Avelo, one of this year’s three sizable airline startups, has a lot in common with the other two, Breeze and Aha!, but differences are emerging in their flight plans.
While all three intend to be low-cost carriers offering service to smaller cities either overlooked or underserved by larger airlines, their tactics are beginning to diverge, including on how large they plan to grow.
Last week, when Breeze founder David Neeleman was talking up scale, premium seating and his new A220s, he also kept hinting at long-haul flights eventually hooking up regional hubs. Both the choice of the A220 and the number of them on order, sixty, support that idea.
Avelo, on the other hand, which initially operated all of its flights out of the LA-area Burbank Airport, has now started its first expansion phase, with flights to Florida from Tweed New Haven Airport in Connecticut that started Wednesday.
And, while it plans to offer more destinations from that hub, where it is the only scheduled service, it’s not thinking about linking its operations with longer flights: CEO Andrew Levy told The Points Guy website that “They really are two standalone little airlines. I mean that’s how I think of them. Obviously it’s one airline, but they’re really two standalone bases and never the two shall meet, or at least not now.” He added that any connection would conflict with the company’s short-haul business model.
