After WNBA teams have encountered obstacles when traveling for years, chartered flights are set to be funded by the league and the Phoenix Mercury can’t wait for when the time comes.
Thank you for reading this post, don't forget to subscribe!WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert broke the news yesterday that this program will be available soon and cost nearly $25 million per year for the next two seasons.
The league already confirmed that they will once again pay for charter flights throughout the duration of the playoffs, and back-to-back games this season that teams need to travel by air. With the Olympics in late July and early August, the WNBA will halt the season and therefore, this season’s schedule has more back-to-back slates.
Air travel has been a heated topic in the WNBA as they had to fly on commercial airlines for the most part. Many teams had been using the public charter airline, JSX when not.
As a result of the announcement, Mercury shooting guard Christyn Williams is ecstatic about the news even though she believes chartered flights should have happened a long time ago.
“I feel like that will help everyone across the league,” Williams said. “I felt like we should have already had chartered flights since we are a professional basketball team. So, I am just really happy to see that things are finally progressing and moving forward. It will definitely help out with away games.”
Prior to the news, the league hadn’t allowed teams to use charter flights except for back-to-backs.
With chartered flights, it will allow every player to go through a private air terminal instead of an airport. The private terminals will also allow lead them to their cars or other forms of transportation when coming back home.
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Alec Cipollini covers Phoenix Sports News for Burn City Sports. You can follow him on his X account, @AlecCipollini
