Charleston to London an idea that will fly
Airlines constantly tweak their schedules, trying to find profitable new routes or pulling the plug on ones that have underperformed. Airports and communities court these new services.
There are dozens of changes to airline routes each month. Here’s a look at some of the most interesting: United Airlines adds, adjusts: United Airlines is adding Hilton Head, South Carolina, to its route map as part of a new round of domestic expansion for the Chicago-based carrier.
United will begin flying to Hilton Head, adding seasonal service to the South Carolina resort destination from its hubs at Chicago O’Hare, Newark (New Jersey) Liberty and Washington Dulles. Schedules will vary from Saturday-only service from Newark to twicedaily service from Washington Dulles.
United will be just the second airline to fly from the Hilton Head airport. American already offers American Eagle regional service to its second-busiest hub in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Beyond Hilton Head, United announced several new routes and schedule adjustments at its two big East Coast hubs: Newark Liberty and Washington Dulles. From Newark, United will add daily nonstop service to Pensacola, Florida, and upgrade its schedule to Anchorage, Alaska, to daily service (from Saturday-only). The routes will be seasonal, beginning in June and running into September.
From Newark, United says it will be the only carrier flying nonstop to both Pensacola and Hilton Head and the only to fly to Anchorage from any of the big New York City-area airports.
In another change, United will shift several short-haul routes from congested Newark Liberty to Washington Dulles. The airline’s service from Elmira, New York; Lexington, Kentucky; and Manchester, New Hampshire, will move from Newark to Dulles next year. That opens up space in United’s Newark schedule, allowing it to add new routes and additional flights to existing destinations, including St. Louis; Kansas City, Missouri; and Omaha, Nebraska.
In addition to the “shifted” routes, United is adding one new route from Dulles. Flights to Asheville, North Carolina, begin Feb. 14. The Lexington route will begin from Dulles on Feb.14, and the Manchester and Elmira routes move to Dulles on March 31.
Charleston to Europe … no stops? It’s time to put Charleston, South Carolina, on the global air travel map. The city has landed its first regularly scheduled nonstop service to Europe.
That will come April 4 when British Airways launches twice-weekly nonstop service to its main hub at London Heathrow. The seasonal service will operate through Oct. 24 on British Airways’ Boeing 787-8 Dreamliners.
JetBlue route shake-up: JetBlue gave a major shake-up to its route map, revealing one new destination while axing three others.
The new city joining JetBlue’s network: Guayaquil, Ecuador. Daily service to the airline’s Fort Lauderdale, Florida, base will begin in early 2019, giving JetBlue a second destination in the South American nation. The carrier already flies to the capital, Quito.
JetBlue also plans to beef up its schedules on about two dozen of its “most popular and profitable” routes. Many of the new flights will come from its bases in Boston and Fort Lauderdale.
JetBlue also will add four new domestic routes (Boston-Rochester, New York; Fort Lauderdale-Phoenix; Fort Lauderdale-St. Maarten; and Providence, Rhode Island-West Palm Beach, Florida).
Against that, however, JetBlue says it will “free up aircraft time” for those new routes by reducing “underperforming service.”
That’s bad news for Washington Dulles; Daytona Beach, Florida; and St. Croix in the U.S. Virgin Islands. JetBlue will stop flying to those cities Jan. 8.
Another JetBlue city – Portland, Maine – will no longer have year-round flights. The carrier will end service there Jan. 7 and will not resume flights until its warm-weather schedule begins in the spring.
Elsewhere, JetBlue says it will “scale back” its presence in a number of other markets, including Baltimore/Washington, Detroit, Pittsburgh, and Santiago in the Dominican Republic.
Norwegian drops four U.S.-Europe routes: Fast-growing European low-cost carrier Norwegian Air is paring some of its service between the USA and Europe.
The airline will end four European routes it is currently flying from the U.S. Northeast on Boeing 737 narrow-body jets. The pullback comes on Norwegian Air’s flights to Edinburgh, Scotland, and Belfast, Northern Ireland.
From Providence, Norwegian’s seasonal service to those cities ended last week and will not resume. The airline still will fly from the Rhode Island airport – about 60 miles from Boston – to Dublin with a year-round schedule and seasonally to the Irish cities of Cork and Shannon.
From Newburgh – about 70 miles from Midtown Manhattan – Norwegian’s seasonal Belfast flights ended last week. The Edinburgh route will conclude with the March 29 departure for Scotland. Neither route is scheduled to return. With the change, Norwegian now will fly to three European cities from Newburgh; it offers twice-daily service to Dublin, plus nonstop flights to Shannon and to Bergen in Norway.
Austin gets another route to Europe: Lufthansa is adding nonstop flights to Germany from Austin, Texas, a move that continues a spurt of explosive growth for the airport.
Starting May 3, Lufthansa will fly nonstop from Austin to its biggest hub in Frankfurt.
Lufthansa will offer five flights a week (every day except Tuesday and Thursday) on 255-seat Airbus A330300 wide-body jets.