Oops, our bad: In our story about Canada reopening, we listed the five airports that can now welcome U.S. arrivals beginning in August while noting that Canada’s biggest airports were left off the list. That’s because those four airports (Calgary, Montreal, Toronto, and Vancouver) are already taking international arrivals and will continue to do so.
JetBlue & American AAnounce next PhAAse of Northeast Alliance
JetBlue and American announced more details of their Northeast Alliance today, including launch dates for previously-announced routes and greater connectivity and coordination between the two.
Of the 17 routes announced in April that JetBlue is adding from Boston and New York (both JFK and LGA), the airline released launch dates for 12 of them, leading off with four on Halloween: San Antonio (once daily from both BOS and JFK), Jacksonville (twice daily from BOS), Sarasota (once daily from LGA), and Savannah (once daily from LGA). New routes to Kansas City, Milwaukee and some flights to San Antonio will be operated by JetBlue’s new A220 aircraft. Remaining without a schedule start date are San Pedro Sula (SAP) from JFK, Vancouver from both BOS and JFK, Asheville from BOS, and Portland, Maine from LGA.
JetBlue also will be saying goodbye to the Marine Air Terminal — now called Terminal A — at LGA and moving into the brand-spanking new Terminal B in the coming months. Spirit is moving in over there and will charge JetBlue a move-out fee of $3,000 per pound.
The alliance will offer lie-flat seats on a total of 11 cross-country routes including three out of LAX and two each out of SNA, SAN, SFO and SEA. The duo will also introduce more reciprocal elite benefits this fall including priority check-in, security, boarding, and checked bag allowances.
Frontier Announces 21 New Routes
Frontier Airlines announced 21 new routes from three major markets: Atlanta, Dallas/Fort Worth, and Las Vegas. The airline will be going right at Delta, American, and Southwest at the three entrenched hubs. It will continue going at them until it comes up with a better idea at which point it will rapidly cancel all flights.
Atlanta leads the way for Frontier with nine new destinations, all of which are cities already served by Delta from the airport:
- Baltimore, 4x-weekly, begins September 8
- Cancun, 4x-weekly, begins November 2
- Chicago/O’Hare, 4x-weekly, begins September 8
- Detroit, 3x-weekly, begins September 7
- Houston/Bush, 4x-weekly, begins September 8
- Montego Bay, 3x-weekly, begins November 1
- New Orleans, 3x-weekly, begins September 9
- West Palm Beach, daily, begins November 1
- St. Louis, 3x-weekly, begins September 7
Dallas/Fort Worth is adding seven cities:
- Buffalo, 3x-weekly, begins April 24
- Durango, once weekly, begins April 30
- Hartford, 3x-weekly, begins April 25
- Phoenix, 4x-weekly, begins November 1
- San Diego, 3x-weekly, begins September 7
- San Francisco, 4x-weekly, begins September 8
- Tampa, 4x- weekly begins November 1
And lastly, Vegas:
- Des Moines, 2x-weekly, beginning September 10
- Harlingen, Texas, 2x-weekly, beginning September 9
- Minneapolis/St. Paul, 4x-weekly, beginning September 9
- New Orleans, 4x-weekly, beginning September 9
- Sioux Falls, 2x-weekly, beginning September 9
Air Canada’s American Revival
With the news that Canada will be opening its border to Americans early next month, Air Canada announced it will return service to all 34 destinations it served in the United States pre-pandemic, with 220 weekly flights on 55 routes.
The airline will begin adding American destinations back as early as August 1 with seven restarts on that date and will continue through September 7 at which point it will have to reverse course when the Canadian government changes its mind again about that whole reopening thing.
Once Air Canada is back fully up and running, it will operate to 13 U.S. destinations from Montreal; 30 from Toronto/Pearson; 12 from Vancouver, and one from Calgary. Toronto to New York/LGA is the flight with the highest frequency at 5x-daily, while Toronto to Newark and Chicago/O’Hare will operate 4x-daily and all other route pairs are 3x-daily or less.
