Welcome to my 74th routes newsletter! I've covered a selection of new routes that took off in the past week and more. Why not sign up and receive my newsletter in your email inbox every week?
Jet2 celebrates 20 years
UK leisure airline Jet2 has celebrated its 20th anniversary. All right, this post isn’t about a new route, but it’s a big milestone and there was a celebration – including an exciting plane cake (below) – so it’s worthy of inclusion. It comes as Jet2 overtakes TUI to become the UK’s biggest tour operator.
Jet2’s first revenue-generating flight was on February 12th, 2003, from Leeds Bradford – its first base – to Amsterdam, a route that unfortunately ended last summer. Jet2 has ten bases, with Manchester, London Stansted and Birmingham its top three by flights this summer.
The carrier has over 400 routes this coming season, with Manchester-Palma most served. Indeed, Palma – one of 67 destinations this summer – has more Jet2 flights than any other, then Tenerife South and Faro.
Click here for Manchester-Palma flights.
SAS back in JFK after 33 years
On February 9th, SAS launched Copenhagen to New York JFK, the first time in 33 years that it has served the airport pair. The first flight took exactly 9 hours, according to Flightradar24. With five weekly flights this winter, it is operated by the 157-seat A321LR. However, it’ll rise to daily this summer and switch to the A330-300. Given SAS is a Star Alliance airline, it has until now served Newark for Greater NYC.
In 2019, Copenhagen-JFK was Denmark's largest US market on a point-to-point basis, according to booking data. Yet ~40% of passengers flew via a hub. SAS is head-to-head with Delta. Having ended the route in September 2019, Delta returned last summer. It'll be back again from JFK on April 2nd with a daily 767-300ER operation.
Click here for Copenhagen-JFK flights.
Porter introduces Toronto-Vancouver
Toronto to Vancouver has new airline: Porter. Coinciding with the carrier’s brand-new Embraer 195s-E2s, it introduced the 2,085-mile (3,355 km) airport pair on February 7th. It started as daily, but becomes double daily on February 14th, the day of writing. It leaves Ontario at 10:15 and 17:59 and arrive back at 21:32 and 06:27+1.
With over 1.3 million departing seats, Toronto-Vancouver has more capacity this summer than any other. It is up by 14% over the last summer, which was higher than in 2019. There are now an average of 30 daily flights with Air Canada, WestJet, Flair, Porter, Lynx Air (started the route last April), and Canada Jetlines (December 2022).
Click here for Toronto-Vancouver flights.
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Take off: Lynx Air on Calgary-Phoenix
While overshadowed by the Super Bowl, Canada’s Lynx Air inaugurated Calgary to Phoenix Sky Harbor on February 7th. One of three airlines on the 1,225-mile (1,972 km) airport pair this year, Lynx runs up to five weekly using 737 MAX 8s. When combined with WestJet and Air Canada, there are an average of three daily departures – but as many as five.
This year, Calgary has non-stop flights to 29 US airports. Phoenix ranks fifth, behind Las Vegas, Seattle, Los Angeles, and Houston Intercontinental. Over the years, Calgary had Phoenix flights by America West (until 2007), US Airways (which obviously became American), and American (until 2021). In the past 20 years, Calgary-Phoenix has had up to six daily flights on over 240 occasions during the winter.
Click here for Calgary-Phoenix flights.
Breeze begins Cincinnati
Breeze Airways has started flying to its next airport: Cincinnati. Part of wider expansion by the carrier this month, it serves Cincinnati from both Charleston and San Francisco. On Wednesdays and Sundays, the operating A220-300 routes Charleston-Cincinnati-San Francisco-Cincinnati-Charleston. Obviously, it uses Charleston-based aircraft and crew.
While Breeze competes head-to-head with Allegiant to Charleston (also twice weekly), it is the only carrier to serve San Francisco. Yet, Cincinnati-San Francisco has been served for many years and for a while had three airlines – Delta, Frontier, United – and three daily flights. Not surprisingly, San Francisco was Cincinnati’s largest unserved domestic market in 2022.
Click here for Cincinnati-San Francisco flights.
Miami passes 50 million passengers
This fantastic cake, which celebrates Miami’s momentous achievement, surely means it is worthy of inclusion. Miami ended 2022 with 50.6 million passengers, the first time it has exceeded 50 million and 10% higher than its previous record, set in 2019. Miami also overtook Orlando International for Florida’s busiest airport.
As Miami’s international passenger traffic was lower than in 2019, its growth was entirely because of the domestic market. Domestic grew by a considerable 25%, the result of the 2020 entry of Southwest, the 2021 launch of Spirit and JetBlue, and the relaunch of Alaska in June last year after a decade absence. American’s significant domestic expansion was crucial (+2.3 million seats versus 2019, +12%), and, while far shallower, Frontier nearly doubled in size.
In 2022, Miami had non-stop flights to 85 airports across the US, including Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands – up from 66 in 2019.
Click here for Miami-JFK flights.
That's it for the 74th edition of my routes newsletter. Sign up to get something like this in your inbox each week.