Americans are traveling in quantities not seen in over a year and will soon have two new low-cost airlines.
Both hope to attract passengers by taking smaller routes on the network that spans the United States.
Avelo Airlines said Thursday it will fly to 11 destinations from Burbank, California this month. The new company plans to add other routes in the western United States as the fleet of Boeing 737s grows.
Avelo was launched by an experienced airline who thinks there is room for low-cost airlines in addition to those already on the market.
“There are too few seats offered by low cost airlines in the United States. That’s why we think the opportunity is huge, ”said Andrew Levy, president and CEO of Avelo. “Passengers really want a cheap way to get from point A to point B.”
Breeze Airways awaits the flight, the new brainchild of David Neeleman, the manager who helped launch Canada’s WestJet before founding JetBlue and Brazilian airline Azul.
Breeze plans to fly to “neglected, forgotten” destinations, including many abandoned by the major airlines. Breeze is conducting test flights for the Federal Aviation Administration and may announce details on its routes and prices next week and begin transporting passengers in May.
Plans for the two airlines began before the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic, but both will kick off as Americans try to resume travel after more than a year of lockdowns. More than 1 million Americans have flown every day for the past month, and the number is expected to increase in the summer.
The last new airline in the United States was Virgin America, which started flying in 2007 and disappeared after being acquired by Alaska Airlines for $ 2.6 billion in 2016.
AVELO
Levy is a former Allegiant Air and United Airlines manager who has finally realized a long-time dream of launching his own airline.
Avelo’s strategy comes straight from the low-cost aviation handbook originally written by Southwest in the 1970s and copied by others, including Allegiant. Part of the strategy is to limit yourself to secondary airports, which have lower costs and less congestion – planes land, take on new passengers and take off quickly, so they spend more time in the air and less time on the ground.
BREEZE
Breeze has not specified where it will begin, although it has hinted that it will be in the southeastern United States, including Florida, a popular vacation destination. Neeleman says the time is right.
“Pleasure traffic is insane at the moment. Many people have been vaccinated and the youngest and healthiest people are not afraid to travel, ”Neeleman said in an interview. “There is a lot of pent-up demand, probably greater than the number of available seats.”