Runway construction at Newark Airport is now complete, nearly two weeks ahead of schedule, and as United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby has frequently reminded us, there are excellent deals available out of Newark this summer. Here’s a very poignant example.
Hot Deals From Newark Airport As Runway Construction Completed Early
Some Award Expert clients needed to fly from the New York City area to Athens in a couple of weeks. Nonstop tickets on American Airlines and Delta Air Lines were over $8,000 each in business class. United from Newark? $4,535 each… that’s worth the drive through the Holland Tunnel!
(Emirates, which flies from Newark to Athens, was also over $8,000)
We’re also seeing a lot of saver award space in economy class across all routes and in business class to Italy, which is usually so very difficult to score during the peak summer travel season.
While this may indicate an overall saturation point of transatlantic traffic…we’ve seen many carriers try to cash in on what is perceived to be lucrative flying…Kirby made his rounds across the media last week to argue that “once-in-a-lifetime” deals from Newark were available this summer. He told The Wall Street Journal:
“The media storm caused people to book away. This has been a huge perception issue. Newark is safe.”
Regardless of that, Kirby admitted that United’s load factors out of Newark were down 15% following the initial disruptions (load factors have rebounded, but are still down) and there are great deals available now:
“Because we lost a lot of bookings, there’s a lot more seats available. It’s going to be the cheapest it’s probably ever going to be in history. I don’t really like that, but you ought to book: prices are lower than they otherwise would be.”
My anecdotal experience above confirms this. With the runway now open, operations should further improve. With the construction complete, 34 arrivals and 34 departures are now allowed per hour (versus 28 during runway construction).
In fact, Kirby now believes that Newark will beat both Kennedy and LaGuardia in terms of on-time performance this summer:
“EWR will likely be the most reliable and have the highest on-time performance out of the other New York City airports this summer because of the changes with the FAA. However, bookings are down – so it’s short-term painful for us right now, but it’s long-term beneficial because the FAA is going to manage the number of flights like they do at JFK and LGA.”
That remains to be seen: there are still air traffic control personnel shortages and outages that could adversely impact operations that have been unique to Newark.
But if you have procrastinated on your summer travel booking, look to Newark for potential deals.
CONCLUSION
Runway construction is now complete at Newark, an impressive 13 days ahead of schedule. With all runways now operational, United can increase traffic from Newark earlier than expected. Even so, the air traffic control issues and construction have hit the reputation of EWR particularly hard, prompting ticket and cancellations and now cheaper flights and more available seats this summer. As my Athens example shows, there are truly some excellent deals bookable now.
You ain’t kidding! I just searched EWR-FCO in late July and saw tons of 80K space with MP.
Funny how once Kirby embraced MAGA/Reality things got better for him and his airline. People who are resistant to the truth could learn from his example.
Amazing confirmation bias. Willy Wonka logic: All you have to do is believe & you will receive the golden ticket. Well done!
UA’s financial results will take a hit in the 2nd and 3rd quarters.
It will be shown that it was a mistake for them to make such a big deal about the delays at EWR, most of which are related to the runway closure which was well planned.
UA cut flights but not enough and then spring weather forced EWR into a single runway operation for much of many days in May.
The reality is that there will be a window where EWR would have done better with just one of the two parallel runways and the crosswind runway but the Port Authority and the FAA are doing all they can to not be blamed for a summer of operational disasters.
UA’s running to the media put EWR in very bad light and bookings took a hit.
AA and DL and even WN benefitted from a shift in traffic to LGA and JFK.
UA will be discounting into the summer and AA and DL will benefit.
The size of operation that the FAA/DOT allow EWR to return to will greatly determine how much UA loses and AA and DL gain.
“It will be shown that it was a mistake for them to make such a big deal about the delays at EWR, most of which are related to the runway closure which was well planned.”
Maybe 1% of the delays are due to the runway. 99% of the delays are due to the transfer of Area C to PHL, which made the staffing situation worse and was done on the cheap (i.e. crappy data feed that was prone to failure). FAA closed the same runway 11 years ago and there were no issues.
incorrect.
you can look at the severity of the delays and see that the worst delays were on days when EWR went down to a single runway because of weather, making the crosswind runway unavailable.
The ATC system and staffing failures received lots of bad news but EWR has operated reasonably well with the crosswind and single parallel runway. It is an inefficient arrangement which is why the two parallels is most commonly used when they are available.
This isn’t true. The same runway was closed 11 years ago and they were often forced to a single runway configuration due to weather. They had more schedule flights 11 years ago, too. The difference is that the staffing situation was so much better and they didn’t have the data feed errors that they’ve been having the last year. They have fewer controllers working Area C now and an unreliable data feed.
Also, using the crosswind runway in conjunction with one of the parallels (22R/L) isn’t that much of a hit – the arrival rates are pretty similar. Plenty of airports across the NAS use this type of configuration.
we’ll agree to disagree but it doesn’t really change either the impact to UA now or in the future.
The only thing that will impact UA’s finances in the future is how soon and how far the FAA lifts EWR capacity; I don’t think it will ever be to pre-2025 construction capacity levels
I can’t seem to reply to your other comment, so I will reply here. I used to do airfield capacity planning and am very familiar with EWR and it’s historical operations profile. So, I know how that airport runs and how many flights it can handle in whatever configuration, etc. What I said about the airport performing better during the closure of the same runway ten years ago is true. They were in a better situation back then with staffing and equipment.
