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WNBA Updates Charter Plane Program So That Playoff Teams Can Use Charter Jets For All Postseason Games

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By Alan Snel, LVSportsBiz.com Publisher/Writer 

The WNBA is expanding its charter plane program so that teams can travel to games via charter jets instead of flying with the public on commercial airlines.

The 12-team league announced Monday that the updated charter program will include flights for all postseason games beginning with the start of 2023 WNBA Playoffs through the WNBA Finals, the WNBA Commissioner’s Cup Championship Game, and select regular season games where teams have back-to-back games on the schedule.

That’s incremental improvement over the current program of the WNBA approving charter flights in specific instances during select games in recent years. In 2022, the league expanded the program to include the WNBA Commissioner’s Cup Championship Game and all WNBA Finals games.

So, the big difference is that chartered flights will be used for all postseason games — not just the finals.

The Las Vegas Aces were involved in a dubious piece of WNBA travel history when the team forfeited a game in Washington after the game was scrubbed because Aces players did not to play from their concerns about their health and safety issues after 26 hours of travel.

The WNBA starts season 27 on May 19.


 

Alan Snel: Alan Snel brings decades of sports-business reporting experience to LVSportsBiz.com. Snel covered the business side of sports for the South Florida (Fort Lauderdale) Sun-Sentinel, the Tampa Tribune and Las Vegas Review-Journal. As a city hall beat reporter, Snel also covered stadium deals in Denver and Seattle. In 2000, Snel launched a sport-business website for FoxSports.com called FoxSportsBiz.com. After reporting sports-business for the RJ, Snel wrote hard-hitting stories on the Raiders stadium for the Desert Companion magazine in Las Vegas and The Nevada Independent. Snel is also one of the top bicycle advocates in the country.