Earlier this past February, Avelo Airlines announced that they would establish a new west coast base at Charles M. Schulz–Sonoma County Airport in Santa Rosa, California effective May 1st. When the airline first commenced operations in April 2021, the first route they operated was from Burbank to Santa Rosa and back, so it seemed appropriate considering how special the Bay Area airport has become to the airline. This however meant that Avelo would close their Las Vegas base effective April 30th, just seven months after opening it. But it is worth noting that Avelo did not eliminate any of the destinations currently served from Las Vegas (at least for right now) and just moved their based aircraft and crew over to Santa Rosa. The reason the airline shifted their assets over from Las Vegas to Santa Rosa was for better efficiency and ease of sharing resources as necessary with their Burbank base (quite a few intra-state routes in California are clearly working for the airline).
As part of their announcement of opening a new base in Santa Rosa, Avelo Airlines announced four new routes, effectively doubling the number of destinations served from the small Bay Area airport, and Salem happened to be one of them, which of course started today! Other destinations Avelo announced as part of their expansion out of Santa Rosa included Boise (Idaho), Glacier Park/Kalispell (Montana), and Pasco/Tri-Cities (Washington); the airline was already serving Burbank (the inaugural city-pair for the airline!), Las Vegas, Palm Springs, and Redmond (on a seasonal basis) prior to the new route announcements.
While the weather was dreadful for an inaugural flight, it was still light enough for me to chase down the flight for a quick, local spotting trip! And while I already did photograph the airframe Avelo used on today's inaugural on a prior spotting trip, this occasion allowed me to get some taxiing shots of the plane I didn't get, so it was still worth chasing down this flight.
Salem (SLE)
Preview:
 |
| Avelo Airlines Boeing 737-7H4 (N703VL) arriving on 13 as VXP822 from Santa Rosa. |
 |
| This is the inaugural flight connecting Salem and Santa Rosa! |
 |
| VXP822 clearing 13 at the end. With the addition of the Santa Rosa route, Salem has become Avelo's second-largest outstation (in terms of the number of destinations served) in the state of Oregon behind Redmond. |
 |
| Face-to-face with the 737-700! |
 |
| VXP822 taxiing to the terminal. |
 |
| When Avelo started serving Salem seven months ago, they served two of the four destinations the city had on its wish-list (Las Vegas and the LA Basin via Burbank). With the addition of Santa Rosa, the city of Salem to some extent, now has direct flights to the San Francisco Bay Area, which is the third destination on the initial wish-list. Although Santa Rosa is over 60 miles north of San Francisco (much like the distance between Salem and Portland), there are some feasible ground transport options (including bus and rail service) passengers can utilize down there. |
 |
| VXP822 crossing 16/34. |
 |
| Something else notable about this new route operated by Avelo is that it directly connects two different wine countries in two different states on the west coast. So hopefully, this new service will appeal to a certain market and stimulate the respective enotourism (a.k.a. wine tourism) industries in both the Willamette Valley and California's Wine Country. |
 |
| Avelo's new Salem/Santa Rosa service will operate twice-weekly in the evenings on Mondays and Fridays. |
 |
| I have to say, this new service starting today seems to have received little to no fanfare, as I noticed that both social medias for the airline and city/airport have been quiet and made no mention of it (as far as I can tell). Honestly, for a city that's struggled to maintain airline service in the past, I think it's a shame and a disappointment that they didn't give it the hype it deserved, especially for Salem, where every new route it gains ought to be celebrated. |
 |
| Scheduled to depart back to Santa Rosa as VXP823. Avelo has lasted seven months here in Salem, so here's hoping this new route addition is successful. |
