In this week’s roundup, the Japanese low-cost airline Zipair plans to introduce San Francisco International-Tokyo Narita flights in early June; a French carrier adds more SFO-Paris flights this summer; JetBlue announces a third European destination; and international route news comes from British Airways, Delta, United, Turkish Airlines and Egyptair. In addition, low-cost Breeze Airways drops a key transcontinental route; Delta ends service to two small cities; Spirit adds Charleston, South Carolina, to its network; United cuts thousands of departures from its Newark hub this summer due to an air traffic controller shortage; Frontier allows earlier flight bookings for its all-you-can-fly passes; Spirit entices frequent flyers with elite-level status matches in its loyalty program; the FBI warns travelers about charging their electronic devices at airports; and the Transportation Security Administration plans to deploy hundreds of new high-tech scanners at airport checkpoints.
The Japanese low-cost carrier Zipair said earlier this year that it planned to begin SFO-Tokyo Narita flights, but it didn’t release a start date or schedule. Now it has: The company said San Francisco-Tokyo service is set to begin June 2, and tickets are already on sale. ZipAir set an initial schedule of five flights a week, using a Boeing 787-8. Meanwhile, the Japanese government has decided to relax its entry restrictions related to COVID-19 for foreign visitors effective May 2, according to the Kyodo News. This means it will drop the current requirement that international arrivals show proof of three COVID-19 vaccinations or a negative result on a test taken no more than 72 hours before departure. The changes come as Japan downgrades the status of COVID-19 to a “common disease,” Kyodo News said.
Zipair said one-way standard economy fares on the new SFO-Tokyo route will begin at $325 for passengers age 7 and up, and seats that recline fully flat will start at $885. (Fares fluctuate, so those prices may not be available on all departures. Some media outlets have posted that Zipair is offering SFO-Tokyo flights for $91; this is technically true, but the $91 fare applies only to children age 6 and under.) The new service will offer SFO departures at 5 p.m. on Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays, and the schedule is valid through Oct. 27. The SFO-Tokyo market is also served by United, Japan Airlines (Zipair’s parent company) and All Nippon Airways (a partner in United’s Star Alliance). Zipair already operates the only nonstop service from San Jose Mineta to Tokyo and also flies from Los Angeles International to Tokyo.
Passengers wait for their luggage upon arriving at Charles de Gaulle Airport in the Paris suburb of Roissy on Feb. 15, 2023.
EMMANUEL DUNAND/AFP via Getty ImagesMore service to Paris is also coming to San Francisco International this summer. According to AeroRoutes, the Paris-based carrier French Bee has filed to double its SFO-Paris Orly flights from three a week to six, effective June 3 through Sept. 30. The company will use an Airbus A350-900 XWB on the route.
JetBlue has revealed plans to add a third European destination: Amsterdam. The airline didn’t give a starting date or schedule, saying only that flights would begin from New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport “late this summer” and that service from Boston to Amsterdam would follow. JetBlue already flies from New York and Boston to both London Heathrow and London Gatwick and is due to launch JFK-Paris Charles de Gaulle flights June 29. The new JFK-AMS service will use the same kind of aircraft that JetBlue deploys on its other European routes: a single-aisle Airbus A321LR (long range) with 24 Mint Suite lie-flat seats and 114 core seats (i.e., standard economy).
JetBlue was wary of the new route after Amsterdam Schiphol announced it would set a cap on the number of flights allowed at the airport, but a Dutch court ruled this month that the government hadn’t followed the law when it set that limit, thus “giving JetBlue confidence there is room for it to enter the market,” the company said. JetBlue CEO Robin Hayes called the New York-Amsterdam market “long overdue for some competition” since it's dominated by the major U.S. airlines and their global alliance partners (especially Delta/Air France-KLM), which, he said, “have locked customers in with very expensive fares and mediocre service.”
A JetBlue airplane at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport in Arlington, Va., on March 9, 2023.
STEFANI REYNOLDS/AFP via Getty ImagesIn other international route news, a continuing surge in demand for transatlantic travel has led British Airways to bring the super-jumbo Airbus A380 back to its Los Angeles-London Heathrow route later this year. The big jet is due to start flying from LAX on Oct. 29, replacing a 777-300ER on its 9:50 p.m. departure (BA268), thereby increasing the passenger capacity on that flight from 254 to 469. This week, Delta restarted JFK-London Gatwick service, operating daily 767-300 flights. The JFK-Gatwick route is also served by British Airways, JetBlue and Norse Atlantic. United Airlines, which says it's also seeing heavy demand for travel to Europe, will extend three seasonal transatlantic routes until Dec. 13 instead of ending them in October as previously planned. The three routes are from Washington Dulles to Lisbon, Barcelona and Rome. In mid-July, Turkish Airlines will add a fourth daily departure to its JFK-Istanbul schedule; the carrier also has a daily Newark Liberty International-Istanbul flight. Egyptair, which already has a daily flight from JFK to Cairo, now plans to add service from Newark, with a 787-9 departure three times a week beginning June 3. Delta resumed service to Cuba this week after a pandemic-related suspension, operating two daily flights from Miami to Havana.
