Meet Avelo Airlines
Avelo Airlines made its debut late last week out of the Hollywood Burbank Airport (BUR). BUR, notable as the port most central to L.A.’s favorite outposts, will act as the new airline’s home base. And Avelo is rolling out the inaugural flying carpet with $19 one-way fares to 11 domestic destinations aboard its fleet of Boeing 737-800s.
Once the introductory period is over, Avelo claims that it will continue offering “everyday low fares coupled with a smooth and convenient travel experience, flying non-stop unserved routes…across the Western U.S.”
Avelo Airlines Travel Destinations & Frequency
At the time of writing, Avelo Air will charter single-class, direct flights to destinations that, until now, have not been accessible through BUR:
- Arcata / Eureka, CA (ACV): 4 flights/week
- Bend / Redmond, OR (RDM): 3 flights/week
- Bozeman, MT (BZN): 4 flights/week
- Eugene, OR (EUG): 4 flights/week
- Grand Junction, CO (GJT): 4 flights/week
- Medford, OR (MFR): 4 flights/week
- Pasco, WA (PSC): 3 flights/week
- Phoenix / Mesa, AZ (AZA): daily flights
- Odgen, UT (OGD): 6 flights/week
- Redding, CA (RDD): 3 flights/week
- Santa Rosa, CA (STS): daily flights
Booking is officially open on aveloair.com for April 28 through September 15, 2021 travel. Owing to the 737-800’s single-class layout, each flight will accommodate up to 189 passengers.
Schedule of Avelo Airlines Travel Fees & Perks
Avelo’s low fares will include no change fees and no call center fees (for those who get a nostalgic kick out of booking air travel by phone. Lol, you do you). The air carrier’s schedule of add-on services and fees is as follows:
- Carry-On Overhead: $35
- First Checked Bag: $10
- In-Cabin Boarding for Pet: $95
- Pre-Reserved Aisle and Window Seating: $5 +
- Priority Boarding: $10
- Seating with Added 31” to 38” of Pitch: $18 +
In addition to low fares and fast turnarounds, the boutique-ish Avelo Airlines promises the following service enhancements:
- Curbside drop-off and pickup
- Smaller crowds
- Quick commutes from curb to gate
- Expedient plane-to-carousel luggage provision
- Shorter TSA security lines
- BUR’s reduced parking and ground transportation costs
Launching a New Airline in 2021: Bold, Brilliant, or Both?
Avelo Airlines is the first U.S. “mainline airline” to premier in over 15 years, according to the airline’s spokespeople. The development of a new airline is something that recent generations haven’t witnessed. Born in the late ‘80s and exposed to air travel with some frequency as a child, I recall the laundry list of domestic and international airlines one could choose from. Following mass buyouts and mergers in the early-to-mid 2000s, however, diversity in air transit providers plummeted significantly, much as it did in other consumer-driven industries like telecom and media.
Avelo’s opening play comes on the heels of COVID-19 and the mass havoc it’s wrought on the travel industry. For more than a year, airfare has experienced record lows. Airlines like United and Delta — once notoriously married to stringent and inflexible reservation policies — have, out of necessity, relaxed flyer policies to match those of the most liberal players (e.g., Southwest) and low-ball titans (i.e., JetBlue, Spirit, and Frontier).
So, having already dated myself, I’ll freely say that seeing a new airline come to the fore is a bit of a surprise. And it’s one that I think may be long overdue. But following the greatest travel freeze in modern history, is Avelo Airlines’ inception too soon? Guess we’ll find out soon enough.
Sources:
- Meet Avelo: America’s Newest Airline – PR Newswire
- The past 2 decades saw the number of major airlines in the US cut in half – Business Insider
