February is a ways off but based on a peek at Avelo’s flight schedule, discount one-way seats are still available to its Florida destinations from Wilmington Airport (ILG).
The new airline offers flights to Orlando, Fort Meyers, Fort Lauderdale, Tampa and West Palm Beach twice a week, with three- times-a -week service to Orlando.
Fares start at $49 one way.
Like Frontier, additional offerings are ala carte, with $40 for a checked bag in the cargo hold or the overhead bin. Other charges come for assigned seats and seats with extra legroom.
It adds to about $200 roundtrip, not a bad deal and as one person noted at Avelo’s kick-off event at Wilmington-New Castle, an Uber trip to Philadlephia International Airport runs about $50 one way.
Barclays offers Pick Your Card for Frontier customers
Frontier Airlines may no longer fly into Wilmington-New Castle Airport, but still has ties to Delaware from its relationship with Wilmington-based Barclays US Consumer Bank.
Barclays recent launched a new ‘Pick Your Card’ program for new FRONTIER Airlines World Mastercard cardmembers. The five new card choices, made from recycled plastic, feature threatened or endangered animal species.
North American animals are also featured on every Frontier aircraft tail.
New cardmembers can pick one of the below animals to appear on their card:
- Powder the Polar Bear
- Verde the Resplendent Quetzal
- Hugh the Manatee
- Wellington the Black-Footed Ferret
- Chinook the Gray Wolf
Frontier teases travel card
Fronter generated some buzz in travel circles by teasing the introduction of an unlimited travel card.
A spokesman for the airline said the card was teased in a newsletter for customers. However, we won’t see details and costs until next year.
The guerrilla marketing work and news of the promotion invaded airline news site, complete with speculation on details and costs.
Over the years, airlines have been known to introduce the unlimited travel plans for short periods. An unlimited travel card for a specified period is a mainstay at Ambrak. Back in the day, I flew all around the country on Braniff International for a few hundred dollars.
Frontier’s fuel-efficient long-distance jet
Frontier Airlines was also in the news in recent weeks for getting its first long-distance jet.
The new Airbus jet comes with Pratt & Whitney engines that are the most fuel-efficient in the industry.
What caught the attention of the airline blogosphere was the more than 4,000-mile range of the jets.
That distance gives Frontier the potential to offer transatlantic, Hawaii and South American flights.
At least in the short term, Frontier will focus on short and medium-range flights for leisure travelers, officials said.
That strategy is in place at Philadelphia International Airport, with service to more than two dozen cities. Many of those cities see flights a few times a week.
Frontier is also dipping its toe into the Baltimore-Washington Marshall, Dallas-Fort Worth market with flights four times a week to the American Airlines stronghold. American has one or two daily nonstops from BWI, with Spirt having a single nonstop.
Southwest, the big gun at BWI, offers five daily nonstops to Love Field in Dallas.
Breeze’s start and stop strategy
Finally, Breeze Airways, which, like Avelo has a small city strategy, has added a few wrinkles in dealing with the ups and downs in passenger traffic.
Breeze is dealing with dips in traffic by halting some flights for a short period. One example is Charleston, SC to San Francisco service. With service suspensions come the possibility that flights will not resume. Wilmington-New Castle Airport has been through that with Frontier.
One similarity between Breeze and Avelo is their strategy of focusing on the East and West coasts. However, Breeze, unlike Avelo, has selected nonstops from the East Coast to cities out west, an eample being the Charleston-San Francisco flightws.
Avelo, which has fewer jets than Breeze, is staying away from long-distance flights from either coast.
