Thrilling new airline routes from August 2024 and past

The airline network planners seemed to be on their summer vacations in August.

After a blockbuster month of route adjustments in July, August was one of the quietest months of the year for network changes. While there were certainly some noteworthy changes — like Breeze Airways’ major expansion into New Haven, Connecticut — it was a quiet end to the summer for airline route map news.

If you’ve also been on vacation like the network teams, keep reading to catch up on everything you might’ve missed from August 2024.

The timing of American’s filing comes just a few days after Delta Air Lines announced plans to add two new routes to Bentonville from Detroit and Salt Lake City.

Avelo will (once again) connect Wilmington with three Florida destinations — Daytona Beach, Sarasota and West Palm Beach — beginning in November.

Finally, the carrier will also launch flights from Santa Rosa, California, to Ontario, California, on Oct. 10 and then to Salt Lake City on Oct. 24. Avelo will offer twice-weekly flights on both routes, neither of which is served by another carrier.

Not to be outdone, Avelo competitor Breeze Airways (the brainchild of serial airline entrepreneur David Neeleman) also announced a splashy expansion this month. It includes 18 new routes and five new cities. The airline also announced its first flights from Newark Liberty International Airport (EWR).

But perhaps the biggest story is Breeze’s expansion to a brand-new destination: New Haven. From there, Breeze will offer a whopping 10 new routes.

New Haven might be considered a secondary gateway prime for expansion from an upstart carrier. However, Breeze’s expansion launches the airline’s biggest turf war yet — which is arguably antithetical to the airline’s original mission of adding service on routes without any nonstop competition.

Avelo Airlines, the nation’s other big airline startup, operates a base in New Haven and flies many of the routes that Breeze is launching. As such, it’ll be interesting to see how the new routes perform.

At the end of the day, it’s usually the customer who wins these turf wars.

The carrier also added two new routes to Bentonville from Detroit and Salt Lake City as it pushes into business markets that are seeing strong demand.

Delta also filed plans this month to launch new flights from Boston to San Antonio and from New York to Palm Springs, California. JetBlue previously operated both routes, but the New York-based carrier recently announced that it was pulling out of both markets. This gave Delta a reason to swoop in and dominate both routes.

Finally, Delta will scrap its shortest route from its LaGuardia Airport (LGA) hub later this year and will instead launch flights from LGA to Chattanooga, Tennessee. The airline will also scrap service from New York City’s John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK) to Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport (BWI) and Montreal-Trudeau International Airport (YUL) on Oct. 26.

Frontier Airlines is trying to do whatever it can to return to profitability.

The airline is delaying deliveries of new jets and has spent the year revamping its network. This month, the airline announced 11 new routes, including more routes from JFK to Orlando International Airport (MCO) and Tampa International Airport (TPA).

Frontier hasn’t shared how it obtained the slots (the necessary takeoff and landing permissions) to make the JFK flights work, but this is just the latest expansion that the airline has announced from JFK.

Other noteworthy new routes include ATL to Dulles International Airport (IAD) outside Washington, D.C. — marking the airline’s return to this outstation for the first time since 2021.

JetBlue also made changes to its winter schedule at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport (DCA) this month. The airline is cutting seven daily flights during the winter season, as well as one route to Fort Myers, as first reported by Upgraded Points and later confirmed by a JetBlue spokesperson. The cuts are part of the airline’s plan to boost profitability.

DCA is one of the slot-controlled airports in the U.S. Typically, takeoff and landing permissions are granted via use-it-or-lose-it slots. To that end, JetBlue is working to “ensure that the slots we do not operate are covered this winter season,” a spokesperson said.

Spirit might have revamped its fares this month, but it didn’t do much tweaking to its network. The airline added just two new routes from New Orleans to Boston and Charlotte, launching in October.

In positive news, Southwest is adding six new routes, including an international expansion from Nashville with two new international markets (Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, and Punta Cana, Dominican Republic) and one new domestic market (Indianapolis).

The airline will also add a handful of new red-eye markets in March 2025, as well as a slew of new one-off flights for professional sports matchups.

It wasn’t all good news, though. The airline filed five permanent route cuts this month, including:

• Atlanta — West Palm Beach, Florida (first operated in November 2013)
• Burbank, California — New Orleans (new route that launched in June 2024)
• Burbank — San Antonio (new route that launched in June 2024)
• New York — Tampa (first operated in June 2017)
• Long Beach, California — Kansas City, Missouri (new route that launched in March 2023)

United didn’t add any new routes this month, but it did announce that it’s adding 20 one-off nonstop flights for college football season.

These flights will offer travelers nonstop options to get between some of the season’s biggest matchups.

Aeromexico continues its push into leisure markets with the addition of new service from Miami to Cancun. This new daily route will compete with American Airlines and will be Aeromexico’s latest leisure-focused expansion after recent additions in Manzanillo, Mexico.

This service will also connect Curacao with Belo Horizonte, Brazil. With fifth-freedom rights, Azul can sell tickets for travelers flying exclusively between Fort Lauderdale and Curacao.

It’s now formalized. Fiji Airways will officially launch its longest route yet: service from Dallas-Fort Worth to Nadi, Fiji. At 6,625 miles, the Dallas-to-Nadi route is 760 miles longer than the airline’s current longest to Vancouver, British Columbia.

Fiji Airways will commence this route Dec. 10. Flights will operate on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays using the airline’s flagship Airbus A350-900.

While Azul added a new fifth-freedom route to the U.S. this month, Singapore Airlines announced that it is cutting one.

The airline will scrap its unique service from Houston to Manchester, England. This service has operated for 16 years and will mark a station exit for Singapore.

Singapore Airlines has served Houston since March 2008, Cirium Diio schedules show. The airline originally flew from Houston to Moscow before continuing to Singapore.

This flight, operated with fifth-freedom rights, allowed Singapore to carry local passengers between Houston and Moscow and passengers continuing onward from Houston to Singapore. The airline switched the Moscow stop for a stop in Manchester in October 2016, and aside from a pandemic suspension in the early 2020s, the route has been operating consistently since then.