Avelo Airlines, known as the Sonoma County Airport’s tight-budget option — can’t live with ’em, can’t live without ’em! — is planning to expand their wine-country empire this spring. The airline, which is based down in Burbank on the outskirts of L.A., just announced they’ll be opening a large “base” at our local airport on May 1. At the outset, it will house two planes — Boeing Next-Generation 737s — and serve as headquarters for up to 50 crewmembers they’ll be hiring, including “pilots, flight attendants and aviation maintenance technicians.” Which means a bunch of new airline-industry jobs for our area. The new facility will also allow Avelo to introduce four to six new nonstop, round-trip routes, a rep for the airport tell the Press Democrat. “They’re evaluating new destinations and they plan on announcing those in the next couple of weeks,” the rep says. “They just have not been finalized.” The budget airline currently runs four routes out of STS, for as cheap as $72 per flight: one to Redmond, OR, near Bend; one to Burbank, CA; one to Palm Springs, CA; and one to Vegas. (On that note, FYI, they just added some additional Vegas flights right before and after the Super Bowl.) For the new routes, these are the cities they’re choosing from, according to the PD: Eureka, CA; Redding, CA; Ogden, UT; Eugene, OR; Portland, OR; Salem, OR; Phoenix, AZ; Tucson, AZ; Colorado Springs, CO; Boise, ID; Bozeman, MT; Kalispell, MT; and Pasco, WA. (Source: PR Newswire & Press Democrat; paywall)
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