Two-way capacity between Europe and North America is scheduled to hit about 2.56 million weekly seats by the end of June, marking the highest number of available seats since September 2019.
A total of 423 airport pairs will receive nonstop flights during the month. Among them will be new transatlantic routes being launched by Air Canada, British Airways (BA), JetBlue Airways and Norse Atlantic Airways.
Air Canada is opening two routes from Montreal, connecting the city with Amsterdam (AMS) and Toulouse (TLS). The service to AMS will operate seasonally five times per week using Boeing 787-8 aircraft, while flights to TLS will also be 5X-weekly aboard Airbus A330-300s.
The latter route will operate year-round, connecting two global aerospace centres. The flights will provide competition for Air Transat’s 4X-weekly operations using A321neos and A330-200s.
Starting June 5, BA will begin flying to Cincinnati Northern Kentucky from London Heathrow (LHR). Service will be five times per week in the summer and four in the winter using 787-8s.
According to data provided by Sabre Market Intelligence, O&D traffic between Cincinnati and London totaled 33,696 two-way passengers in 2019—all of whom traveled indirect. The figure made London the city’s largest O&D market in Europe—ahead of Paris, with 24,614 two-way passengers.
Norse Atlantic Airways is also expanding its transatlantic offering from London with two new routes out of London Gatwick. After commencing flights to Orlando and Fort Lauderdale in May, service will begin this month to Washington Dulles (IAD) and Los Angeles (LAX), and operations to San Francisco (SFO) start in July. Norse plans to serve IAD six times per week and fly daily to LAX.
Elsewhere, JetBlue is also expanding its transatlantic presence with the launch of its long-awaited route to Paris, becoming its second city in Europe. Frequencies between New York John F. Kennedy (JFK) and Paris Charles de Gaulle will be daily from June 29 using A321LRs.
According to OAG Schedules Analyser figures, New York-Paris is the third-largest U.S.-Europe airport pair by weekly capacity, with 43,578 two-way seats. JFK-LHR is the largest with 76,722 seats, followed by LAX-LHR with 46,508.
Other new routes launching in June 2023 include Indonesia AirAsia’s new service from Jakarta to Perth, commencing June 2. Supported by the Western Australian Government through Tourism Western Australia and Perth Airport, the service will initially run 4X-weekly and be increased in line with demand.
The route is expected to attract two-way leisure traffic, as well as students traveling to Perth to study. According to the Embassy of the Republic Indonesia, the number of Indonesian students in Australia has already reached more than 20,000 in 2023, an increase of 15,000 compared with 2022.
Long-haul LCC Zipair is also enhancing its network in June when it begins flying to SFO, which will become the Japanese airline’s second point in California and its fourth in the U.S.
The carrier, a subsidiary of Japan Airlines (JAL), intends to launch a nonstop service from its base at Tokyo Narita (NRT) using 787-8 aircraft seating 290 passengers. Service starts on June 2 and will be offered five times per week.
Zipair’s entry to the Tokyo-San Francisco market will see it become the fourth operator of nonstop passenger flights between the cities. OAG data shows that parent JAL provides daily service to SFO from both NRT and Tokyo Haneda (HND), while All Nippon Airways and United also provide the same level of service to SFO from NRT and HND.
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