Flight 1 is often given by an airline to its most prestigious route. The most famous example is BA1, which used to be Concorde flights and then the weird babybus route. But what about North America, the land of medium haul flights between uninspiring cities? Let's find out!
- Air Canada / AC1: YYZ to HND
Most of Air Canada's lower route numbers are around the west coast, a legacy of one of their acquisitions. But AC1 was always going to be out of Toronto, and you can't really pick a better world city than Tokyo. It's even Haneda, the DCA of Tokyo! Wins all around. - United / UA1: SFO to SIN
LA might be the US's biggest transpacific hub, but everyone flies out of LAX. SFO is really United's turf. Singapore Airlines is another major Star Alliance partner, so I might've expected a destination with less "competition." Plus Narita used to be United hub! But there's definitely still plenty of cachet to Singapore. I think a lot of United's pacific route network actually hearkens all the way back to Pan Am. - AeroMexico/AM1: MEX to MAD
I definitely thought this was going to be Mexico City to DC or New York, but this is way funnier. Mexico and Spain don't have quite the reverse colonization sitch Brazil and Portugal do, but this is still a major flex. - Delta/DL1: JFK to LHR
This is just kinda boring to me. Like yes, London's a big deal. And Delta has the whole Joint Venture thing going on with Virgin Atlantic and Air France KLM, so obviously they care a whole lot about flights across the Smaller Pond. But there's no personality here! It's just boring. - American/AA1: JFK to LAX
I guess with "American" in the name it was going to be a domestic route, but this is just boring. Oh, look at us, we're connecting the two biggest airports in the two biggest cities. Everyone flies this route, there's nothing special here! You fly this in an A321! Have a little more self confidence, this is just embarrassing - Hawaiian/HA1: HNL to LAX
It was always going to be Honolulu, and LA makes a lot of sense. There's probably more traffic to the American West Coast than the East. But it's uninspiring. Hawaiian does fly all the way to JFK, and I think that'd be an obvious route. They even fly to Asia! Honolulu to Sydney would be a much cooler choice. Live a little. - Alaska/AS1: DCA to SEA
This should be Anchorage to Seattle. That AS1 doesn't go to Alaska is an embarrassment. Where's your pride? - Jetblue/B61: JFK to FLL
This makes sense, vacation destinations from New York is Jetblue's bread and butter. But now that they're trying to become a serious international airline, flying to places like Paris and Amsterdam, it just feels a little uninspired. Partial credit for sticking to your roots (routes?), but points off for going to Florida - Southwest/WN1: DAL to HOU to CRP
Dallas Love is Southwest's home field. But it's incredibly American (derogatory) to be such short hops within one state (the world's most obvious highspeed rail route) and extremely Southwest (derogatory) to have your flagship flight be multi-segment and end in metro of under half a million. lmao - Jazz/JZ1/AC8001 YUL to YOW
I mostly didn't count regional flights but Jazz uses their own flight numbers so w/e. A regional route that's also served by a lot of mainline carriers is just delusions of grandeur. Jazz 1 should be YVR to Prince Rupert or something, that's your bread and butter. - Sprit/NK1 FLL to ORD
Honestly astonished Spirit even flies to O'Hare, they're extremely Midway-coded. At least this is a flight out of Florida. - Allegiant/G41 LAS to VPS:
A twice-weekly flight from a tourist trap to an airport in Florida I had to look up. I expected nothing and I'm still disappointed.
The rest of airlines I looked up (Westjet, Spirit, Frontier, Spirit, Air Transat, Volaris, Viva Aerobus, Sun Country, Flair) don't have a flight one, because they hate fun presumably.
This concludes my 100% objective ranking of all North American airlines.
