Avelo Airlines To Consolidate Network Ahead Of E2 Deliveries

TALLAHASSEE, Florida—Avelo Airlines plans to consolidate its network and focus on raising brand awareness until mid-2027 when it will start taking delivery of Embraer E195-E2s which will kickstart its growth, according to a senior executive at the carrier.

Avelo in September placed an order for 50 E195-E2s, becoming the first U.S. airline to order the new-generation aircraft. While settling on its future fleet, the airline this year also wound down its entire West Coast network, pulling out of Burbank, California, where it initially started service in 2021. As of early December, all of the carrier’s network points will be in the eastern half of the U.S.

“Moving to 2026, our network is going to be focused on really consolidating into our core bases, which are secondary [East Coast] airports,” Mike Corcoran, Avelo’s director of network planning, said during a presentation at Routes’ Takeoff North America conference in Tallahassee, Florida.

With assets previously deployed in the western U.S. now freed up, Avelo’s current fleet of 14 737-800s and eight 737-700s will be used “to scale all of these smaller [East Coast] airports … to drive relevance and awareness of our brand,” Corcoran said.

He added: “If you ask me, our number one inhibitor to growth right now is just the fact that a lot of people don't know that we actually exist. They don't know about Avelo. So we think that driving scale, building out our current bases, is going to be the right path forward in terms of building brand awareness, and that should translate into more customers.”

While no firm date for the delivery of its first E195-E2 is set, the Houston-based airline expects to begin receiving the aircraft in mid-2027. Deliveries are anticipated to come at a pace of around one aircraft per month over five years.

“We haven't settled on an actual configuration yet,” Corcoran said, noting the carrier is targeting around 140 seats on the aircraft. He said the carrier is open to the idea of a dual-class configuration “as our product develops over time.”

The airline has identified 20 potential airports where E195-E2s could be based—all secondary airports near major metropolitan areas, Corcoran said. The new aircraft will allow Avelo to grow, including returning to the West Coast, he added.

“We absolutely plan to expand nationally once again,” Corcoran said. “The E2 is really going to enable us to serve the West Coast in a more efficient way. For a long time, we had dual operations on the West and East Coasts. It's really challenging to run an airline of our size in those two disparate geographies without any connectivity in the middle. The E2 is going to enable us to go back there, probably in a smarter, more effective way.”

But until the new aircraft arrives, consolidation on the East Coast will be Avelo’s strategy. “2026 is definitely going to be the year of optimizing our current network,” Corcoran said. “I would not anticipate adding too many new incremental cities and rather scaling the ones that we do have. We think that having more destinations from fewer cities is going to be really impactful in terms of getting people to know our brand actually exists.”

Until the E195-E2s begin arriving, Avelo will not be taking a “kind of shotgun approach, just adding a whole bunch of cities for the sake of having a whole bunch of different dots on the network,” he explained.

The carrier plans to continue operating its 737s once the E195-E2s arrive. Corcoran envisions flying the older aircraft to “big Florida markets” where a higher capacity aircraft make sense.