Avelo Airlines is a Solid Low-Cost Carrier
$19 one-way fares don’t always equate to a bad flight
Recently my family made the decision that we wanted to pick two days this summer to fly a round trip flight on Avelo Airlines and experience what their $19 fares are all about. It’s worth noting that when it comes to Avelo if you are flying them or looking to fly them, you will have to either fly into or out of Burbank Airport as all flights start or originate there. Conveniently for us, Santa Rosa Airport, Avelo’s wine country/Bay Area connection (see the route map at bottom of the article), was only a 90-minute drive from home, so we made the trek out there to board flight XP102 to Burbank.
Booking
We ended up getting fares for $29 one way on both legs, so not quite the cheapest price, but still far cheaper than any alternative into LAX or into Burbank. Naturally, as a low-cost carrier, Avelo charges for other items as well, with seat selection being added on for everyone. Seats on Avelo range from $4 to $36, with the price fluctuating depending on location and legroom. The seats closer to the front are more expensive and some seats have up to 5 inches of extra legroom (excluding the exit row). Shown below are examples of Avelo’s seat map.
Changing Flights
Due to a conflict popping up with the dates we originally chose to test out Avelo, we ended up moving our flights a week earlier. Fortunately, Avelo had no change fees and the change process was refreshingly smooth. Like most airlines, you will have to pay a fare difference if the flight you are changing to has a higher base fare, but as most of Avelo’s prices are based on the day you fly on, our flight price was the same as it was exactly seven days before our originally scheduled flight.
Airport Process
As both Burbank and Santa Rosa airports are quite small, the airport experience was fairly similar between both. Check-in and security were quick, and the gate areas were pretty small with not much to do. Both airports do not have lounges near the gates. The gate agents were friendly and welcoming, but I did notice that there was seemingly little enforcement from the Avelo staff on whether passengers had paid for overhead bin space. There was no enforcement on the plane, so there must be some form of enforcement at the airport, but I did not see any.
Onboard Experience
One thing I immediately noticed when boarding was the use of boarding music. This was a welcome touch! The crew was also quite welcoming — not the most amazing crew I’ve seen, but certainly not bad for such a cheap flight. I was even more impressed by the seats themselves. Of course, legroom for standard seats is limited at 29 inches, but the seats themselves are fairly comfortable and each seat comes with a regularly-sized tray table (looking at you Frontier and Allegiant…).
As shown in the images above, the seats did differ on each flight despite both using 737–800 aircraft. The seats on XP102 to Burbank were very similar to Southwest’s older seats still on some aircraft. The seats on XP101 from Burbank felt much newer and unique to Avelo.
Something else unique to Avelo and to ultra-low-cost carriers is free food. Surprisingly, Avelo handed out a free comfort box containing water, package of shortbread cookies, and a hand wipe. This was a great surprise and I very much enjoyed my shortbread cookies! Remember, each flight only cost $29!
Summary and Conclusions
For a $58 round trip from Santa Rosa to Burbank, Avelo Airlines was completely worth it. I don’t think I would drive up to two hours to get to Santa Rosa Airport unless other airlines were significantly more expensive, but for the price, the experience was wonderful. Avelo offers far more comfort than other ultra-low-cost airlines such as Frontier, Spirit, or Allegiant, and now flies to many destinations long sought after by people looking for cheap flights. The West Coast could use a good low-cost airline for once, and Avelo might be that option. I should warn, though, that it is impossible to connect to another Avelo flight at Burbank given the low frequencies and lack of daily flights on each route, but with expansion, I reckon Avelo may be one of the best options out there for leisure travelers on the West Coast.
All non-credited images from the author
