Hawaiian Increases Frequencies to New Destinations
Hawaiian Airlines announced in late 2020 that it would begin service to Austin, Orlando, and Ontario this year. The first to begin service was Orlando which saw its inaugural flight from Honolulu last week. Ontario’s new service on HA begins later this week while Austin begins next month.
Despite the three cities being brand new in Hawaiian’s route network, things are apparently going well for the alohas. The airline is already increasing frequencies on the routes for the summer. Beginning with Austin, Hawaiian had announced that it would serve the capital of Texas with twice weekly service beginning April 21. Now, beginning on May 28, Hawaiian will run a third weekly frequency on the route, on Fridays, through August 13.
Orlando will also go from twice weekly to 3x-weekly, with the third flight operating on Tuesdays from June 1 to August 10. The extra flight coincides with Mickey, Minnie and Goofy’s planned Hawaiian vacation and will give the characters more nonstop options to fly between the two tourist destinations as needed.
Ontario will launch 5x-weekly flights to Honolulu later this week but Hawaiian now plans to increase its service to daily starting May 24 through the end of its current schedule next February.
Spirit of St. Louis Becomes Reality
Spirit Airlines announced today it is adding St. Louis to its route map, the seventh city added by Spirit in the last year. The Gateway city, which features the world-famous Gateway Arch as the Gateway to the West will now become to the Gateway to low fares and lots of random fees as it welcomes Spirit to town.
Spirit will launch from St. Louis on May 27, serving four cities: Fort Lauderdale, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, and Orlando. All four cities will see daily service from St. Louis, with Pensacola joining the foursome on June 10, also with daily service.
Prior to announcing this service, St. Louis was the largest city that Spirit did not fly to, a trophy that will now pass to San Antonio.
There’s Insanity and Then There’s This
Norse Atlantic Airways is a new Norwegian-based airline that plans to launch this December to connect overseas destinations like Los Angeles, Miami, and New York to London, Paris and Oslo. Bjørn Kjos, the founder of Norwegian, along with his business partner Bjørn Kise are heading up the new venture, apparently not familiar with the “fool me once…” theorem of business.
Amazingly, it is OSM Aviation and its founder Bjørn Tore Larsen who own 53% of the new airline. OSM Aviation, is an aviation staffing company which lost most of its business since Norwegian basically ceased being an airline and brought its staffing needs in-house.
So to sum up, this airline, being started by three guys named Bjørn, is being launched because someone decided to best way to find business for his airline staffing company is to start an airline.
The airline will operate a fleet of 787 Dreamliners it bought on the cheap from Norwegian that is says it got a great deal on. There’s no doubting that.
Larsen believes he can capture market share by offering tickets at half the price of rivals like American Airlines, Air France, and British Airways, three very random airlines to lump together. He said that if the airline succeeds in the transatlantic market, it then plans to expand into Asia. In other news, if the same person wins Mega Millions three consecutive times, that person plans to purchase several homes.
Lufthansa Readies for Summer Vacation
After a long, cold winter, Lufthansa and those wild, crazy, and care-free Germans are ready for sun, sand, and summer relaxation. Responding to the pent-up demand, the airline is increasing the number of flights between Germany and both the Canary Islands and Mallorca.
Lufthansa will now serve nearly every Canary Island, except for those in a coal mine. Lufthansa will now fly to both Gran Canaria (LPA) and Fuerteventura (FUE) from its Munich hub, while Frankfurt will see a 50% increase in flights to LPA and Tenerife (TFN).
Outside of the Canary Islands, but staying close to Spain, Lufthansa will increase its offerings to Mallorca (PMI) with 20-weekly flights to Frankfurt and 11-weekly flights to Munich. The flights to Mallorca from Munich will offer easier access for Germans to Ibiza for those looking for an alternative to the beach party and rave scene in southern Germany.
BA Still Intends to Fly A380
Despite most airlines that operated the A380 having sent the jumbo jet out to pasture, British Airways CEO Sean Doyle said that his airline still expects to operate the A380 going forward.
Prior to the pandemic, BA operated a fleet of 12 A380s but has since grounded the entire dirty dozen while it waits for demand to rebound. The airline will keep them grounded with no allowance or TV privileges until demand returns to a level that makes it worth bringing them back – which it expects to happen around 2023.
BA previously planned to refit its A380 fleet with its new Club Suite business class, but that wasn’t expected to take place until at least 2023, and that’s before the pandemic slowed everything down.
The program has likely been set back several years which is an appropriate metaphor for any British Airways premium class offering. In the meantime, when the A380 does finally return to service it will feature BA’s Club World business seat which has been out-of-style so long, it was considered outdated when it was Princess Diana the Royal Family was ostracizing.
Airline Potpourri
- Air New Zealand is beginning new service to Niue (IUE) that will not require quarantine upon arrival in Auckland. The flight will operate every other Wednesday.
- Air Serbia will take delivery of a new (to them) A330-200 aircraft that will have a special livery with famous Serbian American inventor Nikola Tesla on the tail of the aircraft. The plane has a range of approximately 400 miles before it will need to land to recharge before continuing its journey.
- Chorus Aviation, the parent company of Jazz, and its pilots came to an agreement to amend its CBA for Jazz to operate all Air Canada Express flights.
- Emirates and TAP Air Portugal signed an MOU to expand their strategic partnership to include more codeshares and an expanded cross-employee Secret Santa program.
- Eurowings is building up a stronger schedule and is rehiring cabin staff in anticipation of a strong demand for travel this summer from its hubs in Berlin, Cologne, Dusseldorf, Hamburg, and Stuttgart.
- Global X Airlines’ first aircraft completed its re-registration process.
- Jazeera Airways will begin flights to Addis Ababa (ADD) from its Kuwait (KWI) hub tomorrow, March 16. Flights will operate twice weekly.
- Singapore is beginning to bring its 737 MAX aircraft back from the desert to be prepared to enter service. Its MAX aircraft previously operated as a part of Silk Air, which has since integrated into Singapore.
- Wizz Air Abu Dhabi is launching new routes to two Kazakh destinations. 2x-weekly service will begin in mid-May to both Almaty (ALA) and Nur Sultan (NQZ).
Andrew’s Moment of Levity
Operator: “911, what’s your emergency?”
Man: “My friend has been injured. We need an ambulance. We’re at 21 Eucalyptus Street.”
Operator: “Can you spell that for me?”
Man: (Panicked breathing)
Operator: “Sir, are you there?”
Man: “Yeah, just hang on, I’m dragging him to Pine Street.”