This week: Pegasus Airlines is adding more capacity into Israel; Viva Air Colombia is moving into a market vacated by Avianca; and Delta Air Lines is resuming service between Seattle and Dallas/Ft. Worth after a 14-year hiatus.
Low-cost long-haul carrier Norwegian is to boost frequencies to some of its US destinations from London next summer, but will reduce service to Buenos Aires, Rio de Janeiro, Miami and Orlando.
Southwest Airlines will launch a daily flight between Kansas City and Austin from March 13, 2017 using a Boeing 737. Ranked by daily passengers, Austin is the largest destination from Kansas City without non-stop air service, with 98 passengers per day each way.
The carrier has traditionally focused almost exclusively on connecting small and medium-sized cities to its focus airports located mostly in leisure destinations across the United States. However, this latest expansion continues a recent trend of introducing flights into larger markets.
This latest growth sees Virgin America adapt its business model a little from Dallas as alongside its traditional point-to-point offering it promoting the new route as offering convenient connecting service via Love Field to Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, Los Angeles International Airport, San Francisco International Airport and New York's LaGuardia Airport.
Last night during a fantastic networking evening hosted by Denver International Airport and its partners at the Denver Center for the Performing Arts, Austin-Bergstrom International Airport was announced as the winner of the first heat of the 2015 Routes Marketing Awards.
Frontier currently offers links from Atlanta to Chicago O'Hare, Cleveland, Denver, Las Vegas, Philadelphia, Orlando, Trenton and Washington Dulles and will supplement these with a new daily flight to Miami and six times weekly services to both Austin and Indianapolis from March this year.
The latest schedule update from the airline includes the introduction of new non-stop services from Calgary to Terrace and Nanaimo; from Vancouver to Comox; from Toronto to Austin and from Montreal to Mexico City. Air Canada is also switching its existing Toronto-Kelowna and Toronto-Sydney, NS services to Air Canada rouge due to the high volumes of leisure traffic on the routes, while Air Canada rouge will also introduce a new domestic seasonal link between Calgary and Halifax.
First reported by our schedules blog, Airline Route, the initial plan for summer 2015 and winter 2015/2016 suggests BA switching the operational aircraft on three routes. Its daily London Heathrow – Seoul Incheon route and six times weekly London Heathrow – Montreal link will be switched from 777-200ERs to the 787-8, while the daily London Heathrow – Austin service will see a 787-8 replaced by a 777-200ER.
The carrier will launch service to four new markets during the first quarter of 2015 with daily direct flights from Miami International Airport to Austin-Bergstrom, Kansas City, Salt Lake City and San Antonio. These flights will commence on March 5, 2015 and will be flown by a Boeing 737-800.
