Latest Route News + April Part 1
Routes launched between Saturday 13 March 2021 and Friday 16 April 2021
During non-pandemic times, the start of the summer season (last Sunday in March) would often see the launch of between 300 and 400 new air services involving European airports in the first couple of weeks. This year, The ANKER Report has identified around 90. The following new services do appear to have launched during the last five weeks, but with the dynamic nature of government lockdowns and travel restrictions there is no guarantee that these routes are still operating at the time of publication, and, if they are, the frequency may have been reduced. The competition information is provided by Cirium Data and Analytics and relies on airlines providing timely and accurate schedule data, which, at present, is, regrettably, not always the case.
Aeroflot (IATA code SU) brought over 350 tourists from
Moscow SVO to
Mahe in the Seychelles on the airline’s inaugural flight on 2 April. The route will be served 2- weekly (Fridays and Sundays) using 777-300ERs. The Russian flag-carrier has also been expanding its route network from
St. Petersburg. At the end of March, it launched three new routes; weekly flights to
Bishkek and
Osh in Kyrgyzstan, and 4-weekly service to
Makhachkala on the Caspian Sea.
Avia Traffic Company and
Ural Airlines already serve the two international routes, while
Aeroflot will be competing with its own in- house LCC
Pobeda, as well as
Yakutia Airlines, on the 2,210-kilometre domestic sector. This summer,
Aeroflot is planning to operate 42 routes from Russia’s second biggest city, of which 24 are domestic routes which account for most of the flights. The carrier has included weekly flights to several destinations in western Europe (including
Berlin,
Paris and
Rome), plus a 2-daily service to
Antalya.
Aeroflot is currently responsible for around 40% of scheduled capacity at
St. Petersburg, with
Pobeda accounting for a further 20%.
Smartavia (IATA code 5N) is next with just over 10%.
Air Arabia Maroc (IATA code 3O) used the start of the summer season to add a number of new routes to France and Spain. However, while Flightradar24.com confirmed that nearly all of the inaugural flights took place, subsequent services were cancelled due to the introduction of new travel restrictions. The new routes connect
Fez with
Malaga and
Marseille;
Marrakech with
Barcelona;
Oujda with
Marseille,
Paris CDG and
Toulouse; and
Tangier with
Bilbao and
Valencia. All routes are scheduled to operate either 2-weekly or 3- weekly using the LCC’s A320s. Competition on the two
Fez routes comes from
Ryanair.
Albawings (IATA code 2B) began weekly (Sunday) service between
Tirana and
Milan BGY on 14 March. The 940- kilometre route will be flown by the airline’s 737-400s.
Blue Panorama and
Wizz Air also connect the two airports. The airline’s website currently shows no flights from 9 April to 30 April, with service resuming 4-weekly from 4 May. According to the airline’s on-line booking tool,
Albawings plans this summer to operate between
Tirana and 11 destinations in Italy, as well as
London STN. Last summer it also served three destinations in Germany;
Düsseldorf,
Frankfurt and
Hamburg. The airline’s fleet currently comprises three 737-400s with an average age of 30 years.
American Airlines (IATA code AA) has added a new transatlantic connection, despite the severe on-going travel restrictions between the US and Europe. On 30 March, the oneworld carrier began 3-weekly service on the 7,730-kilometre route between
Seattle-Tacoma and
London LHR using 777-200ERs. Three other carriers are also currently serving this route;
British Airways (4- weekly),
Delta Air Lines (3-weekly, see below) and
Virgin Atlantic (daily). This new route was influenced by
Alaska Airlines, which has a major presence in
Seattle-Tacoma, joining the oneworld alliance on 31 March.
American Airlines plans to serve
Heathrow non-stop from 11 US airports this summer, compared with nine in S19. Apart from
Seattle-Tacoma the carrier also plans to add service from
Boston in June, which is a response to the likely entry of
JetBlue into that market. This, despite the fact, that last July the two carriers entered a strategic partnership.
Austrian Airlines (IATA code OS) resumed service on 25 March on the 690-kilometre route between
Vienna and
Hannover in northern Germany. Last served by the carrier in 2009, the new route launched with 2-weekly service, operated mainly by E195s, though the inaugural service utilised a Q400. Frequency is set to increase to 6- weekly in the coming weeks. This April,
Austrian Airlines will link its
Vienna hub with eight German airports, the same as in April 2019. Having added
Hannover and
Nuremberg (in January 2020) it has dropped
Cologne Bonn and
Leipzig services.
