For most of last year, running an airline meant parking jets, laying off workers and haggling with governments for bailout funds in a desperate effort to stay out of bankruptcy as appetite for travel shriveled to nearly nothing. A new class of entrepreneurs believes the moment has arrived to do something that has proved difficult in the best of circumstances: start an airline, the Wall Street Journal reported. Upstart airlines are cropping up in North America, Europe, South America, Africa and Asia, as the pandemic continues to depress global travel. More than 90 new carriers, most with funding already secured, have plans in place to take off before the end of the year, according to Avolon Holdings Ltd., an aircraft leasing firm. Some of the upstarts are emerging from the ashes of airlines that failed during the pandemic. Others have been waiting for air travel to show signs of recovery so they can activate plans that were already in place. Most are hoping that they can seize the chance to pick up heavily discounted aircraft, snap up coveted space at once-congested airports and in some cases, hire laid-off pilots and flight attendants. In the U.S., two new airlines are looking to fly routes that larger carriers have ignored or left behind after years of consolidation. One of them, Avelo Airlines had its first scheduled flight Wednesday morning, from Hollywood Burbank Airport to Santa Rosa, in California’s Sonoma County. The airline, which has its corporate headquarters in Houston, is being started by Andrew Levy, the former CFO of United Airlines Holdings Inc., who began planning in 2018 to launch a low-cost carrier that would fly from less crowded secondary airports. Mr. Levy decided last November to go ahead with his plans.
