The Most Notable New Airline Routes This Week

Welcome to my 50th routes newsletter! Routes go to the heart of airlines and airports, and I celebrate them in my weekly newsletter.

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

Norse Atlantic begins London Gatwick

London to New York City now has nonstop flights by seven airlines, thanks to Norse Atlantic commencing Gatwick to JFK, served 1x daily using B787-9s. It faces direct competition from BA (1x daily) and JetBlue (1x, soon rising to 2x daily). In 2019, there were six carriers, but Norwegian ended, and JetBlue and Norse entered.

As Norse Atlantic's UK AOC is in the works, it currently uses its Norwegian AOC. This means that aircraft route Oslo-Gatwick-JFK effectively on a fifth freedom basis. It's complicated and expensive, but it'll be much more straightforward when the UK certificate arrives. It'll then use aircraft based at Gatwick, meaning more routes and potentially higher frequencies.

Reno gets Spirit

The Nevada city of Reno, the USA's so-called biggest little city, is the latest airport to get Spirit, the result of 10 years of work by Reno-Tahoe International Airport. It happened on August 10th, with the yellow ULCC operating 2x daily from Las Vegas. Reno is the third city to welcome Spirit in a few days, joining Albuquerque and Boise. It comes as Spirit begins Oakland-Newark.

It's hard to believe that only Southwest served the 345 miles (556km) between Las Vegas and Reno from 2009 to 2012. Then Allegiant entered in February 2013 (3x weekly in the current week), followed by JSX in May 2021 (now 5x weekly), and Frontier in December 2019 (now 3x weekly). They join Southwest (8x daily).

The entry of Spirit means the airport pair has five airlines. Between August and December, there are 535,000 seats for sale, up by 19% over the same months in 2019.

Cluj gets 7th Wizz Air aircraft

Located closer to the Slovak border than to Bucharest, the Romanian city of Cluj-Napoca has welcomed Wizz Air's seventh-based aircraft.

The ULCC has 642,000 Cluj seats between August 12th and October 29th, the last day of the Northern Hemisphere summer season. That's a whopping third higher than the 482,000 in the equivalent period in 2019. Its route network has risen from 37 to 42.

Cluj is one of 11 Romanian airports served by Wizz Air and is behind only Bucharest in seats for sale. Network-wide, Cluj is now the airline's 10th most-served airport. But despite its expansion, it has fallen from seventh, the result of other airports – especially in Italy – growing much faster.

Frontier begins 4 routes

Las Vegas' third-largest airline, Frontier has commenced four routes. Three haven't been served by the carrier before: Baltimore (1x daily), Buffalo (1x daily), and Hartford (1x). That's not the case for the fourth route: Kansas City (1x daily). Frontier served Sin City-Kansas City a decade ago, ending in October 2012.

Due to the time zone changes and sector lengths, the three new routes operate eastbound overnight. The most extreme is Buffalo, which, depending on the day, arrives in the New York state airport at either 04:55 or 05:14.

Frontier was motivated to begin Buffalo because it is now served just 1x weekly by Southwest, later rising to 2x weekly but ending in November. To Hartford, it jumped in following JetBlue's exit in April, taking over a readymade market. It'll be joined by Breeze in September (2x weekly). Meanwhile, Frontier becomes the third airline to Baltimore and Kansas City.

aha! A new route

Concentrating on thin unserved markets from Reno, aha! has introduced its next route: Idaho Falls. (I wonder if I'll mention Reno in two separate stories in any future newsletter.) The year-round service runs on Thursdays and Sundays, enabling a long weekend, with flights by its sole type: 50-seat Embraer 145s.

It's the first time the 486-mile (782km) airport pair has any airline. That's not surprising. Based on 2019 data, only approximately 2,000 roundtrip passengers flew indirectly, a tiny market.

Assuming a 90% seat load factor, aha! would need over 9,000 passengers, showing how much it'd need to stimulate demand from heavy promotions and lower fares – difficult with aircraft with high seat-mile costs.