Time to PLAY in Boston

As summer progresses, Iceland’s PLAY has inaugurated its second US route. It began Keflavik to Boston, supplementing Baltimore which began last month. They’ll be joined by New York Stewart on June 9th and Orlando International on September 30th.

Operating 1x daily, Boston uses 194-seat A321neos, although that’ll soon rise to 214-seat aircraft. Unlike Baltimore, Boston is almost exclusively scheduled by the A321neo, although it's likely to shift to the A320neo if demand on a particular day warrants it.

To maximize connections across wider Europe, flight OG111 leaves Keflavik at 15:30 and OG112 arrives home the next morning at 04:30. The first departure used four-year-old TF-AEW, which arrived from Copenhagen at 14:05 and then departed for Boston.

At just 2,413 miles (3,883km), Keflavik-Boston is hardly far; it is about the same distance as Boston-Las Vegas. This summer, PLAY and Icelandair have up to 4x daily flights to the Massachusetts airport.

Air Transat begins Québec City to London

London is now connected non-stop to Québec City thanks to leisure airline Air Transat. The 3,125-mile (5,029km) airport pair operates 1x weekly until the end of September and uses 199-seat A321LRs.

The brand-new service means that London has non-stop flights to six Canadian cities: Calgary, Halifax, Montreal, Québec City, Toronto, and Vancouver. The lack of service to Edmonton, Winnipeg, Ottawa, and St John's is conspicuous.

Air Transat also has returned to Zagreb, with A330-200s used. While it currently has a Saturday service, a Tuesday operation will also run from June 14th through October 29th, the last day of the northern summer season.

Zagreb, which began in June 2016, is now its fifth-longest route. While it no longer has head-to-head competition, it was against Rouge on a summer-seasonal basis between June 2018 and October 2019.

Iceland has North Carolina flights

Iceland is connected non-stop to North Carolina for the first time. On May 12th, Icelandair took off from Keflavik to Raleigh Durham, 3,016 miles (4,854km) away. It is the carrier’s 15th passenger destination in North America this year.

Interestingly, it wasn’t served in 2018, a record year for Icelandair to North America, in part thanks to WOW Air. Then, Icelandair served 23 destinations, including Cleveland and Kansas City.

With 4x weekly flights, FI821 departs Keflavik at 16:45 and arrives in Raleigh Durham at 19:30. Returning, FI822 leaves at 20:30 and arrives back at 06:30. Using 160-seat B737 MAX 8s, it is, as you'd expect, timed for transit passengers.

Swoops and serves more airports

Canadian Swoop has begun service to two new airports: Moncton and Saint John, both in New Brunswick. They’re part of a large amount of expansion this month for the WestJet subsidiary.

2x weekly Hamilton-Moncton has started and will rise to 4x weekly come the week starting June 20th. It has no head-to-head competition and was last served by WestJet for years until October 2015. Now lower-cost Swoop runs it, while WestJet chases higher yields to Moncton from Toronto Pearson.

Swoop began 2x weekly Pearson-Saint John on May 12th, with no planned increase in frequency. It competes directly with Air Canada (3x daily) and Flair (up to 4x weekly).

This month, Swoop also began Halifax-Edmonton (May 1st), Hamilton-Charlottetown (1st), Pearson-Charlottetown (2nd), and Edmonton-Kelowna (5th). Other routes starting later in May include Pearson-Las Vegas (20th), Hamilton-Deer Lake (21st), Pearson-Nashville (26th), and Pearson-Chicago O’Hare (30th).

La Compagnie back on Newark-Nice

All-premium operator La Compagnie has restarted Newark to Nice, with 76-seat A321LRs used. It follows United resuming the airport pair. La Compagnie has outbound flights to France on Fridays and Sundays, and inbound on Mondays and Saturdays.

In August and September, there’s an additional service on Saturdays, returning on Sundays. The last flight from Newark is September 25th. Flights leave Newark at 21:40 and arrive at 12:00 the next day. Returning, they run 13:30-17:00.

La Compagnie launched Newark-Nice in May 2019, and it ended for the first season in October. According to T-100 data, it carried 10,938 passengers with an average load of 76%. After a brief stint in August and September 2021, it is back on a more regular basis.

airBaltic introduces Batumi, Georgia

The second-largest city in Georgia, Batumi, now has non-stop flights to Latvia by airBaltic. Currently served 1x weekly, it’ll double to 2x from June 18th and remain at that level until it ends for summer on October 26th.

Flight BT720 departs Riga at 23:05 and arrives in Batumi the next morning at 04:05. Returning, BT721 leaves at 05:05 and arrives back at 08:25, a block time of 4h 20m. Flights are by the A220-300, normally its only aircraft type, although it has leased in a B737-900ER from Ukraine International and a B737-800 from Smartwings.

In normal times, Riga-Batumi would be 1,317 miles (2,120km) apart. The war in Ukraine means much rerouting, increasing the length by about a third to over 1,750 miles (2,816km).

Loganair returns to Norway

Scotland’s Airline Loganair has resumed service to Bergen, the second-busiest airport in Norway and the location for this week’s Routes Europe, and Stavanger, the country’s oil capital.

Now served are Edinburgh to Bergen (currently 2x weekly but 3x from June), Edinburgh-Stavanger (2x weekly but 3x from July), and Newcastle-Stavanger (4x weekly). They'll be joined by Sumburgh (Shetland)-Bergen from May 21st (mainly 2x weekly) and Newcastle-Bergen from May 21st (2x weekly).

Most flights are by 49-seat Embraer 145s, although 48-seat ATR-42s are used at times from Edinburgh/Sumburgh to Bergen and Edinburgh to Stavanger. None of the routes have head-to-head competition.

Corendon takes off on multiple routes

Corendon has added multiple new routes in the past week or so, mainly but not entirely from Germany. These include Münster Osnabrück to Faro; Düsseldorf-Dalaman, Faro, Larnaca, and Rhodes; Cologne-Olbia; Hannover-Corfu; and Basel-Chania.

Faro has long been connected non-stop to Münster Osnabrück, primarily by airberlin March 2004-August 2011 and then Germania May 2017-November 2018. Now it’s the turn of Corendon, with a Saturday-only service until October 29th.

Corendon is Münster Osnabrück’s second-largest airline this summer, very marginally behind Lufthansa by seats. Its network comprises an interesting mixture of sun-and-spade leisure and visiting friends and relatives markets in Turkey.