Welcome to my 96th weekly routes newsletter! I've covered a few subjectively exciting routes that took off recently. Why not sign up and receive my newsletter in your email inbox every week?
Rex jets to Hobart
The Tasmanian capital of Hobart has joined Rex's 737-800 network. It is thanks to the August 17th launch of Melbourne, just 383 miles (615 km) and barely one hour away. More significantly, it is the first time the carrier has served Hobart at all.
Rex has become the fourth carrier on Melbourne-Hobart, Australia's 14th most-served domestic route by flights. They have 80 weekly departures (double for both ways) in the present week. Virgin and Jetstar have 26 weekly flights apiece, Qantas 21 weekly, and Rex just a daily middle-of-the-day service.
Rex leaves Victoria at 12:15 (often the only departure to Hobart between 10:45 and 13:40) and returns at 15:30. It is the first time since 2020 that it has had four carriers, when Tigerair Australia operated.
Delhi welcomes Belavia flights
Belavia is Belarus' flag carrier and the nation's only scheduled passenger operator (i.e., excluding foreign carriers). It has launched Minsk-Delhi, although the point-to-point market is predictably small. According to booking data, ~9,000 roundtrip passengers flew between the two cities in 2019. Belavia will grow the market and focus on transit passengers to certain Russian cities.
Presently operating weekly but soon jumping to twice-weekly, the first flight left Minsk on August 11th. It overflies Russia and Central Asia. Using the 174-seat, two-class 737 MAX 8, flight B2757 leaves Belarus at 20:25 and arrives at 05:35+1 local. Returning, B2758 departs at 06:55 and comes back at 11:40.
Widerøe returns to Liverpool
On August 18th, Norwegian regional operator Widerøe relaunched service to Liverpool. It operates from Bergen on Fridays and Mondays, which is great for long weekend trips in both directions.
Some 540 miles (917 km) apart, the route will almost always use the Dash 8-Q400. Despite the renowned speed of the aircraft, the initial Liverpool-bound flight took 1h 47m.
It competes indirectly with a twice-weekly Norwegian service to Manchester and (from September 8th) two weekly SAS flights. Both operate on Mondays and Fridays, indicating the most demanded days. Jet2 starts that route in summer 2024.
Widerøe previously served Liverpool between August 2018 and May 2020. According to UK CAA data, it carried 7,202 roundtrip passengers in 2019. With 13,164 seats for sale, it achieved a poor seat load factor of 55%. While fares appear to be relatively high, despite more indirect competition, let us hope loads improve.
IndiGo to Azerbaijan
IndiGo remains heavily in expansion mode, exactly as you would expect. It has started multiple new routes recently, including adding brand-new airports to its network. These include the Azerbaijan capital, Baku, now the carrier's second destination in the Caucasus after Tbilisi. There is no sign if/when Yerevan will launch.
Served four weekly using the A320neo, 6E1803 leaves Delhi at 20:20 and arrives in Azerbaijan, 1,738 miles (2,798 km) away, at 23:40 local. Returning, 6E1804 departs at 01:20 and returns at 07:10.
It becomes the second operator on the 1,738-mile (2,798 km) airport pair, joining Azerbaijan Airlines, which runs thrice weekly. It deploys multiple aircraft, which since the start of August featured the 757-200, 767-300, and A320neo.
Aside from the Delhi point-to-point demand, which totaled ~17,000 in 2019, IndiGo is extremely well-placed to target wider India demand along with passengers destined to/from Bangkok, Kathmandu, Kuala Lumpur, Singapore, and so on.
That's it for the 96th edition of my routes newsletter. Sign up to get something like this in your inbox each week.