Boston Aviation

This is a JetBlue Airbus A320-200 in the I Love New York livery coming in for landing in Boston Logan Airport after its short flight from New York- John F. Kennedy. The plane has the registration N586JB and 14.2 years old.

Today, March 27, 2018, LEVEL, a wholly owned subsidiary of the International Airlines Group (IAG), the same company that owns British Airways, Iberia, Vueling and Aer Lingus, inaugurated its seasonal route from Barcelona-El Prat Airport to Boston. LEVEL will operate the route twice weekly on an Airbus A330-200 on Wednesdays and Saturdays until August 6, 2018, when the route will be operated three times weekly on Mondays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. The route will be operated seasonally until October 27, 2018. LEVEL will be one of 3 airlines to offer low-cost transatlantic flights along with WOW air and Norwegian Airlines, but soon will be joined by Primera Air. Flights on LEVEL are currently operated by Iberia, but the airline plans to become an independent subsidiary of the IAG.This will further increase destinations available to travelers this summer and will offer a great, cheap way to hop the pond. Source:  www.routesonline.com

Another day and another airline switch to its summer schedule. Last year, British Airways became the first airline to fly a regularly scheduled Airbus A380 to Boston (Emirates did a one-off A380 flight to Boston before British Airways). Today, British Airways is bringing back its A380 to Boston for the summer season. The airline will fly the giant plane to Boston on Fridays, Sundays, and Mondays.The airport constructed special gates in Terminal E for the A380 to use, so it is nice seeing those gates used for the plane they were constructed for.

Today, March 24, 2018, Delta has returned to offering two daily flights from Boston to Amsterdam. Throughout the summer Delta Air Lines flies two daily flights, compared to the winter's single daily flight. The only difference is that this year, instead of seeing two daily Airbus A330-300s on the route, Delta will use a Boeing 767-300ER and one Airbus A330-300. This means that all of Delta's year-round routes to Europe from Boston (London-Heathrow, Paris-Charles de Gaulle, and Amsterdam-Schiphol) will now have Boeing 767-300ERs on their route. The Boston to Amsterdam route has a codeshare with SkyTeam Alliance partner KLM, which is why KLM doesn't fly to Boston. In the coming months, there will be a lot of seasonal route resumptions and increased service that will occur to cope with the increased travel demand during the summer and this is just one of many adjustments. Source:  www.routesonline.com

This is a Boeing 767-300ER of Delta Air Lines coming for landing at Boston after its flight from London-Heathrow Airport. The plane is 18.9 years old. This is one of three transatlantic routes Delta operates from Boston.

PenAir is a small company that operates regional flights to and from Boston. The airline considers Boston Logan Airport a hub and operates flights to Plattsburgh, NY, Presque Isle, ME and Bar Harbor, ME on Saab 340's with 33 seats. Since 2012 the airline has been providing service to the small communities under Essential Air Service, a federal subsidy for an airline to serve a route with low demand in order to connect the rural communities to larger cities. Unfortunately, PenAir's contract is coming to an end soon, therefore a new round of bidding for the subsidies has occurred. Unfortunately, United won the subsidy to serve both Presque Isle, ME to Newark Airport and Plattsburgh, New York to Washington Dulles Airport from the US Department of Transportation due to its lower subsidy need. Therefore, June 30, 2018, PenAir will operate its final flights between the cities before the service goes to United Airlines. The subsidy for the Bar Harbor route will be decided April 5, 20

Delta Air Lines has announced its plans to begin service between Boston and Las Vegas. The airline plans to operate the route daily on a Boeing 737-800 with 160 seats begining October 1, 2018. Delta will compete with JetBlue Airways and Spirit Airlines on the route. This will be Delta's fiftieth destination from Boston Logan when counting both Delta and Delta Connection. Delta is continuing to show its commitment to expanding Boston as a focus city for the airline, with the goal of reaching 150 daily departures from Boston. Sources: www.usatoday.com www.eturbonews.com

More information about the rumored Boston to Chengdu route has been released by the  Boston Business Journal.  Interestingly, the article states that the route is gaining approval for the route for the spring of 2019, not 2018. This doesn't surprise me as it seems like a much more reasonable time frame to launch such a route. I can't imagine leaving this little time between the announcement and launch of the route, but no official announcement has been made from the airline.

This is an Alitalia A330-200 coming in for landing at Boston Logan Airport after its flight from Rome-Fiumicino Airport. The aircraft has the registration EI-EJG and is 7.9 years old. The plane is named Raffaello Sanzio.

