Airlineville continues to race past summer. Time flies when you’re being tortured having fun, but at least there’s one last hurrah on Saturday when the residents celebrate Cranky Dorkfest. A mere four days later, fall is here. While fall tends to be a delight for pilots as the summer thunderstorms let up and the snowstorms remain on the horizon, for the residents of Airlineville, well, it brings uncertainty… this year in particular.
The Cirium data showed many residents continue to pull back on their plans this year. Notably it was the Heart, the Widget, and the Globe that decided to ease up. The Animal went nuts again and made a whole bunch of plans for November and December, but we know how the Animal works. A lot of those will end up being canceled.
All this and more this week. Like sands through the hourglass, so are the skeds of air lines.
Alaska Starts to Bring 2022 Down
Alaska is looking far out and making some changes in the January and February schedule. It looks like the airline is just suspending (or extending the suspension) of some of its weakest routes including Anchorage – Chicago; Los Angeles – Kona, Līhuʻe; Portland – Billings, Bozeman, Missoula, Redmond/Bend; San Diego – Fort Lauderdale, Līhuʻe, Redmond/Bend; San Francisco – Fort Lauderdale, Washington/Dulles; and San Jose – Līhuʻe.
Allegiant Gets Cutty
This was an active week for Allegiant which made some short term cuts. September cuts start today, so there wasn’t much advance notice. For the full month, cuts average out to 2.5% of available seat miles. Beyond this month, Allegiant added some new Key West routes to Asheville, Indianapolis, and St Pete.
American Targets Election Day
It’s certainly not a major election this year, but the first Monday of November along with Election Day which is always the first Tuesday after the first Monday — that’s November 1 and 2 — saw a net loss of 236 flights from the schedule. A few other routes got boosts in the November schedule more broadly.
Meanwhile, New Orleans saw more cuts for September. This winter, LA loses one of its two daily frequencies to both Kahului and Kona. American also made some cuts with Anchorage – DFW not operating in the spring and Anchorage – Phoenix being pulled from the schedule next summer.
Lastly, Seattle – Bangalore and Dallas/Fort Worth – Tel Aviv were going to start in November, but now they’re pushed to January 4.
Avelo Cuts Burbank Again, Maybe, I Think
Avelo has not been good at keeping schedules up to date in Cirium, but this week it did file changes. I’m not sure whether this is to be believed or not, because the flights were still on sale on the airline’s website, but the filing shows Pasco and Redding being canceled. Further, Medford and Ogden are being cut from 4x to 2x weekly while Redmond/Bend drops from 3x to 2x weekly. Is it real? Avelo told me that Pasco and Redding weren’t canceled, but it wasn’t clear if the frequency reductions are real.
Avianca Files New Flying
Avianca has filed schedules for its new Central America and non-Bogota South America flying from the US. Look for Guatemala City to get service from Miami, New York/JFK, and Washington/Dulles. San Jose (CR) will have flights from Los Angeles and New York/JFK. JFK will also get a flight to Cali and Guayaquil. Lastly, there will be a holiday service from Orlando to Cali.
Delta Gives Up on Asia
Delta is tired of hoping that Asia will open back up. It is giving up on any meaningful growth from its very low pandemic schedule through the winter (until late March). That includes China which will continue to have no service from the US — only the tag from Incheon — until March at the earliest. Delta also gave the axe to Paris/CDG – Boston and Salt Lake through the winter.
After last week’s adjustment to summer schedules in the Caribbean, Delta took its scalpel to Mexico where it made similar types of changes. In more short-term moves, Delta slashed New Orleans service through November.
Lastly, Delta has made some additional adjustments to Christmas and New Years Eve/Day schedules reflecting lower demand on those days.
Frontier Spikes November and December
Just as it did in September and October previously, Frontier has now spiked its capacity in November and December through the winter holiday. Those months saw available seat miles climb by more than 11 percent. Presumably it will start cutting back shortly as the roller coaster rolls on.
Southwest Pulls Down the Rest of Its Schedule
After cutting capacity due to weak demand through October, Southwest said more was coming for the rest of the year. That happened this weekend. November and December are now down about 5 percent, and it’s a cut pretty much across the network.
United Takes on the Holidays
United brought down the back half of December for a more accurate holiday schedule. The schedule is just a bit bigger than the first half of December at this point.
United has absolutely dropped the hammer on Heathrow. Denver and LA are gone through winter. Washington/Dulles will have 2x daily instead of 3x. Chicago will go from 3x daily to either 1x or 2x. Houston and San Francisco will have 1x daily instead of 2x.
The rest of Europe didn’t escape unscathed. SF – Paris won’t fly until early December while Newark – Berlin and Washington/Dulles Tel Aviv are gone until mid-December. Dublin loses Washington/Dulles through December and SF through the winter. Houston – Munich and Chicago – Zurich are gone through the winter as well. SF – Frankfurt will drop from 2x to 1x daily through winter as well.
Other Randomness
- Aeroflot reinstated what it cut last week, so ignore everything I said.
- Air Canada reduced frequency on some long-haul routes this winter including Calgary – Frankfurt along with Toronto – Frankfurt, Munich, Vienna, and Zurich.
- Air France has continued its LA – Papeete suspension through October.
- Breeze has cut more flying with New Orleans – Louisville and Norfolk along with Louisville – Tampa dropping from 4x to 2x weekly.
- Condor won’t fly Frankfurt – San Juan this winter.
- Hawaiian will finally bring back Pago Pago with 2x monthly flights. Incheon flights will be pulled down from 5x to 3x
dailyweekly through the winter. - JetBlue continues to add its 162-seat A320s into the schedule, increasing capacity simply by retrofitting the airplanes.
- KLM won’t fly to Las Vegas, Miami, or Orlando through the winter.
- La Compagnie appears to have given up on its Newark – Milan service. It’ll just focus on Paris from Newark.
- LATAM won’t fly JFK – Guayaquil through year-end.
- LEVEL has suspended service on its three US routes through the winter. That leaves only Buenos Aires and Santiago operating.
- Lufthansa won’t fly to Las Vegas through the winter.
- Singapore won’t fly to Houston or JFK (correction: JFK won’t fly via Frankfurt, but the new nonstop hasn’t changed) through year-end while LA – Tokyo/Narita will be slashed from 1x daily to 3x weekly.
- Spirit also took down September with capacity down just shy of 2 percent. New Orleans led the charge.
- Sun Country has dropped plans to fly from St Louis to Fort Myers this winter.
- Ukraine International has canceled JFK service through winter.
That’s all for this week. Stay tuned for next week’s exciting episode of Skeds of Air Lines.