US start-up carrier Avelo Airlines plans to stop operating flights from Redding to Southern California in August, citing the departure of its ground handling partner at Redding Regional airport.
Avelo confirms on 27 June that its business partner Trego Dugan Aviation, which provides Avelo’s ground-handling service in Redding, will no longer serve the airport.
”As a result, we’ve made the decision to cancel Avelo’s route between [Redding] and Los Angeles’ Hollywood Burbank airport effective 26 August,” it says.
”This decision also enables us to better utilise our resources elsewhere in Avelo’s system,” the carrier adds.
Avelo does not specify how it will reallocate its aircraft and crews.
The Redding-Burbank route has proven popular in the rural region of Northern California, which largely lacks commercial air service. Sacramento International airport is a 270km (168mi) drive from Redding.
Major regional carrier SkyWest Airlines operates flights on behalf of Alaska Airlines out Redding.
According to local newspaper the Redding Record Searchlight, the Shasta County Board of Supervisors will discuss ways to retain Avelo’s service to Los Angeles during an upcoming meeting.
Avelo will maintain a presence in Northern California, however, as it established an operational and crew base at Charles Schulz Sonoma County airport on 1 May.
Positioned north of the San Francisco Bay Area, that airport is considered by Avelo to be more strategically advantageous than its now-defunct base in Las Vegas.
”As a smaller, secondary airport, [Sonoma] is similar to the other small, fast, friendly and easy airports we serve around the country,” the carrier said at the time.
Sonoma is one of six of Avelo’s operational bases in the USA, and part of a strategy that involves flying to underserved medium-sized metro areas and secondary airports near major urban centres.
