New Flight Routes Coming This Fall and Next Year You'll Want to Book Now
Domestic and international airlines announced a bucketload of new routes and services recently, making it easier, faster and, in some cases, cheaper to check more places off those bucket lists and explore new parts of the world.
The New Year in Las Vegas
Alaska Airlines and Delta Air Lines joined American Airlines in scheduling some ‘bonus’ flights to and from Las Vegas in January 2019. While aimed at attendees of CES, the giant consumer electronics show, the added flights offer extra opportunities to visit Sin City or to use Las Vegas as the jumping off point for a New Year's visit to one of the targeted cities.
For that week, American is adding flights to/from Tokyo’s Narita International Airport (NRT), Alaska Airlines is adding 40 additional flights from tech happy hubs including Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and San Jose and Delta Air Lines has a couple of extra flights to/from Shanghai.
Chicago to New Zealand
Air New Zealand is gearing up for the November 30 launch of three weekly non-stops flights between Chicago O’Hare and Auckland using its new configuration Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner. Once on board, settle in: the flight out from Chicago will last more than 16 hours; the flight back will take about 15 hours.
Boston to Honolulu
On April 4, Hawaiian Airlines extends the aloha spirit to New England with the launch of five weekly nonstop flights between Boston Logan International Airport and Honolulu’s Daniel Inouye International Airport (HNL).
Related: The New Longest Domestic Flight in the U.S. Will Launch Next Year — and It'll Be 11+ Hours Long
Hawaiian will use an Airbus A330 for this 10-hour, 5,095-mile flight, which will become the longest regularly scheduled domestic flight in U.S. history. In honor of the airline’s upcoming 90th anniversary on November 11, the flight from Honolulu to Boston will be Flight HA90.
Amsterdam, Naples and Prague With United
On March 30, United Airlines begins daily, year-round service between San Francisco and Amsterdam Schiphol Airport.
The Chicago-based airline is also adding daily nonstop seasonal service (May 22 to October 4, 2019) between New York/Newark and Naples, Italy. While that flight operates it will be the only nonstop service between the U.S. and Naples.
For those thinking about visiting Prague, United is also adding daily nonstop seasonal service between New York/Newark and the Golden City June 6 through October 19.
New Seasonal Flights for Summer
American Airlines will kick off nine new routes for spring and summer, including daily, year-round service between Charlotte Douglas Int’l Airport (CLT) and Munich Airport, starting on March 30.
Seasonal summer services coming online include flights from DFW Airport to both Dublin (DUB) and Munich (MUC); between Chicago O’Hare and Athens International Airport (ATH) and between Phoenix Sky Harbor (PHX) and London Heathrow.
The City of Brotherly Love gets some love from American, with seasonal service from Philadelphia to Scotland’s Edinburgh Airport (EDI), Berlin-Tegel Airport (TXL), Bologna Guglielmo Marconi Airport (BLQ) in Italy and Croatia’s Dubrovnik Airport (DBV).
New Routes in the U.S.
On March 7, Alaska Airlines will begin offering a daily nonstop daily flights between Seattle and Columbus, Ohio, the largest city in the Buckeye State and one of 20 cities still in the running for Amazon’s so-called ‘HQ2’ second headquarters.
And in August 2019, Delta Air Lines is scheduled to start flying between Detroit and Worcester Regional Airport (ORH), about 50 miles west of Boston. The long underutilized central Massachusetts airport is having a bit of a comeback: JetBlue recently began offering flights between ORH and New York’ JFK airport and American Airlines kicked off service between ORH and Philadelphia.