Gallery Update: Chasing Avelo Airlines at Eugene!

I should've made this spotting trip a month ago! It has been five years since I last spotted at Eugene Airport and I've been wanting to return for the past month or so mainly because of a brand-new airline that started up service there. The airline in question is Avelo Airlines, which happens to America's newest mainline carrier in nearly 15 years. Actually, we knew Avelo Airlines under it's previous name when it was still a charter carrier, namely, Xtra Airways.

Avelo Airlines today is the brainchild of Andrew Levy, former CFO of United Airlines and former CFO and president and chief operations officer of Allegiant Air, who acquired Xtra Airways and it's operating certificate in August 2018; he intended to transform Xtra Airways into a scheduled low-cost airline. By this point, Xtra Airways sold off most of it's fleet of Boeing 737 Classics to Swift Air (now iAero Airways), but kept a single 737-400 in order to retain the airline's Air Carrier Certificate. In February 2020, Levy announced the name of the new holding company for Xtra, which would be Houston Air Holdings, Inc., which reflected the company's headquarters location in Houston, Texas. That same month, the company raised enough financial funding and received its first airplane, a Boeing 737-800 to be used to formally launch the airline later in 2020. Of course, with the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic ravaging the airline industry that year, plans to launch were delayed.

Fast-forward a year to April 8, 2021, Houston Air Holdings, Inc. announced that the airline would be named Avelo Airlines, and began selling tickets for flights out of it's base at Hollywood Burbank Airport in Burbank, California; Avelo initially was going to start up operations somewhere on the east coast, but an opportunity presented itself in Burbank and on the west coast when route planners realized there were several unserved markets there. Avelo Airlines commenced commercial operations on April 28, 2021 with a flight from Burbank to Santa Rosa, California; all of Avelo's routes currently focus on leisure destinations that feature outdoor attractions, which would end up being a smart move to capitalize COVID-weary customers and travelers wanting to get out and about after a year spent in isolation and quarantine. Delaying the formal launch of operations certainly helped as well. From late-April and throughout May 2021, Avelo launched several routes throughout the west coast, including Eugene, Oregon, where I got spot their livery for the first time today!

As of right now, Avelo Airlines uses Burbank as it's west coast hub, flying a fleet of three 737-800s to Phoenix-Mesa (Arizona), Arcata-Eureka, Redding, Santa Rosa (California), Grand Junction (Colorado), Bozeman (Montana), Eugene, Medford, Redmond (Oregon), Ogden (Utah), and Pasco/Tri-Cities (Washington); three additional 737-800s will join their fleet later this year. And on May 6, 2021, Avelo Airlines announced that they would establish an east coast base in New Haven, Connecticut and base a sub-fleet of Boeing 737-700s there. After historic year where much of the airline industry was decimated by the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, it'll be refreshing to see a new player in the market to give the long-established airlines a run for their money and keep them on their toes. I'm definitely looking forward to seeing how well Avelo Airlines will fare in the months and years ahead!

Eugene (EUG) 5

Preview:

Lane Community College Piper PA-44-180 Seminole (N39669) airborne off 16R for a local flight

Allegiant Air Airbus A319-112 (N307NV) arriving on 16R as AAY29 from Las Vegas.

AAY29 clearing the active. I haven't photographed Allegiant since my days living in Provo! And I haven't seen this airframe since 2017.

AAY29 taxiing to the gate. Scheduled to depart later in the morning back to Las Vegas as AAY30.

Avelo Airlines Boeing 737-86N(WL) (N801XT) arriving on 16R as VXP117 from Burbank. One of the newest airlines here in the United States and my first time seeing it since commencing commercial operations at the end of April!

Airframe first delivered to AMC Aviation as SU-BQA in October 2007 under lease from GECAS. Re-registered to EI-EPO in May 2011 upon return to GECAS. It then went to ArkeFly as PH-TFF in August 2011 (later known as just Arke in October 2013). Airframe fell under operations of TUI Airlines Netherlands in October 2015 before being withdrawn and stored in January 2020. Taken up by Avelo Airlines' parent company, Houston Air Holdings, Inc. in February 2020 while the airline was in the process of getting established.

Note the split-scimitar winglets. As of right now, this is the only 737-800 in the Avelo fleet to sport the split-scimitar winglets; the other two (which I fully intend to photograph in the future!) have the standard blended winglets.

VXP117 clearing 16R. Very attractive livery and very refreshing to see a new airline in the market!

While it would seem risky and ill-advised to start up and launch an airline while the industry was severely impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, it was actually smart of Avelo to launch when it did because domestically, air travel is recovering. Not only that, but Avelo has been able to focus on leisure and outdoorsy destinations and appeal to COVID-weary customers who wanted to get out and about. And because it's a fairly-new player in the market, Avelo Airlines doesn't have the issues and challenges that long-established airlines had to deal with in the past year, allowing them to take a share of the current market. And because they're intending on serving a lot of unserved routes, they'll have little to no competition. And in the end, Avelo Airlines is another choice of airline an air traveler can consider.

VXP117 taxiing to the terminal. It was exciting to see this new airline up close!

SkyWest Airlines (d/b/a United Express) Embraer ERJ-170-200LR E-175LR (N163SY) airborne off 16R as SKW5308 for Denver.

VXP117 taxiing to the gate. Upon turn-around, N801XT will depart Eugene to return to Burbank as VXP118.

SkyWest Airlines (d/b/a United Express) Bombardier CL-600-2B19 CRJ-200LR (N919SW) clearing 16R after arriving as SKW5969 from San Francisco. My first time seeing a CRJ-200 in the United "evo-blue" livery!

SKW5969 taxiing to the gate.