ITA Prepares to Launch Operations this Fall
Alitalia 2.0 ITA is preparing to begin flying this October as a new airline unshackled from many of the constraints that doomed its predecessor. Just kidding, it’s still Italian.
The new airline will begin operating with just under 3,000 staff compared to the over 11,500 that Alitalia had prior to the pandemic last spring. The new airline will also be placing its ground handling and maintenance up for bid, and while Alitalia’s subsidiary can place a bid for the business, ITA will have the freedom make its own selection.
When ITA takes to the skies in October, it will do so with a fleet of 52 planes – 45 of which are narrowbody aircraft designed to fly European routes only. It will see itself facing off against low-cost carriers across the continent on these routes in addition to legacy carriers. As for long haul flying, it plans to start slowly with flight just to Boston, New York, Tokyo, and Miami. Once things start going well, it will rapidly add more money-losing long-haul routes to ensure it never makes any money.
Alitalia has long been closely aligned with Delta and is a member of Skyteam. Shockingly, Delta wants to keep ITA in the family – kind of like the crazy uncle who gets belligerently drunk at Thanksgiving each year, but he’s family, damn it, and he’s ours – while Lufthansa and Star Alliance are looking at the possibility of poaching the airline for themselves. Safe to say, the only winner in this battle will be oneworld, which won’t have to be the one to clean up ITA’s mess each Thanksgiving.
DOT Calls Air Canada Out for Shady Refund Policy
The Department of Transportation’s Office of Aviation Consumer Protection (OACP) filed a motion to deny Air Canada’s motion to dismiss the pending claim of its disingenuous handling of COVID-19 refunds, essentially calling the airline’s actions total BS.
The government states that Air Canada relied on three arguments that its practice of ignoring the U.S. government and denying refunds was fair which were: that the U.S. government relied on nonbinding guidance – not laws in its claims; OACP brought the case without adequate notice; and that AC is acting within Canadian law. The government dismissed the first two as completely false and said the third point has no standing since this is an issue in the U.S.
The bottom line is that Air Canada was very shady with its handling of refunds over the last year and is continuing its shady behavior in trying to avoid being taken to task by the U.S. government. The judge overseeing the case has told both parties to take three weeks to try and find a settlement. It’s understood that if no agreement can be had, the two will have a U.S./Canadian decathlon to settle the issue including a maple syrup chugging contest, apple pie baking contest, Tim Hortons vs. Starbucks blind taste test and more.
- Air Seychelles will launch charter operations to Almaty this August, the carriers first foray into Kazakhstan.
- Alaska and LAX have broken ground on a $230 million upgrade to Terminal 6. The project will expand the checkpoint, concourse, and gate areas to ensure no passenger goes without a $14 tuna sandwich made last Thursday or a piping hot Auntie Anne’s pretzel dripping with melted butter.
- Austrian is adding as many as 3x-daily flights to Pristina, Kosovo (PRN).
- Cyprus Airways is beginning new daily service from its Larnaca hub to London/Heathrow beginning September 10.
- Frontier passengers on flight 2293 on Sunday brawled after the plane arrived in Miami around 9 p.m. because one passenger allegedly took too long to remove his luggage from the overhead bin which is a perfectly reasonable reason to start a fight.
- KLM’s €3.4 billion aid package from the Dutch government was re-approved by the European Commission.
- Malta Air took delivery of its first B737-8-200 aircraft.
- SpiceJet chairman Ajay Singh is gingerly putting together $1 billion to make a bid for Air India. Accumulating $1 billion in liquidity is a big dill even for Singh who believes the thyme is right to make a sage offer for the carrier.
- Spirit is adding two new routes from Atlantic City (ACY) to San Juan and Cancun. Cancun will begin 4x-weekly service on October 29 and will mark Spirit’s first international destination from Atlantic City. San Juan will begin on October 31 and operate 3x-weekly. Still no announcement on when Spirit plans to launch the Degenerate Express route from Atlantic City to Las Vegas.
- Thai Smile and Thai Lion are frowning today after suspending domestic operations indefinitely.
- Tunisair secured a wet-lease A320 to boost its summer capacity.
I quit my job today as a treadmill tester. I just wasn’t going anywhere.