edelweiss launched Zurich to Muscat and Phuket, both running twice-weekly.
The 3,178-mile (5,114km) link to Muscat leaves Switzerland at 13:15, arrives at 22:45, departs at 01:50 the following day, and returns at 06:15. SWISS operated the route (via Dubai) for many years until 2020. Oman Air will resume Zurich twice-weekly service from December 1st, rising to once-daily from the start of summer 2022.
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Vueling expands big at Paris Orly
Paris Orly has seen significant expansion by Vueling with large numbers of routes introduced over a few days. These include Agadir, Asturias, Bari, Belfast International, Bergen, Billund, Birmingham, Bologna, Cardiff, Cork, Dublin, Edinburgh, Genoa, Glasgow, Gothenburg, Granada, Hamburg, Jerez, Leipzig, Malta, Milan Bergamo, Newcastle, Nuremberg, Santander, Tangier, Turin, and Zaragoza. Vueling's 220-seat A321ceo is the most-used type.
Vueling has served Orly – around 20km from central Paris – since 2009. This winter, it'll be the third-largest airline at the airport, behind Air France and Transavia France. Vueling's fast expansion results from Air France giving up slots at Orly in return for receiving a significant loan from the French Government.
Frontier introduces multiple routes
A change of the aviation season always means large numbers of routes are added, especially with LCCs/ULCCs. Frontier is no exception, with nine routes added from Miami (Albany, Buffalo, Memphis, Norfolk, Stewart, St Louis, Portland (Maine), Rochester, St Louis). Many others also launched, including Atlanta to Montego Bay, Jacksonville to San Juan, Philadelphia to Nassau, and Orlando from Nassau, Northwest Arkansas, El Paso, and Harlingen.
This November, Miami is Frontier's sixth-busiest airport. It has 489 departures, behind Orlando (1,733), Denver (1,642), Las Vegas (1,322), Philadelphia (627), and Atlanta (597). While Frontier added Miami in 2014, it wasn't until 2021 that it really took off.
Vistara takes off from Delhi to Paris
India's Vistara has inaugurated Delhi to Paris CDG, with France's main airport becoming the airline's third route across Europe this winter, joining London Heathrow and Frankfurt.
Operating on Wednesdays and Sundays, UK21 leaves Delhi at 13:45 and arrives at 18:40 local time. After three hours and five minutes, UK22 departs at 21:45 and comes back at 10:30 the following day. It uses the 299-seat B787-9, with 30 seats in business, 21 in premium economy, and 248 in regular economy.
Vistara is one of three airlines on the airport-pair, joining Air France (four-weekly) and Air India (three-weekly). In 2019, Delhi-CDG had almost 225,000 round-trip point-to-point passengers and an average one-way fare (excluding taxes and any surcharges) of $298.
Bellingham welcomes Southwest
Located just 20 miles (32km) from the Canadian border, Bellingham welcomed Southwest on November 7th. Two routes operate: Oakland (14-weekly) and Las Vegas (seven-weekly). Both compete head-to-head with Allegiant, which in the current week has two flights to Oakland and 10 to Sin City.
Bellingham celebrated the start with a water cannon salute and more. And it has good reason to celebrate. The arrival of Southwest has contributed to the airport's winter 2021 capacity rising to 337,000 seats, up by a commendable 20% versus winter 2019.
Viva introduces four new routes
Colombian LCC Viva has started flights from the island of San Andres to Cartagena (five-weekly), Pereira (normally four-weekly), and Barranquilla (three-weekly). Viva has head-to-head competition on all three routes. Additionally, the low-cost carrier has begun a twice-weekly link from Bucaramanga to Cartagena, 278 miles (447km) apart. It is in direct competition with Avianca (seven-weekly) and Easyfly (five-weekly).
In 2019, three of these four routes were operated non-stop, yet still had round-trip indirect traffic of approximately 30,000 to 34,000. Well over half of the passengers flew via somewhere, showing how underserved they were. The only unserved route was San Andres-Pereira, which had a decent ~29,000 passengers. Traffic on all routes will rise significantly as Viva expects to reduce the average fare by up to half.
Virgin Australia adds large unserved market
Launceston, the second-largest city on the island of Tasmania, is now connected non-stop to Perth courtesy of Virgin Australia. At 1,844 miles (2,967km), it's a long way, with Virgin's B737-800s presently operating on Mondays, Fridays, and Sundays, rising to seven-weekly in December and January. VA1510 leaves Perth at 14:05 and returns at 23:30.
With over 44,000 round-trip passengers in 2019, Launceston was Perth's largest unserved market, although Perth-Townsville was of a similar size. And Perth was the Tasmanian airport's third-largest unserved market, after the Gold Coast and Adelaide. Launceston-Adelaide now h non-stops, while the Gold Coast is coming soon.
Jet2 is back in Budapest
Budapest has welcomed the relaunch of Jet2 from Manchester, a route the carrier has operated since January 2005. Served on Mondays and Fridays using B737-800s, a third-weekly service will operate on December 23rd in time for Christmas. Manchester competes head-to-head with a five-weekly Ryanair offering.
In 2020, Budapest's Christmas Market was voted the most beautiful in Europe. It's not much of a surprise that Jet2 will also have Christmas flights from Leeds and Newcastle to Budapest in December, while another route (Birmingham) will resume in March.
That's it for the 15th edition of our routes newsletter. To get something like this in your inbox every week, please sign up for our weekly routes newsletter.