Gallery Update: Day Two of Commercial Air Service at Salem

After yesterday's momentous day with Avelo Airlines inaugurating twice weekly flights between Salem and Las Vegas, I found myself back at the airport this afternoon to chase down the inaugural Avelo service connecting Salem with their Burbank hub, which started today. Even better, the airframe Avelo utilized on today's inaugural was one I've never photographed before! And I was able to see the arrival and subsequent departure this time as the Burbank flights are currently scheduled for the afternoon. Like the Vegas flights, the flights between Salem and Burbank will be twice-weekly for the time-being.

Salem (SLE)

Preview:

Avelo Airlines Boeing 737-752 (N705VL) arriving on 31 as VXP185 from Burbank. The inaugural arrival connecting Salem and the Los Angeles basin!

While the Salem-Las Vegas flights currently run Thursdays and Sundays, the Burbank flights will run Fridays and Mondays at least for the month of October. Starting in November, the Burbank flights will shift over to Thursdays and Sundays also, which indicates that it's highly likely that Avelo will utilize a single airframe on all legs in and out of Salem, which would make aircraft utilization much more efficient (something that's important for a low-cost carrier with a limited fleet).

VXP185 taxiing to the terminal.

Airframe was first delivered to Aeromexico as XA-CAM in November 2003. It was withdrawn from Aeromexico's fleet in October 2015 and went into storage at Paine Field in Everett, Washington.

N705VL taxiing for departure as VXP186 for the return-leg to Burbank.

Following it's time with Aeromexico, the airframe was re-registered as N7837A and taken up by Southwest Airlines in November 2015; airframe did not enter revenue service with Southwest until March 2016.

At the onset of the pandemic in early 2020, Southwest placed the airframe into storage in March 2020 at Victorville, California and terminated the lease they had on it early. It then hopped around from one boneyard to another during the pandemic years; it would end up in Marana, Arizona from December 2021 until January 2022, when it ended up in San Bernardino, California.

In June 2022, Avelo Airlines picked this airframe up (likely taking advantage of the massive aircraft availability at the time with other airlines trimming their fleets) and began utilizing it during their massive expansion of their east coast route network out New Haven, Connecticut.

In April of this year, this airframe was finally re-registered to N705VL, in line with how Avelo registers their aircraft.

VXP186 departing on 31 for Burbank.

It'll be interesting to see how Avelo's presence in Salem will pan out. If passenger loads are healthy and profitable, Avelo states that they will make Salem into another west coast aircraft and crew base, which would be a huge benefit for the city. Likewise, that would probably pave way for additional destinations, including the other two metropolitan areas Salem wants to connect to! Only time will tell.

VXP186 rotating on 31.

Airborne and off to Burbank! In the meantime, I'll enjoy watching Avelo here in Salem and chase down any other airframes they end up sending!