New US Route Roundup: What Will Begin In The Early New Year?

The US will welcome multiple new routes in January, February, and March. By ‘new’, I mean those not operated by the specified carrier at any other point since January 2011. Excluding any resumptions or any one-offs or very short-term services, a summary is provided of what’s coming, together with a focus on each month’s (admittedly very subjective) highlight.

Virgin Atlantic Airbus A330 — Virgin Atlantic will begin Edinburgh to Orlando on March 30th using the A330-300. Photo: Getty Images.

US routes coming in January

While January is a quiet month for new routes, nine US airlines will launch new services, as illustrated in the following map. These include Reno-based aha! with a new link to Palm Springs, Avelo from Redding to Las Vegas, its fourth route to Sin City, and Advanced Air replacing Boutique Air from Merced to Las Vegas and Los Angeles after winning the Essential Air Service contract.

The ‘big three’ – American, Delta, and United – will start four routes, which appear in the most-served list below organized by seats for sale. With more capacity than any other, Delta’s LaGuardia to Providence will start on January 5th. It’ll run 19-weekly using three-class, 70-seat CRJ-900s. (LaGuardia to Albany, also to begin with Delta, isn’t included as it had service about a decade ago.)

Delta: LaGuardia to Providence; beginning January 5th
Spirit: Miami to Minneapolis; January 6th
Southwest: Albuquerque to Burbank; January 17th
American: Albuquerque to Austin; January 4th
American: JFK to Worcester; January 4th
Avelo: Las Vegas to Redding; January 6th
United: Denver to Butte; January 5th (see below)
Avelo: New Haven to Sarasota; January 13th
Spirit: Miami to San Jose (Costa Rica); January 7th
Frontier: Columbus to Cancun; January 21st

US routes starting in January — The routes detailed in this article concern those not operated by the airline since at least January 2011. Therefore, they omit resumptions in this period, such as Frontier’s coming Raleigh Durham to Cancun service, which operated in winter 2018. Image: GCMap.

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United to link Butte to Denver

Nicknamed The Mining City, the Montana city of Butte will receive its first service to Denver on January 5th. United Express’ regional partner SkyWest will operate once-daily using one-class, 50-seat CRJ-200s. It’ll leave Denver at 11:50 and arrive at 14:00. After a 35-minute turn, it’ll arrive back at 16:33.

Denver will be Butte’s second route, joining Delta Connection (also by SkyWest) to Salt Lake City, which began in August 2003, according to the Department of Transportation’s T100 dataset. SkyWest will receive almost $1 million annually to operate the two routes.

The 578-mile (930km) link to Butte will be United’s seventh destination in Montana from its Colorado hub. It’ll join Bozeman, Billings, Great Falls, Helena, Kalispell, and Missoula, each with two to four daily flights.

United's Denver hub — Showing all of United’s arrivals and departures at Denver in the week starting January 5th, Butte will leave in the largest departure bank. It’ll be fed by the highest number of arriving flights. Image: OAG Mapper.

US routes beginning in February

Feburary sees significantly more routes starting, notably Finnair between Helsinki and Dallas (not shown in the following map for clarity reasons). Also launching will be eight new routes by Breeze Airways, including six Saturday-only services to West Palm Beach. Frontier, meanwhile, will begin 10 from Fort Lauderdale and three from Cancún.

Finnair: Helsinki to Dallas; beginning February 6th (see below)
Spirit: Las Vegas to Phoenix; February 16th
Frontier: Buffalo to Fort Lauderdale; February 17th
Frontier: Fort Lauderdale to Orlando; February 17th
Frontier: Fort Lauderdale to Philadelphia; February 17th
Frontier: Fort Lauderdale to Atlanta; February 17th
Spirit: Orlando to Ponce; February 16th
United: Newark to Wilmington (NC); February 11th
Sun Country: Rochester (MN) to Phoenix; February 4th
Sun Country: Rochester (MN) to Fort Myers; February 3rd

US routes starting in February — Although not one of the larger routes to launch in February, United will start Houston (IAH) to Texarkana (TXK) on the 13th. It’ll run once-daily using 50-seat Embraer 145s. Meanwhile, Cape Air will replace Air Choice One from Southeast Iowa Regional Airport (BRL), and JetBlue will start JFK to Puerto Vallarta (PVR). Image: GCMap.

Finnair to inaugurate Dallas

The February highlight is the only long-haul route, with Finnair taking off to Dallas on February 6th. Operating on Tuesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays, and Sundays, the long 5,224-mile (8,407km) airport-pair will have a block time to the US of just shy of 11 hours. It’ll utilize three-class A350-900s with 297 seats.

This route will benefit from Finnair’s immunized transatlantic joint-venture with American Airlines, allowing airlines to coordinate schedules and fares. (Other carriers are part of it, but American is obviously the important one here.) The schedule is as follows, with all times local. It’ll depart/arrive in Finland at about the same time as Finnair’s other North America routes.

AY19: Helsinki to Dallas, 16:00-18:50
AY20: Dallas to Helsinki, 20:40-14:55+1 the following day

Finnair Airbus A350-941 OH-LWK.jpg (2) — Finnair will serve five US airports from Helsinki. Photo: Vincenzo Pace | Simple Flying.

US routes launching in March

March is characterized as a time for multiple long-haul routes (not shown in the following map for clarity reasons). They’re partly driven by the change in the aviation seasons, with summer kicking off on March 27th, and partly from airport switchovers.

Chief among coming routes is startup airbahn’s first link from Ontario to Oakland, along with six each by both JetBlue and Southwest. The latter will inaugurate five routes from burgeoning Austin (four in the most-served list below) along with Denver to Cozumel. However, Allegiant will add nine new services, with Flint to Boston perhaps the most notable.

United: Newark to Tokyo Haneda; beginning March 4th (see below)
United: Newark to Berlin; March 4th (see below)
airbahn: Ontario to Oakland; March 1st
Southwest: Austin to Charleston; March 10th
Southwest: Austin to Amarillo; March 10th
Southwest: Austin to Midland-Odessa; March 10th
Southwest: Austin to Ontario; March 10th
American: Dallas to Tel Aviv; March 5th
Volaris El Salvador: JFK to San Salvador; March 16th
United: Washington Dulles to Tokyo Haneda; March 26th (see below)

US routes starting in March — Volaris El Salvador will begin San Salvador (SAL) to JFK and Washington Dulles (IAD), replacing Volaris Costa Rica. JFK will begin on March 16th. Image: GCMap.

A month for multiple long-haul services

Sixteen long-haul routes will begin, as shown below. Some involve Tokyo Haneda; in most cases, the airport will simply replace Narita. It’s the same for United to Berlin, where Brandenburg has replaced Tegel (United last served it in March 2020). Meanwhile, TUI will use Melbourne – optimistically titled Melbourne Orlando International – to replace Sanford.

Los Angeles and Newark to Tokyo is different. United will serve both Haneda and Narita from its two US hubs, ensuring a twice-daily service to the Japanese capital, more than pre-pandemic. If joint-venture partner All Nippon is included, the pair will have up to five daily flights from Los Angeles.