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In domestic route news, Simple Flying reports that low-cost Breeze Airways has decided to end its six-month-old service from Los Angeles International to New York’s Westchester County Airport in suburban White Plains, just north of New York City. The route is set to end after April 30. The airline cited the airport’s capacity controls and limited slot times for the decision to drop its only nonstop transcontinental route. Last year, Breeze had planned to begin San Francisco-Westchester nonstops with its A220s, but those plans never materialized.
Delta Air Lines is dropping two more small cities from its route map. The Points Guy said Delta will end service June 5 to La Crosse, Wisconsin (which it serves once a day from its Minneapolis-St. Paul hub), and to State College, Pennsylvania (which currently has twice-daily flights from New York LaGuardia). Low-cost Spirit Airlines this week added Charleston, South Carolina, to its network, beginning daily service from Newark, Philadelphia and Fort Lauderdale; on Sept. 7, Spirit plans to add five weekly flights between Charleston and Las Vegas.
A United Airlines Airbus A319-132 aircraft parked at the gate at George Bush International Airport in Houston on March 8, 2023.
DANIEL SLIM/AFP via Getty ImagesUnited will eliminate more than 4,400 flights from July through September at its big Newark hub. Last week, we reported that JetBlue and American would reduce their schedules in the northeast this summer at the request of the Federal Aviation Administration, which is suffering from a shortage of air traffic controllers in the region. Now, United is doing the same. Instead of eliminating service on any routes, United will reduce the number of flight frequencies previously planned, mostly by just a few flights per week. The biggest cut will be on its Newark-Washington Reagan National route, which goes from 126 flights a week to 63. A few routes will see an increase in service, including Newark-Orange County, which gets a bump from 18 flights a week to 21. (See the complete list of United’s Newark schedule changes.)
Frontier Airlines has moved up the start date for booking flights and travel on its GoWild! All-You-Can-Fly passes. The original date was May 2, but Frontier said this week that pass holders can use their passes from now through April 19 to book flights for travel through May 24 — and during that period, it’s waiving the rule that pass flights can only be booked the day before departure (or no more than 10 days prior for international flights). The airline’s GoWild! 2023 Summer Pass is on sale for $699 “for a limited time,” Frontier said. The price of its annual pass is $1,999.
An aerial view shows Spirit Airlines jets parked at McCarran International Airport in Las Vegas on May 21, 2020.
Ethan Miller/Getty ImagesLow-cost Spirit Airlines is offering a one-year membership in the elite levels of its Free Spirit loyalty program to individuals who hold similar status in the loyalty programs of 16 other airlines and 16 hotel chains. Those who apply through Spirit.StatusMatch.com and pay a fee of $49 can get Spirit’s Silver status, which provides faster access to security lanes and boarding, free seat selection at check-in, and fee waivers for overweight bags and award flight redemptions. A $99 fee gets you Gold status, which includes all the Silver benefits, plus a free checked bag, carry-on bag, and drink and snack on board; free seat selection at purchase; and waived fees for changing flights. The Silver and Gold elite levels also let members earn bonus points in the Free Spirit program based on their spending.
Anyone planning to take electronic devices on their next trip (and who isn’t?) should pay attention to a warning Tweeted by the FBI last week. “Avoid using free charging stations in airports, hotels or shopping centers,” the agency said. “Bad actors have figured out ways to use public USB ports to introduce malware and monitoring software onto devices. Carry your own charger and USB cord and use an electrical outlet instead.”
The empty security checkpoint area at San Francisco International Airport on Aug. 2, 2020.
DANIEL SLIM/AFP via Getty ImagesThe Transportation Security Administration is doubling down on its commitment to the new computed tomography (CT) scanners that examine carry-on bags at its airport checkpoints. The agency said this week it has placed orders for just over 1,200 scanners of various sizes. The machines will be installed in airports around the country beginning this summer, at a total cost of $1.3 billion if all units are purchased. TSA said it already has 634 of these units in operation at airports. The CT scanners are a technological step up from earlier machines. “CT scanners apply sophisticated algorithms and create 3-D rotatable images to help operators detect explosives and prohibited items,” the agency said. “TSA officers can then view and rotate the image on three axes to analyze and identify any threat items that may be in a passenger’s carry-on baggage.”
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