I will agree with you on one thing – there will and should be less flights there in the future. EWR has been historically overscheduled and should have never had its slots lifted. They didn’t even have slots until 2008 and only because some NJ politicians demanded it. The FAA is really to blame because they had inflated capacity figures for the airport and UA/CO scheduled accordingly. The airport always had the worst delays in the entire NAS, but the agency generally ignored it. They can’t anymore. I suspect that EWR will eventually return to slots and it will probably be at a level close to LGA’s – around 70ish an hour. The staffing issues won’t be fixed any time soon.
yes, EWR has been overscheduled for years under both UA and CO.
and you certainly also know that part of the reason for frequent delays is because EWR’s parallel runways are much closer together than most airports with parallel runways – so EWR is much more susceptible to delays when weather deteriorates.
The FAA will not return EWR To slot controls as long as UA controls more than 50% of the flights.
They will use the authority which they have now which is to force reductions on all carriers on an equal percentage basis to get the operations back to acceptable levels.
And the reason why the FAA removed slot controls at EWR is because UA under the previous administration failed to use its slots according to FAA requirements. It is precisely because UA controlled such a high percentage of flights that the FAA could see that UA was using slot controlled status to block competitors while not flying the schedule.
The FAA and DOT can achieve the goals of getting EWR’s on-time back on schedule without rewarding UA with a lifetime monopoly on the airport.
And specific to this discussion, I believe the biggest competitive check if UA acquires slots at JFK will be that AA and/or DL will add service from EWR to the west coast. AA used to fly it; I’m not sure if DL ever did.
Travelers will come back. With reports of hour long custom lines in JFK and even falling on time departures – Newark was running better than JFK, LGA before the runway construction. Now the runway construction is complete and I think it makes sense what Scott Kirby says: Newark will most likely be the most reliable airport in the NYC area for now. Initiatives like a new back up cable for PHL ATC are almost complete and more controllers being trained for that area.
We will probably never know if some NYC controllers liked the overtime pay for not having enough controllers/ trainees in the EWR Approach corridor and got upset when they changed it to PHL ATC.
Agreed with Tim that Scott Kirby could have been a little bit quieter (once again) with blaming ATC etc – but the ATC short staffing is well known and if something good comes out of it now (real improvenents to ATC) – it is a good price to pay and will benefit everyone.
I’m sure Newark is safe as much as LGA and JFK. After all their respective airspaces are very close to each other’s and if one is not wouldn’t be safe the neighboring ones could be easily affected as well.
Bill,
the ATC staffing issue became front and center after the DCA accident. Even if the military helicopter was the primary cause, the fact that one controller was working two positions even for a minute at DCA became a very popular topic.
The administration set out very clearly that fixing ATC staffing was job #1 for the transportation dept. long before the runway closure at EWR.
Yes, Kirby said too much and probably caused his own company a loss of bookings and the need to discount.
EWR probably will be much more reliable w/ fewer flights; there is plenty of history to show that it was not a reliable airport at the previous level of flights and it is whatever the difference between what UA operated on March 31 (or before runway construction started and their relatively small cutbacks began) and what the DOT/FAA ultimately require EWR to be limited to will determine the change in the size of UA’s EWR hub.
I doubt very seriously that they will let it return to its former level of operation, now matter how much better it runs at reduced levels.
UA might be able to offset some of the loss of capacity through upgrades and moving flights to IAD but it is pretty likely that UA’s hub at EWR will have less passenger-carrying ability than it did 3 or six months ago.
Do you have any proof that EWR was running better than the other two airports before the runway was shut down? EWR goes through a ground delay program pretty much every day. The other two airports do not. Also, the “fixes” of the data line are just more window dressing. It will go down again. And if they do create a direct STARS feed to PHL Area C, it will take many years and cost lots of money. Furthermore, nobody is close to being certified for Area C. It takes several years. Moving them to PHL didn’t change that. Also, they’re not getting the numbers they thought they were going to get and many of the trainees quit because they saw what a joke it would be. And we shouldn’t forget that that more than half of the transferred controllers are leaving a next summer and their replacements won’t be ready by then.
Kirby claims all the time that EWR was more reliable than JFK and LGA over 2025 Q1.
Latest available data is through February and the DOT stats show EWR is below JFK for arrival delays and below JFK and LGA for departure delays.
Oddly enough, EWR had better performance than both same period last year before the transfer to PHL.
correct on this… and part of the reason is because on-time performance includes B6 which has a poor on-time record. They have by far the worst IROP recovery for the industry.
on-time performance and hours of ATC limitations on capacity are not the same thing; EWR always will have more ATC limitations on capacity than LGA or JFK unless EWR capacity is limited to well less than it has been operated by UA and CO before.
If anyone is a fan of Wednesday, Netflix released the first six minutes of the new season, and when cutting to the harrowing obstacle she has to overcome, the words “Welcome to Newark Airport” are heard.
New Jersey will always be second fiddle to New York. That’s both perception and reality. And as former EWR fliers are discovering that LGA is now a world class airport, DL and AA will continue to benefit. Perception problems don’t just fix themselves overnight simply because flying less flights makes an on time EWR more likely.
When UA presented its new seats, very telling they did it in Brooklyn, not Newark. Customers are likely to make a similar judgment as to where they prefer to spend time.
“ My anecdotal experience above confirms this. ”
LOL .. have you heard of “confirmation bias”?
United is the cheapest of US3 coz’ the planes are crammed with seats in Business (2-2-2) & Economy (3-4-3) class.
Not because of Newark.