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

United begins Boston to Heathrow

Boston to London has nearly 860,000 round-trip seats for sale this summer, one of the highest volumes ever. It is partly thanks to the introduction of United’s new Boston-Heathrow service, with took off on April 15th. The carrier last served the route until October 2002.

Operating 1x daily using the B767-300ER, UA24 leaves Boston at 23:00 and arrives in London at 10:35 the next day. Returning, UA25 leaves Heathrow at 18:00 and arrives at 20:40. The aircraft arriving from Heathrow returns to the UK.

United’s new offering supplements 3x daily by British Airways and 1x daily by American, Delta, and Virgin Atlantic. They’ll soon be joined by JetBlue, a sixth carrier on the city pair. Gatwick will begin on July 19th, and Heathrow on August 22nd.

United BOS-LHR
United operated Boston-Heathrow until October 2002. Photo: via United Airlines.

The new Flybe is here

Twenty-four months after Flybe ceased to exist, the new Flybe has taken off on its first flight. On April 13th, G-JECX, a 15.1-year-old Dash-8-Q400, launched the carrier between Birmingham and Belfast City. I was aboard.

Inaugurations can be highly celebratory, and this was no exception. There was a real, excitable atmosphere on the flight, with balloons, stickers, a goody bag, biscuits, a water salute, dignitaries, and more.

The first day saw two roundtrips between Birmingham and Belfast. The following day, a rotation from Belfast City to Glasgow took place.

By mid-August, Flybe anticipates 20 routes from bases at Belfast City (128 weekly departures) and Birmingham (63 weekly). Others will be from East Midlands, Leeds Bradford, London Heathrow, and Southampton. Belfast City-Glasgow will have more flights than any other route.

Flybe #1
Celebrating the new Flybe's first flight at Belfast City. Photo: via George Best Belfast City Airport.

Ryanair opens two bases

The ULCC has opened two in the past few days: Funchal (Madeira) and Nürnberg. While the former is a brand-new base, Nürnberg has reopened.

Nürnberg became a Ryanair base in 2016 and had over one million roundtrip seats in each of the next three years. It closed in 2020, seemingly unconnected to the pandemic.

Ryanair has 10 routes from Funchal this summer, at which it has two based aircraft. However, it is ‘only’ the island’s third-largest operator by departures after TAP Air Portugal and easyJet.

It is different at Nürnberg. Ryanair is overwhelmingly the airport’s main operator with over a quarter of departures. It is more than twice the size of number-two. It has 29 routes from the German airport, six more than in summer 2019, and Palma is (not surprisingly) the most popular.

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Nosy Be Reconnected to Italy

The Madagascar tourist destination of Nosy Be is again connected to Italy, its only long-haul market. It follows the introduction of Neos from Milan Malpensa and Rome Fiumicino after an absence of 27 months.

Operating outbound on Tuesdays, NO246 leaves Milan at 18:45 and arrives in Rome at 20:10. After 90 minutes, it departs to Nosy Be, arriving the next day at 07:30. After a two-hour turn, NO247 leaves for Italy at 09:30 and arrives in the Italian capital at 17:30 and Milan at 20:15.

The long, 4,751-mile (7,647km) service from Milan uses 359-seat B787-9s. Neos’ Milan service follows Air Madagascar (March 2006-January 2008) and Meridiana (January 2008-January 2018). Neos began Rome in October 2017, while Meridiana also operated (October 2007-January 2018).

Nosy be
What a great photo! Neos is back in Nosy-Be. Photo: via Neos.

TUS Airways inaugurates Toulouse

The French city of Toulouse is reconnected to Tel Aviv thanks to TUS Airways. The 1,984-mile (3,193km) link began on April 12th and is the latest carrier to operate it. It replaces easyJet (October 2019-May 2020) which replaced Israir (May 2015-August 2015).

TUS serves Toulouse on Tuesdays. U8338 leaves Israel at 12:05 and arrives in France at 16:00 local time. Returning, U8339 departs at 17:05 and returns at 22:05. Even though TUS is a Cypriot carrier, it doesn’t appear to start/end in Larnaca.

Toulouse is TUS’ latest route from Tel Aviv. It joins Düsseldorf (launched on March 17th), and it comes ahead of multiple Greek routes beginning later this summer.

TUS #1
TUS has 10 routes from Tel Aviv this summer, seven to Greece. Photo: via TUS Airways and Toulouse-Blagnac Airport.

Wizz Air begins Tirana to Rimini

April 15th saw Tirana to Rimini with Wizz Air. The ULCC has 2x weekly flights using 230-seat A321ceos. Rimini is its 15th airport in Italy from the Albanian capital, joining (in order of summer seats) Bergamo, Malpensa, Bologna, Treviso, Rome Fiumicino, Verona, Pisa, Bari, Turin, Genoa, Ancona, Pescara, Catania, and Perugia (starts July 6th).

Multiple airlines have served Rimini, 404 miles (650km) from Tirana, in the past decade, including Albawings, Belle Air, Air Vallee, Mistral Air, and Ernest. Wizz Air will be head-to-head with Albawings (2x weekly) from June 4th.

Wizz Air first served Tirana in April 2017. It is its sixth-busiest airport this summer, behind only London Luton, Budapest, Bucharest, Milan Malpensa, and Rome Fiumicino. Surprisingly, it has risen from 81st in summer 2019, thanks to seats rising from just 137,000 to 2.4 million. It now has nine aircraft based in Albania.

Wizz Air Rimini
Rimini is a new airport in Wizz Air's network. Photo: via Federico Fellini International Airport (Rimini).

That's it for the 33rd edition of my routes newsletter. Please sign up to get something like this in your inbox each week.