A Canary Islands startup carrier is putting a hold on its flights despite only operating for a single day in July. The airline, known as Lattitude Hub, previously went by the name Canarian Airways and began service with a single leased Airbus A319. Before its recent service suspension, the carrier and its one aircraft had only flown three commercial flights, all on July 25th.
Commercial service pushed back to the autumn/winter season
In a July 30th post to Twitter, the airline announced that it would be suspending its operations with hopes to resume routes in the autumn-winter season. Translated to English from Spanish, this is what the airline had to say:
“We are reorganizing our operations. We’ve moved the configuration of routes to the autumn-winter season. In a time when the only certainty is uncertainty, the flexibility of the Lattitude Hub is what gives you a competitive advantage.”
Reorganizamos nuestra operativa. Trasladamos la configuración de las rutas a la temporada de otoño-invierno. En un tiempo en que la única certeza es la incertidumbre, la flexibilidad de Lattitude Hub es lo que le proporciona una ventaja competitiva.
#WhereCanariasBegins pic.twitter.com/ysrXIoMNze
— Lattitude Hub ES (@LattitudeHub_es) July 30, 2021
Spain has once again been listed as a risk area by many countries. Because of these moves, the airline has been experiencing weak demand for holidays in the Canary Islands, with mainland Spaniards afraid to book vacations.
Thus, according to German publication aeroTELEGRAPH, the airline cites low bookings as the reason for the service suspension.
Five days and three flights
Considering the airline had performed its first commercial flights on July 25th, a July 30th announcement of service suspension equates to less than a week of active operations.
In reality, however, with all three flights taking place on July 25th, the airline had really only operated for one day. Its three flights are as follows:
- OEW771: Tenerife-Vigo
- OEW772: Vigo-Tenerife
- OEW912: Tenerife-Madrid
Easy come, easy go?
According to Planespotters.net data, the A319-100 selected for the airline was first registered as OY-RCG and is a lease from Spanish airline One Airways. The jet is about nine-and-a-half years old and first flew with Atlantic Airways in 2012. With its move to Lattitude Hub, the jet was re-registered as EC-NMO, configured to accommodate 144 passengers in an all-economy layout.
While perhaps more expensive in the long run, wet leasing an aircraft to start an airline can allow a company to commence operations must faster than if it had to obtain its own aircraft and apply for its own Air Operators Certificate. This appears to have been the case for Lattitude Hub and its arrangement with One Airways. Indeed, crew selection and training would be another onerous process in launching an airline.
Therefore, with this arrangement, the financial ramifications of suspending operations (even just after three flights) are much less devastating when compared to a more conventional method of setting up an airline. In this scenario, we could imagine One Airways redeploying its A319 elsewhere in Europe, made available for charter services.
Simple Flying asked One Airways what their plans are for the A319 it had leased out. The carrier did not respond to our inquiry at the time of publication.
Lattitude Hub’s goal and main selling point was in providing better connections between the Canary Islands and mainland Europe. However, in a time of travel restrictions and uncertainty, it looks like the airline won’t be able to accomplish what it was hoping for.
Do you think this small carrier can make it through this crisis? Let us know what you think by leaving a comment.
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