For quite some time now, JetBlue has expressed interest in starting transatlantic flights from Boston Logan and New York- John F. Kennedy Airport. The airline has ordered 60 A321Neos and has the option to change some of the A321Neos to the A321LR. Recently, JetBlue confirmed that it was interested in the A321LR as opposed to the rumored Boeing 797 middle of the market plane.The A321LR would have enough range to reach many destinations in Europe from Boston. I think JetBlue could definitely start some very profitable transatlantic routes from Boston with the new A321LR, hopefully, it happens! Sources:  www.flightglobal.com                 onemileatatime.boardingarea.com

Today, March 12, 2018, Alitalia is resuming its seasonal service to Boston from Rome-Fiumicino Airport. The Italian carrier briefly stops service to Boston for the months of January and February. The route will be operated on Monday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday on an Airbus A330-200. This will be an interesting year for Alitalia as its financial woes continue because of recent developments with Air Italy. Qatar Airways, acquired a 49% stake in Meridiana, a privately owned Italian airline, and rebranded the airline as Air Italy. The airline will grow rapidly, by receiving many ex-Qatar Airways A330-200s and later Boeing 787-8s. Its hub will be in Milan-Malpensa Airport to reduce competition with Alitalia's in Rome-Fiumicino. Air Italy hopes to tap into the more profitable business market of Milan compared to Rome, which relies more on tourists. By doing this, the airline hopes to push Alitalia completely bankrupt and become the flag carrier of Italy. A possible route for

This is Swiss International Air Lines Airbus A340-300 getting ready for its flight back to Zurich. The plane has the registration HB-JMI and is named Schaffhausen, a municipality in northern Switzerland. The plane is 13.9 years old. Behind the Swiss plane, there is the JetBlue "retro" livery on their Airbus A320. JetBlue has only been around since 2000, therefore the airline never actually had this livery on all their jets, but instead created a livery that was in the style of the 1960 airplane liveries.

I previously wrote about how Sichuan Airlines expressed interest in beginning flights from Chengdu to Boston, among other cities in 2018. Apparently, all of the routes from Chengdu the airline has applied for received regulatory approval to begin flights in May. The routes are Chengdu to Zurich, Copenhagen, Boston, Cairo and Tel Aviv. This shows that the airline clearly has intentions to begin the route and wasn't just claiming they would begin the route and not follow through, as other airlines have done. They intend to fly the Chengdu to Boston route three times a week, but there still has not been any official announcement from either the airline or Massport and no tickets are for sale. This is surprising because if the airline plans to fly the route in May, this leaves them very little time to announce the route and start selling seats, but then again this is the airline that started flying a route a week after its announcement. Sources: www.gochengdu.cn atwonline.com

Recently I talked about how Lufthansa revealed their new livery. So far the only long haul aircraft repainted into the new livery is a Boeing 747-8i with the registration D-ABYA. Today, March 6, 2018, Boston will receive the airplane with the new livery. This will be the first time a Lufthansa plane with the new livery will show up in Boston. Sidenote: Found this interesting article,  www.businesstraveller.com . Apparently, Lufthansa isn't entirely happy with the new livery because the blue is too dark in gloomy weather, so they will redesign the blue color.

This year American Airlines will not operate its Boston to Paris-Charles de Gaulle summer seasonal route. Previously, American Airlines operated the route daily on a Boeing 757. I understand why American is terminating their service on the route when both Norwegian Airlines and Primera Air will begin the route this year on top of the current service from both Delta and Air France. Unfortunately, this means that American will not have any transatlantic flights from Boston. Source:  www.routesonline.com

Today, March 3, 2018, Delta Air Lines has started two more new routes from Boston Logan Airport. The flights are from Boston to Charleston, South Carolina, and to Savannah, Georgia. Both flights will operate once a week, on Saturdays, on a Bombardier CRJ700 operated by GoJet. In both Charleston and Savannah, Delta's new flight will compete against JetBlue's flights. Both routes will end JetBlue's monopoly in the market and will increase competition. Delta is adding a large number of flights this year from Boston Logan, with the goal of reaching 150 departures a day and this is just one step in that direction. Source:  www.routesonline.com

This is a Delta Airbus A330-300 landing in Boston after its flight from Amsterdam. Delta codeshares with KLM on the route, which is why KLM doesn't fly to Boston. The plane has the registration N815NW and is 11 years old. The plane was originally delivered to Northwest Airlines but joined  Delta's fleet after they merged.

Today, March 1, 2018, Iberia is resuming its seasonal service to Boston from Madrid. The Spanish carrier briefly stops service to Boston for the months of January and February. I am interested to see if the load factor on their flights will improve this year compared to last year when they had to compete against Air Europa, which has since terminated its service to Boston. Additionally, it will be interesting how Level, an airline owned by the International Airlines Group (same company that owns Iberia), will affect Iberia's load factor with its service to Barcelona.