June 10, 2021

Everything is Bigger in Texas: AA AAdds to AAustin

As recently as two years ago, American only had service from Austin to its hubs. But today, the airline announced 14 new routes from Austin, taking the airline from 20 destinations from the capital of Texas to a whopping 34. The new destinations are:

  • Cancun (4x weekly, begins Oct. 7)
  • Cincinnati (2x daily, begins Sept 8)
  • El Paso (3x daily, begins Sept 8)
  • Indianapolis (2x daily, begins Sept 8)
  • Jacksonville (1x daily, begins Sept 8)
  • Kansas City (2x daily, begins Sept. 8)
  • Liberia, CR (3x weekly, begins Nov. 2)
  • Oklahoma City (1x daily, begins Oct. 7)
  • Punta Cana (4x weekly, begins Nov. 2)
  • Puerta Vallarta (3x weekly, begins Nov. 2)
  • Reno (1x daily, begins Sept. 8)
  • St. Louis (2x daily, begins Sept. 8)
  • Tulsa (1x daily, begins Nov. 2)
  • San Juan (1x daily, begins Oct. 7)

AA is also upgrading its seasonal service from Austin to Nassau and San Jose del Cabo to year-round. It’s adding frequencies from Austin to three cities in Florida: Orlando, Miami, and Tampa plus one more daily to New Orleans and two more dailies to its Dallas/Ft. Worth hub.

A challenge for American will be to find the gate space to operate these new flights from Austin. One AA exec, on the condition of anonymity, said that the airline was considering utilizing a codeshare concept, but for airports instead of airline. The new flights would be marketed as operating from Austin, but, would actually operate from AA’s DFW hub.

Alaska and Southwest Pile On

No to be outdone by American and its new routes, AA’s BFF Alaska Airlines and mild-acquaintance Southwest Airlines both announced new routes today.

For Alaska, four new seasonal, cross-country routes will launch this winter to warm weather destinations. Alaska’s hub in Portland (PDX) will receive two new flights starting December 16 to Tampa (4x-weekly) and New Orleans (1x-weekly) while San Francisco will gain a weekly flight to Cancun starting December 1. Palm Springs will get 5x-weekly service to the hot destination of the day, Austin, beginning November 18. This is the second time in a row that American and Alaska have announced new Austin routes at the same time. We thought they weren’t allowed to coordinate?

Southwest extended its schedule through Jan 5, adding service to Syracuse (SYR) from both Baltimore and Orlando, the airline’s 121st airport and 18th new airport since the pandemic, and rolling out initial Bellingham flights to Las Vegas and Oakland. The airline also returned service to all international destinations it served prior to suspending service in March of 2020.

See here for a full list of Southwest new and returning routes.

Canadian Government Prepares to Loosen Border Restrictions

The Canadian government announced its plan to begin to loosen pandemic-era travel restrictions as soon as early July. The federal government will allow fully vaccinated Canadians to be exempt from hotel quarantine and to permit them to opt out of quarantine altogether if they can produce a negative test and answer a 10-question quiz about NHL history upon arrival.

Additionally, mayors of Canadian border cities say the country is prepared to reopen the U.S.-Canada border as soon as June 22. The current extension of the border closure extends until June 21, but with Canadian vaccination rates trending upward, Public Safety Minister Bill Blair indicated change at the border could be afoot.

Canadian PM Justin Trudeau said that the country would need to reach the 75% threshold for at least one shot and 20% fully vaccinated before the border would reopen. Canada currently is at 64% of its population having received one shot and about 10% fully vaccinated, so while it hasn’t reached the thresholds yet, they are on their way.

UK Puts US-London Slots on the Open Market

Three slots between the United States and London for spring 2022 and beyond are being made available by the UK Competition and Markets Authority with carriers having until July 1 to declare their interest in the slots.

The slots were made available when the UK forced American and British Airways to divest themselves of three slots last summer. The slots are valid for two years, from late March 2022 through March 2024. There is one slot available from each of Boston, Dallas/Ft. Worth, and Miami. The slots can be used to operate to either Heathrow or Gatwick, which is like when you want to an ice cream store as a kid and were given the choice between receiving your ice cream in a cone or a used-cup that the kid behind the counter spit in.

If no other U.S. airline applies for the slots then AA/BA may be granted an extension. It seems likely that despite their new buddy-buddy relationship with American, JetBlue will be interested in the slot from Boston and who knows — with its newfound presence in Miami maybe Spirit will dip its toes in London. Ok, that won’t happen, but just imagine the fees it could charge unsuspecting British customers for having the audacity to pay in GB pounds instead of U.S. dollars.

Heathrow Moves Towards Reopening Terminals

London/Heathrow plans to reopen Terminal 4 later this month to serve exclusively for passengers arriving from “red” countries on the UK’s traffic light system.

Terminal 3 has been serving as a temporary “red zone” arrival terminal, but with that potentially moving to T4 on a more long-term basis, T3 will be in position to reopen for its main tenants — Delta and Virgin Atlantic.

The airport used T3 this week as a pilot program to test the dedicated red zone arrival area. Airport officials were pleased with how it worked and are prepared to scale up at T4 quickly. Heathrow will ensure that all arrivals from countries on the red list, as well as any passengers booked in Basic Economy will arrive at T4 where they can be looked after by Border Force, paraded through several levels of Duty-Free shopping, interrogated as to why they booked Basic Economy, and then taken onto hotel quarantine.

  • Air New Zealand is establishing a crew base in Brisbane through the end of the pandemic for its Norfolk Island service.
  • Air Transat expects to resume operating on July 30, attempting to reinvent itself as a hub and spoke airline. All it needs are hubs, spokes, and customers.
  • American’s route expansion also includes three new destinations from Tampa: Los Angeles (1x daily, beginning Oct. 7 ), Nashville (2x daily, beginning Nov. 2), and Raleigh-Durham (2x daily, beginning Nov. 2).
  • British Airways swapped 86 weekly London/Heathrow slots to the zombie airline that is flybe for winter 2021. The airline will use the slots to operate to Edinburgh (EDI) and Aberdeen (ABZ). On a busy day for BA, the airline also received slots back that it had been lending to Vueling.  
  • Tarom is expected to receive a $200 million cash infusion from the Romanian government. Don’t worry, Ryanair is on it.
  • United is in talks with both Airbus and Boeing for as many as 300 new aircraft. A hold up in the negotiations is United’s insistence that another airline ferry the planes when ready to be delivered so they have a chance of arriving on-time.

The swordfish is known to have no natural predators to fear.

Except the penfish, which is even mightier.