Logan Airport Flights and Airlines Discussion

What happened to the flights to Boston by El Al, Royal Air Maroc, and Hainan Airlines???
Hainan is a great airline, I flew with them Boston-Shanghai in 2015 and then Boston-Beijing in 2018. Hopefully they will return to Boston if China ever opens back up...
 
Hainan is a great airline, I flew with them Boston-Shanghai in 2015 and then Boston-Beijing in 2018. Hopefully they will return to Boston if China ever opens back up...
While I agree that Hainan was the best of the mainland airlines, it wasn't exactly consistent. Hainan and the entire HNA group wasn't, and isn't, exactly the financially healthiest company on the planet. It was epically loss making - I think they acruued close to 100b in debt before the Chinese government and CCP intervened. Last month they just completed the transfer of their entire core Aviation segment to a steel company (Fangda, one of their biggest investors) under duress allfter officially going bankrupt in Jan 2021. That segment was comprised of ~10 Chinese airlines and substantial stakes in several foreign airlines, including Azul (~25%). Think Evergrande, but aviation - the rest of the conglomerate is undergoing a GE style breakup.

Either way, Given the lack of an open skies agreement between the US and China, the air routes authority that Hainan holds is actually quite valuable, pending diplomatic squabbling. Boston was by far the US city Hainan serviced with the greatest frequency (9x weekly between Shanghai and Beijing). And given their proposals to relaunch in 2020, and prepandemic proposals to upguage, I suspect profitable. Either way, it's a market with demand so someone will probably fly it again soon.
 
Some recent additions:

Spirit returns to serving Boston-Atlantic City 3x weekly

Spanish charter operator World2Fly, which is owned by Iberostar Hotel chain, will launch Boston-Madrid for a couple months this summer. Not bookable but I'm guessing 1-2 weekly.
 
LATAM Brazil is resuming non-stop service to Sao Paulo. Beginning July 1, the route will operate 3 times per week with Boeing 787-9 aircraft. The route has been suspended since April 2020.

That's great! Were they flying the 789 on the route before?
 
No, they were running a Boeing 767-300ER. But they were running a higher frequency at 5 times per week.

Yeah, it was a pretty good flight. Pretty excited it's back - way better than having to go to JFK or Miami to transfer to Sao Paulo and transfer again from there.
 


JetBlue's CEO was at Logan today to announce their firm plans to launch non-stop service to London. They will fly to both Heathrow and Gatwick.

Gatwick service begins on July 19 - flights depart Boston at 6:37 pm and land in London at 6:30 am. On the return leg, flights depart London at 12:15 pm and land in Boston at 3:02 pm
Heathrow service begins on August 22 - flights depart Boston at 6:32 pm and land in London at 6:30 am. On the return leg, flights depart London at 8:25 am and land in Boston at 11:13 am pm

Both routes will operate with their new A321LR planes.

Also on the same day they have made an offer to purchase Spirit Airlines. It will be very interesting to see how this all plays out.
 
Jetblue announced two daily non stop flights to London. 1x to Heathrow. 1x To Gatwick.

so this summer, Boston will have service to LHR from American, Delta, United and JetBlue in addition to British Airways and Virgin Atlantic.

wowzers
Do airlines get into fare wars when they share a market like this?
 
Do airlines get into fare wars when they share a market like this?

They can to a degree. Both Heathrow and Gatwick are slot-restricted, which limits the number of flights and thus the opportunity to add service to grow market share, which warps the economics a bit. Moreover, a number of the airlines have transatlantic joint ventures where they actually share revenue. BA and American are part of one, Delta and Virgin Atlantic are part of another, so in terms of the Boston-London service it's more like actually BA/AA, Delta/Virgin, United, and now JetBlue. JetBlue's emphasized that they're challenging the JVs, but there's a capacity mismatch that means it might be a bit before we see if them entering the market really can put downward pressure on fares.
 

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