- Buenos Aires is the latest dot on Viva Air Colombia‘s expanding its budget flight map in South America. The Colombian discounter will begin four-times weekly service to the Argentine capital from both Bogotá and Medellin, the latter a connecting hub for the airline, on June 15. But Viva’s growing budget hub in Medellin has attracted the attention of newly restructured Avianca, which received government approval for Medellin-Buenos Aires flights last year. Avianca already flies Bogotá-Buenos Aires. The airlines are in a pitched battle for share in the large — and growing — Colombian market where newer carriers like Viva have the benefit of low costs and lack of legacy overhead, while Avianca has something of a fresh start after discarding much of its legacy debt through its U.S. Chapter 11 bankruptcy restructuring, which ended in December. Pass the popcorn, please.
- Mexico City’s new Felipe Angeles airport is getting another route after a slow opening. Aeromexico will begin four-times weekly service between the airport and Puerto Vallarta on May 1. But despite the addition, Felipe Angeles is still not scheduled to have more than seven daily departures in May, per Cirium.
- Romanian discounter Blue Air has opened a new base in Iasi, Romania. The airline will base two aircraft at the airport, and plans 11 new routes this summer, including to Barcelona, Brussels, Munich, and Rome. Blue will offer up to 46 weekly flights to 13 destinations from Iasi.
- Volotea is tapping into strong demand rather than absurdism with its expansion to Algeria. After recently launched flights to Oran from Marseille beat expectations, the discounter is boosting frequencies on the Oran route and added a new Marseille-Constantine connection from April 16. And in Italy, Volotea will add two new routes from Venice to Lille and Nice in France with twice-weekly flights from October 21.
- Wizz Air is adding two more new routes: One will connect the Lithuanian capital of Vilnius with Split, Croatia, from June 13. And in the fall, the discounter will connect Bucharest and Aarhus, Denmark, twice weekly from September 29. Wizz plans to fly 40 percent more capacity in the September quarter than it did in 2019.
- Southwest Airlines is coming through on its promise to rebuild the schedule depth that was cut during the pandemic. Some of bread-and-butter routes in California will return to and exceed pre-crisis frequencies this summer: San Diego to Sacramento and San Jose will go to 20 weekday flights from 14 and 16, respectively, in 2019; San Diego to Oakland to 14 from 12; and San Jose to Las Vegas to 13 from 11, per Cirium and Southwest. Southwest will also boost frequencies on five routes in the Hawaiian islands, and between Havana and both Fort Lauderdale and Tampa. Many of the additional flights begin June 5, as well as new routes to Eugene and Santa Barbara, with the balance beginning throughout the summer.
Edward Russell
April 18th, 2022