Volaris to initially operate six daily flights to US

Mexican low-cost carrier Volaris plans to initially operate six flights on five transborder routes this year as it prepares to launch more US service and begin codesharing with Southwest Airlines next year.

Volaris' first international flight will land in Los Angeles later today from the carrier's Toluca hub. Volaris COO Andres Fabre says the carrier will serve Los Angeles from Toluca once per day and will launch service to Los Angeles from Guadalajara 1 July with two daily frequencies, up from an initial plan of only one.

Fabre says Volaris now plans to launch service to Oakland on 16 July with one daily flight from both Guadalajara and Toluca. Volaris was initially planning to begin both these routes at the beginning of July but Fabre says the carrier has "decided to split up" the Los Angeles and Oakland launches.

Fabre adds Volaris is also now planning to launch in August one daily flight from Tijuana to Oakland. He says this service will be "a funnel flight" with most passengers connecting in Tijuana to one of seven domestic destinations throughout Mexico.

"We'll provide one-stop connections from Oakland to deep in Mexico," Fabre said on the sidelines of the Low Cost World conference in Miami.

He adds in Guadalajara and Toluca Volaris will also connect US passengers to some destinations such as Cancun but Tijuana will offer more connections.

Volaris earlier this year applied to the DOT for rights to service Los Angeles and Oakland as well as Fort Lauderdale in Florida. Fabre says Volaris looked at five US cities but decided for the first year to focus only on Los Angeles and Oakland.

He says Volaris plans to later launch service to Fort Lauderdale and the other two cities it was considering as part of a plan to serve 10 to 12 US cities within three years. Fabre wouldn't disclose what the other cities are but says they are all focus cities of Southwest Airlines.

He says Volaris is looking at all of Southwest's focus cities except Dallas Love and Houston Hobby, which is currently restricted to short-haul domestic services. "We hope that will change in the future so we can go to Love and Hobby," Fabre says.

Southwest and Volaris announced last November plans to begin codesharing in 2010. Southwest said last month the carrier still planned to begin placing its code on Volaris' US services in 2010 despite the postponement in placing its code on transborder services operated by Canadian low-cost carrier WestJet from 2009 to 2010.

"We're always talking," Fabre says of Volaris and Southwest. "There's no specific date. We just have a 2010 timeframe."

He adds Volaris still expects to be Southwest's second codeshare partner after WestJet. Showing their commitment to the codeshare, Southwest executives will participate at a ceremony in Los Angeles commemorating Volaris' first route.

Fabre says Southwest and Volaris are both now working on upgrading their reservation systems to support the launch of the codeshare in 2010. He says Volaris is "now in the middle of switching" its reservation system from Navitaire Open Skies to Navitaire New Skies.

While New Skies has the codeshare functionality Volaris needs to begin carrying Southwest's code on connecting services within the US, Fabre says Volaris is also now considering switching to another reservations system with better codeshare functionality. "We're analysing our options," he says. "We're analyzing to see if Navitaire is a good option."

Source: Flight Global