Routes and Networks
Southwest Goes to Miami
- In yet another manifestation of high hopes for salvation in the leisure market, Southwest will fly to a place it’s always shunned before: Miami. The airport is somewhat notorious for its high costs per enplanement, which is why most LCCs — Southwest included — have built large operations up the road in Fort Lauderdale. But with the severe business traffic drought expected to persist, airlines are piling into vacation hotspots. In fact, Southwest also said it will enter Palm Springs, a California sunshine market. Routes and start dates will be announced later.
The LCC noted some maintenance synergies in Miami, where it currently services some planes. But the larger story is a network rebalancing that gives greater weight to leisure markets at the expense of business markets. Southwest’s other new market soon to open, announced in February, is Steamboat Springs, a Colorado ski destination.
- But Southwest is hardly the only one. United is another U.S. airline that just last week adjusted its network to include more leisure flying, which typically means more Florida flying. Sure enough, one of the new routes it will add next month is Miami from Washington Dulles. It’s resuming some international routes as well and will overall operate about 40% of its normal October schedule. That’s up from about 34% this month.
United also stressed that it’s flying more on leisure heavy days of the week, like Fridays and Sundays, but much less on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. If that sounds like Allegiant, well, with leisure the only game in town, even the likes of United are trying to imitate parts of its business model.
One final word about Florida flying: If Covid remains a demand-suppressing problem by around February, it will spoil the market’s peak season. This year, the crisis began at the very end of the Florida peak, allowing Allegiant in fact to earn an outstanding Q1 profit.
- American said its October capacity will be down 55% y/y, with domestic down 48% and international down 68%. The carrier has said it expects to be much smaller – with fewer aircraft and employees – for the rest of the year. American is capitalizing on the nascent leisure-travel recovery by adding new routes to its winter schedule, including nine from Northern cities to Mexican beach destinations, as well as nine “snowbird” flights to Phoenix. And yes, five new routes to Miami.
- Virgin Atlantic, its financial restructuring now finalized and approved, will seek demand wherever it can find it. Even Pakistan. The London-based airline, in a particularly tough spot because all of its routes are longhaul and international, hopes to tap family-visit traffic between the U.K. and both Islamabad and Lahore. It will serve the Pakistani capital from both London Heathrow and Manchester, while Lahore will get just Heathrow service.
Virgin is targeting connections to and from the U.S. as well (with Delta’s help). It’s also after cargo demand. In an interview with Bloomberg, Virgin’s CEO Shai Weiss said he hopes for profitability in 2022. The airline has the right fleet, the right partners, and a newly-reduced cost structure. But a lot will depend on how fast longhaul demand recovers.
- The London shorthaul market, meanwhile, will see some major changes in the post-Covid world. Wizz Air, already a larger and growing player at London Luton, said it would enter easyJet’s lair at London Gatwick. In October, Wizz will station an A321 NEO at Gatwick, for flights to Athens, Malta, Naples, and Lanzarote in the Canary Islands. The move follows the LCC’s decision to establish a U.K. base at Doncaster.
Other new bases include Bacau, Dortmund, Lviv, Larnaca, Milan Malpensa, Tirana, and St Petersburg. If it had sufficient slots, Wizz told Bloomberg News, it would gladly base 20 planes at Gatwick.
- The acrimonious U.S.-China relationship hasn’t prevented officials from approving a modest expansion of flight revivals between the two countries. United went from two to four weekly flights between San Francisco and Shanghai via Seoul, using the largest aircraft it has (B777-300ERs). Delta likewise upped its Shanghai frequencies via Seoul (from Detroit and Seattle). It would like to serve Beijing’s new airport when possible. On the Chinese side, Air China, China Eastern, China Southern, and Xiamen Airlines all got additional U.S. frequencies.
- Here’s another example of a U.S. airline searching for mini-opportunities wherever they might lie. JetBlue, which launched New York JFK flights to Guayaquil, Ecuador, in December, plans to add a second daily A321 NEO frequency just during the Christmas-New Year period between Dec. 18 and Jan. 4. It expects a good deal of family-visit travel despite the virus.
- India’s Vistara, backed by Singapore Airlines, is officially a longhaul airline now. In late August, it began flying from Delhi to London Heathrow with its new B787-9s. The thrice-weekly service is for now operating under a temporary “transport bubble” established by the U.K. and India. But the airline makes no secret of its desire to become a global airline.
Vistara’s other owner, as it happens, is India’s Tata Group, still the most likely candidate to buy Air India. That raises the possibility of an Air India-Vistara merger, or some sort of combined entity that allows Vistara to use the Maharaja’s valuable overseas flight rights and airport slots. Tata owns part of AirAsia India as well, though AirAsia and Vistara have no commercial relationship