One of the best parts of our job is learning about airlines on your behalf. Finnair has been on our radar after having a big few years, welcoming the Airbus A350 as the flagship of its fleet and announcing new routes to the U.S. and Asia. So when we got the chance to experience Finnair’s long-haul product for ourselves, of course we said yes!
We’ll have plenty of in-depth Finnair stories coming up, including a review of their A330-300 business class and an interview with their A350 Program Manager. For now, we wanted to share a few big-picture quick thoughts and observations we had about the airline. Read on for some highlights about what we learned from our Finnair adventure!
Photo: Manu Venkat | AirlineReporter
Big network expansion out of LAX for American, with eight new destinations all starting June 2
On June 2, American commenced a major expansion of its route network, with 21 new nonstop routes this month. This includes 10 new destinations just from Los Angeles International Airport (LAX), marking the largest expansion ever at LAX.
Thursday saw the largest number of inaugural flights, with eight ribbon-cutting ceremonies in Los Angeles that day, something the carrier had never done before in its history. I was invited to be part of the festivities and join the entourage, which included Jim Moses, the Managing Director (MD) for American at LAX. What does a day full of ribbon cutting ceremonies look like, you ask…?
Allegiant Air MD-83
If you follow Allegiant Airlines on Twitter, you noticed a lot of announcements for new routes recently. I have been talking a lot about their Boeing 757’s getting painted in their livery, but I wanted to talk about all the new action their MD-80’s will be seeing. Here is a list of new routes they announced that will be starting next week:
Some of the new Allegiant routes start next week
Just in time for the winter to allow people in colder climates to get to warmer ones. All these new flights will be flown by Allegiant’s MD-80 aircraft. This means (hopefully) there should be some more announcements here in the near future that involve Allegiant’s new Boeing 757s.
One destination I am disappointed not to see is Paine Field. As I discussed earlier in the year, Allegiant Air and Horizon Air were looking to fly into Paine Field, which is located about 20 miles north of Seattle. At this point, everyone is still waiting and no decision has been made.
Image: Silenus81
