The Most Notable New Airline Routes This Week

Welcome to my 124th weekly routes article! On March 31, northern airlines switched to summer schedules based on IATA slot seasons. Hundreds of new routes began, with the return of even more summer seasonal offerings. I have analyzed my top six subjectively exciting services, all unashamedly long-haul, that took off around then. Take a look at the last edition by clicking here.

As always, this article is not about comprehensively covering new or returning routes. It is about choosing a handful that intrigue or are particularly significant.

Back in Washington Dulles after 21 years

SWISS inaugurated Zurich-Dulles on March 28, returning to the airport after last serving it in 2003. It has become its 10th destination in North America, joining Boston, Chicago O’Hare, JFK, Los Angeles, Miami, Montreal, Newark, San Francisco, and Toronto. It supplements codeshare partner United’s daily Zurich-Dulles service.

SWISS deploys the 236-seat A330-300 daily on the 4,157-mile (6,691 km) Dulles route. These even have eight first-class seats. When the Star Alliance member previously served the Virginia airport in 2003, it used the smaller A330-200. The A330-200 was withdrawn in 2011.

The carrier has also started various short-haul routes, including Cluj-Napoca, Košice, and London Gatwick from Zurich, along with Oslo from Geneva.

Flight LX72 leaves Vienna at 12:55 and arrives at 16:15 local. Returning, LX73 departs at 20:45 and gets back at 10:50+1. To maximize two-way connectivity, these departure/arrival times from Zurich correspond to SWISS’ busiest North American banks of flights.

Take off: Virgin Atlantic to Bengaluru

On March 31, Virgin, the UK’s second-largest long-haul airline, inaugurated its first-ever service to the Indian state of Karnataka. Running daily using the 787-9, VS316 leaves London Heathrow at 12:25 and arrives in Bengaluru, in Southern India, at 02:45+1 local. VS317 then departs at 04:35 and gets back at 10:45.

While the timings might appear bad, they are quite common between Europe and India. In Virgin’s case, they allow easy connections to/from multiple US cities, including San Francisco and Seattle, both big markets from Bengaluru. Nonetheless, the London-Bengaluru point-to-point market is large, with about 248,000 roundtrip passengers last year (679 daily).

It competes directly with BA’s daily Bengaluru offering on the A350-1000. It is the third time that BA has had head-to-head with another operator on the airport pair. It did so with the defunct Kingfisher from 2008-2009, Air India from 2018-2022, and now Virgin. Will Virgin last longer than the others? Air India was to introduce Bengaluru from Gatwick, but it has been pulled.

Back in SIN after 33 years

It has taken over three decades, but Air Canada is back in Singapore. On April 3, it commenced flights from Vancouver – its Asia-Pacific hub – to Changi service, with four weekly 787-9 services, later rising to five. It last flew there on a multi-stop basis in 1991. It now serves 10 Asia-Pacific destinations non-stop from Vancouver.

At a considerable 7,967 miles (12,821 km), the route is the Star Alliance member’s longest network-wide. It smashes the previous record holder, Vancouver-Sydney, by 2.7%. Four other routes over 7,000 miles (11,265 km) exist: Vancouver-Brisbane and Bangkok, Toronto-Delhi, and Montreal-Delhi.

Readers may recall that Vancouver had Singapore flights quite recently. They were operated by Singapore Airlines and took off in December 2021, ending less than two years later (some flights were tagged with Seattle). Historically, Singapore Airlines flew to Vancouver via Seoul until 2009.

Air Canada will benefit from the point-to-point traffic, connections over Vancouver from Canada and the US, and connections over Singapore. The Singapore and Canadian flag carriers codeshare, helping to drive passenger traffic.

Boston has joined Etihad’s network

The Abu Dhabi carrier has inaugurated its first service to Boston. Served four weekly on the 787-9, it is the fourth Middle Eastern airline to fly to Boston, joining El Al (four weekly in July), Emirates (daily), and Qatar Airways (10 weekly).

To maximize two-way connections over its Middle East hub, Etihad flight EY147 leaves the UAE at 03:10 and gets to Boston at 08:50 local. After spending over seven hours on the ground, EY148 departs at 16:00 and returns at 12:05+1.

Etihad now serves five North American destinations with 39 weekly departures. Boston joins JFK (double daily), Chicago O’Hare (daily), Toronto (daily), and Washington Dulles (daily). It ceased flying to San Francisco in 2017, Dallas/Fort Worth in 2018, and Los Angeles in 2020.

Singapore Airlines returns to Brussels

Not to miss out, Singapore Airlines has also returned a passenger route to service after many years without flights. On April 6, it recommenced Singapore-Brussels having last flown it in 2003. It runs four times weekly using its most commonly deployed aircraft to Europe: the A350-900.

The launch only relates to its passenger flights. The Belgian and EU capital has long seen its freighters.

Singapore-Brussels had about 30,000 roundtrip point-to-point passengers in 2023 (82 daily), down on 2019 figures. It does not have a massive volume of P2P traffic but is high-yielding. It will, of course, revolve around transit passengers, with Brussels-Southeast Asia/Australasia having 390,000 passengers last year (1,068 daily).

Brussels is Singapore Airlines’ 13th European destination. However, a 14th – London Gatwick – will begin in June. While the carrier’s network is greater than that in 2023, it is still down from 15 destinations in summer 2019.

JetBlue begins 2nd Paris route

It is hard to believe that JetBlue introduced its first European route in August 2021. Nearly three years later, on April 3, 2024, the carrier began flying from Boston to Paris CDG. France’s busiest airport joined its network last June following the launch of New York JFK service.

With a daily A321LR flight, B633 leaves Boston at 20:00 and arrives in France at 09:15+1. B634 departs at 11:15 and gets back at 13:02. It is one of three non-stop carriers, joining Air France (two to three daily in the peak summer) and Delta (daily). JetBlue is the sole independent operator.

With around 170,000 passengers in 2023, the city-level point-to-point traffic is good-sized and Paris’ seventh-largest US market. JetBlue has few seats to fill, helping it to concentrate on the higher-yielding P2P market. Still, many onward connections over Boston, JetBlue’s second-largest airport, are also available.

JetBlue will serve six European airports in the peak summer, with Edinburgh starting in May. The carrier plans a high of 13 daily US-Europe flights, equivalent to just one in 50.

That’s all for now, folks. See you next time.