Liberty stars Breanna Stewart and Jonquel Jones high-fived as coach Sandy Brondello clapped when they were informed during a media Zoom call that the WNBA would be launching a program to allow all 12 teams to fly by charter this season.
The trio were asked for their reaction to the news while speaking with reporters ahead of their 101-53 preseason loss to the Chicago Sky.
“We’re gonna charter to Connecticut,” Stewart joked after the reporter finished her question.
“We think it’s amazing if it’s true,” Jones added. “There’s a lot of games this season, and we want to be able to play our best and charter is definitely going to help with that.”
WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert told a meeting with sports editors in New York on Tuesday that the WNBA intends to “fund a full-time charter for this season” and added that charter flights would begin “as soon as we can get planes in place.”
Charter flights — or the lack of them — for WNBA teams have been a massive point of contention over the past few years for players in the league and came to the forefront last season as some of the league’s biggest stars, including Stewart, called on the need for them.
The WNBA had already said during the draft in April that they planned to once again pay for charter flights for the entire playoffs in addition to back-to-back games during this upcoming year.
The league will have a more jampacked schedule to make up for the break that will occur during the Olympics in late July and early August.
The charter flight issue was top of mind once again recently when Caitlin Clark and the Indiana Fever were mobbed by cameras when they arrived in Dallas for a preseason game on a commercial flight.
The concern over player safety from the incident drew an outcry again about the need for charter flights, which was something Stewart also mentioned on Tuesday.
“Understanding player health and wellness, but also player safety,” Stewart said. “And making sure we can get to point A to point B and have the focus be our jobs and our teammates. Not all the other things going on alongside that.
The Liberty has been at the forefront of the fight for charter flights since owners Joe and Clara Wu Tsai took control of the team in 2019.
The team was even fined $500,000 for violating the CBA after the WNBA discovered that Tsai had provided the team with charter flights during the second half of the 2021 season.
The WNBA season begins on May 14 and the Liberty open the year on the road against the Washington Mystics.
