Routes and Networks
South Africa's Airlink Continues to Fill Air Service Gap
- Spirit Airlines is adding five new routes from Boston, a large base for merger partner JetBlue. The discounter will connect Logan Airport daily to Charlotte and Dallas-Fort Worth from June 7; Los Angeles from July 5; and Houston Bush and Phoenix from August 9. JetBlue operates all five routes, and American, Delta, and United compete in some of the new markets, per Diio.
- South Africa’s rapidly growing Airlink is adding two new routes. Thrice weekly flights between Mbombela, which serves Kruger National Park, and Victoria Falls begin November 28, and daily flights to Nairobi from Johannesburg started on April 24. Both routes are flown with Embraer E-Jet aircraft. The additions come as South Africa’s state-owned carrier, South African Airways, continues to operate a drastically reduced schedule in the second quarter that amounts to just 12 percent of the capacity it flew four years earlier, per Diio. Flights on South African Airways to Nairobi, which it served in 2019, have yet to resume.
- Route tidbits: Emirates will launch daily flights between Dubai and Montreal on July 5 under Canada and the United Arab Emirates’ expanded air service agreement. Faroe Islands-based Atlantic Airways will connect its home market to New York’s Stewart airport — its first U.S. destination — with a weekly seasonal flight from August through October. Eurowings is adding Dubai to its map with new twice-weekly nonstops from both Berlin and Stuttgart beginning October 29. Avianca will connect Guatemala City and Cancun from September, yet another return to a former Taca route (the airlines merged in 2013). Avelo Airlines is adding two new routes in June: Sonoma County, Calif., to Redmond-Bend, Ore., and Burbank, Calif., to Bozeman, Mont.