✈ A whopping 60 new budget airline routes, a major airline bankruptcy and a record Thanksgiving ✈

November 20, 2024

Airline route bonanza

by Ben Mutzabaugh, Managing Editor for Aviation

Hello TPG readers!

A major airline bankruptcy. A whopping 60 new budget airline routes. A new city on the U.S. commercial aviation map. And Shake Shack burgers on Delta Air Lines’ first-class menu — but what about “Junior Mint” on JetBlue?

All of those stories from the past week come ahead of what’s expected to be the busiest Thanksgiving ever for air travel.

The calendar may be quickly turning toward December and the winter holidays, but the aviation news cycle shows no signs of slowing down as the end of the year approaches.

Next up: About 100 million Americans are expected to travel during the week around next Thursday’s Thanksgiving holiday. That could produce record numbers for the holiday, both in the skies and on the nation’s highways.

TPG’s Sean Cudahy has everything you need to know if you’re among the throngs traveling during the holiday week, which the Transportation Security Administration says could produce its busiest day ever for air travel. (Hint: That’s not expected to come on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving — despite popular lore to the contrary.)

While the industry is gearing up for that busy stretch, Spirit Airlines says it should be business as usual for its customers despite the company’s bankruptcy filing Monday. Sure, changes could be coming later as the carrier works to overhaul its money-losing business model as part of its Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings. But for now, Spirit pledged its schedule would hold through the upcoming holiday season.

While Spirit’s bankruptcy dominated this week’s airline news, the nation’s other big ultra-low-cost carriers made headlines for a major expansion spree. That came courtesy of Allegiant Air and Frontier Airlines, which announced a combined 60 new routes just during the past 36 hours.

Allegiant accounted for 44 of them, with the other 16 going to Frontier in an Austin-heavy expansion. Additionally, Allegiant’s announcement included service to three new cities, including one that currently has no commercial airline service at all. That means that city along the Gulf Coast will become the newest to join the U.S. aviation map when Allegiant’s flights there begin in May.

I’ll close this week with an item on JetBlue — specifically industry speculation about whether the airline might be close to adding a domestic first-class cabin that could match offerings from American Airlines, Delta Air Lines, United Airlines and Alaska Airlines.

JetBlue already has its highly regarded Mint business-class cabin, but it flies only on a small percentage of the carrier’s planes. The remainder of JetBlue’s fleet features only economy seating. Given JetBlue’s Mint branding for its business-class cabin, some industry analysts have cheekily dubbed the possible first-class initiative “Junior Mint.” For its part, JetBlue says only that it’s considering its options. Stay tuned …

That’s all for this time. Here’s wishing everyone a great Thanksgiving, and I’ll see you soon.

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Photo Credit: BEN MUTZABAUGH/THE POINTS GUY.

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