Vienna and
Hannover were previously connected by
airberlin (from May 2004 to February 2017) and
germanwings/
Eurowings (from April 2010 to September 2020).
Blue Air (IATA code 0B) has added new routes from three of its bases during the last five weeks. At the beginning of April, the carrier began service from its main base in
Bucharest to
Frankfurt and
Vienna. The airline is planning for both routes to operate daily during the summer, though frequency is currently less than that.
TAROM already serves both routes while
Lufthansa also competes on the
Frankfurt route and
Austrian Airlines on the
Vienna route. From its base at
Cluj- Napoca,
Blue Air has added new routes to
Barcelona (2- weekly) and
London LHR (4-weekly).
Wizz Air competes on the Spanish route, while there is no direct competition on the
Heathrow route. However,
Ryanair offers 4-weekly flights from
Cluj-Napoca to
Stansted, while
Wizz Air offers 4-weekly flights to
Luton. This is believed to be the first time that
Heathrow has ever been connected to the Romanian city with direct flights. Finally,
Blue Air also began a new Italian domestic route between
Turin and
Palermo on 31 March. The 900- kilometre sector is already flown by
Ryanair (5-weekly) and
Volotea (2-weekly).
Blue Air will operate the route 4 -weekly using its 737-800s.
British Airways (IATA code BA) on 30 March shifted its
Bermuda service from
Gatwick to
Heathrow. The 5,530- kilometre route will initially be served weekly (Tuesdays) though Cirium Analytics and Data suggests that the carrier plans to increase frequency to 5-weekly by the peak summer season. In February,
British Airways was serving 50 destinations from its
Heathrow hub, down from 132 in W19. The number of weekly departures was down 90%, from almost 2,200 in February 2020 to just over 200 in February 2021.
Delta Air Lines (IATA code DL) joined rival
American Airlines in launching a new transatlantic service between
Seattle-Tacoma and
London LHR. The SkyTeam carrier chose 1 April as its launch date and will also operate the 7,730-kilometre route 3-weekly using its 767-400s. It will join
American Airlines (3-weekly, see above),
British Airways (4-weekly) and partner
Virgin Atlantic (daily) on the route, which is not yet available to passengers wanting to travel for leisure. By August,
Delta Air Lines hopes to be offering six non-stop routes from the US to the UK, down from seven in August 2019. Despite having added
Seattle-Tacoma, it has dropped service from
Portland and
Salt Lake City, at least for now.
easyJet (IATA code U2) enhanced its offering from bases in France and Italy with the introduction of three new routes. On 3 April, the carrier began a weekly service from
Milan MXP to
Sharm El-Sheikh in Egypt. The 2,990- kilometre route was previously served by the airline in W15. It currently faces no direct competition, though in S19 both
Air Italy and
Neos served this market. Frequency is set to double to 2-weekly from July. In France,
easyJet has added a new domestic route connecting its base in
Nantes with
Figari in Corsica. Weekly (Sunday) flights on the 1,060-kilometre route began on 3 April, with frequency set to increase to 3- weekly in July and August with the addition of Wednesday and Thursday flights. Finally, from
Bordeaux,
easyJet has added a weekly service to
Ajaccio in Corsica from 11 April, which increases to 2-weekly from 20 May, and then to 4-weekly in July and August. These two airports are also connected by flights from
Air France and
Volotea.
EGO Airways (IATA code E3) is a new Italian carrier which currently operates a single E190 (I-EGOA). On 30 March it began scheduled services and during the first week of operation it began the following routes;
Catania -
Florence,
Catania-
Forli,
Catania-
Parma,
Parma-
Bari and
Parma-
Lamezia Terme. According to Cirium Data and Analytics the only route already served is the one between
Catania and
Florence, which is already served by
Air Dolomiti (2-weekly) and
Vueling (weekly).
EGO Airways plans to add further aircraft and routes in June. Its website currently allows bookings from 11 airports; nine in Italy, as well as
Ibiza in Spain and
Mykonos in Greece.