Summary
- French bee suspends its only route to Los Angeles for the winter, plans to resume in March 2025.
- Paris to Los Angeles route is highly competitive, with lower demand in the winter making it challenging.
- Passengers affected by the suspension can modify their tickets for other US routes or request a refund or credit.
First reported by AeroRoutes, French low-cost airline French bee has decided to suspend its only route to Los Angeles this winter as it revises its schedule. While the reasons are unclear – and the airline declined to comment further when asked by Simple Flying – it could be related to demand and heavy competition. We take a look.
Gone in winter, back in summer
According to the airline’s booking website,
French bee
will return to its
Paris Orly Airport
(ORY) to
Los Angeles International Airport
(LAX) at the end of March 2025, in time for the start of the aviation summer season.
Photo: French bee
On its website, French bee blamed the schedule adjustment as a result of “operational reasons”. When contacted by Simple Flying, the airline confirmed the suspension for this winter but declined to comment further. The service is suspended between November 2, 2024 and March 28, 2025.
AeroRoutes reports that the carrier had initially planned to operate thrice weekly with the A350-900 up until Christmas day, at which point service would increase to four weekly until January 6, 2025. Thereafter, flights would reduce down to twice weekly until March 16, before increasing back to three weekly from March 17.
Last year, services were suspended on this sector between January 15 and March 31. In other words, this year the flight is gone early.
In September, French bee has 21 flights planned with its Airbus A350-900, offering a total of 8631 seats, according to Cirium data. In April, the airline has 16 flights currently scheduled, providing 6576 seats.
Analyzing the Paris-LAX sector: why is French bee gone?
Paris to Los Angeles is notoriously competitive. Paris has several airports, of which Paris Charles de Gaulle (CDG) and ORY are the only ones that have flights to the City of Angels. In September, the following airlines offer services on the sector:
Air France is the strongest player on the route in terms of number of flights and seats on offer. It has space for 19,420 this month on its A350-900, complemented by another 9,914 on its Boeing 777-300ER. The runner-up is Delta, deploying an A330-900neo on a daily basis.
Norse has had a hard time on this route, though, but recognises the challenge. It does not and has not planned to offer flights on this sector during winter, the carrier confirmed to Simple Flying.
Lower demand during the winter months makes low-cost long-haul particularly difficult. By deploying its planes on other routes that are more popular during the later half of the year, it does not run the risk of flying empty planes on the Paris to LAX sector. Norse began the route in May this year.
Disruption and alternatives
Because the service suspension was only recently put in place, some passengers have already booked their tickets. As such, French bee has said that customers that have reserved on the ORY-LAX sector during this period can modify their ticket to fly on all the carrier’s US routes. It said:
“You can change your ticket within one month, without penalties and without fare adjustment within the validity period of your ticket on all our US routes (Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York, Miami) by contacting our call center.”
French bee is the world’s only all-Airbus A350 airline. Photo: French bee
Alternatively, passengers can reqest a refund or credit to the amount of the ticket, valid for one year “on the entire French bee network.”