United Airlines sees a silver lining to a potential JetBlue – Spirit merger: an expansion opportunity at New York JFK.
United Airlines Want To Use JetBlue Merger For JFK Expansion
After a six year hiatus, United Airlines returned to New York Kennedy (JFK) in 2021, offering four daily flights, two from each West Coast hub. More than a year later, those two flights per day from San Francisco (SFO) and two from Los Angeles (LAX) remain popular, but have been downgraded from a three-cabin Boeing 767-300 to a two-cabin Boeing 757-200 on all segments.
With just a morning and redeye eastbound flight and morning and evening westbound flight, United does not offer the frequencies to match American Airlines, JetBlue, or Delta, all of which compete with United on this route.
But United CEO Scott Kirby is hopeful that if a JetBlue merger goes through with Spirit, JetBlue will be forced to divest some of its slots as concession to regulators worried about diminished competition. Should that be the case, Kirby hopes to secure additional slots at JFK. He told Bloomberg:
“Well certainly the place that we, whether it’s through JetBlue or somewhere else, we would like to get back into JFK in a big way, particularly in the transcon market. So getting enough slots at JFK that we can get back to serving San Francisco and Los Angeles, particularly for business customers, and having another real option for business customers in those markets that would be our number one priority.”
Spirit Airlines is currently weighing a new offer from JetBlue, having previously committed to merge with Frontier Airlines. Neither Frontier or Spirit currently serve JFK.
CONCLUSION
Kirby is correct to recognize that United’s limited 757-200 service to New York JFK is not adequate. Whether United is able to obtain slots from JetBlue or another carrier is less important than the fact that United desperately needs more slots and to increase service to JFK if it ever is to be considered a serious player once again.
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How things change over time; United used to be a significant player at JFK. Some 20 years ago, I fondly remember flying them nonstop between JFK-GRU. And that was far from their only such long-haul route from JFK. They had their own terminal there. Since then, they actually left JFK for a while and now have a mere 4 flights per day which is not enough critical mass to do anything for them.
I hope that they will be successful in gaining back slots at JFK as more competition is always a good thing.
People like to think UA was really big at JFK, but it hasnt been in the past 30 years. I too took that JFK-GRU flight, as well as the JFK-EZE flight, several times. Those all ended after 9/11. At its peak, United might have had 30 flights maximum at JFK in the late 1990s – the last time they were really big. They had 3x to London, 1x to Buenos Aires, 1x to Sao Paulo, brief service to Hong Kong in 2001, 1x to Tokyo, then 6 or 7 flights to LAX and 6 or 7 flights to SFO, and 6 or so United Express flights to Washington Dulles. So that’s a total of less than 30 flights maximum. They didnt have their own terminal. They operated out of the BA terminal and for some reason for a few years flew their LAX and SFO flights from the old terminal 6. But that was it. United has over 300 flights a day at Newark, lots of flights at LGA to their hubs, and a token presence at JFK. That may be all they need to be – they cant be all things to all people, and thye’ll never at this point have more than a handful at JFK due to the slot and terminal constraints. If that’s not enough, well, then, perhaps find another airline. There are others.
Indeed Jason. The rose memories of the insular SFO/LAX-JFK crowd are pretty skewed and of a brief point in time of United’s history – less than 5 years, maybe even just 2-3.
They also flew to SEA(up to 2x peak summer) BOS (1x to feed EZE/GRU flights), CCS (1x w/tag-on to POS), GIG (1x w/tag on to EZE). They also briefly replaced JFK-GRU non-stop route with a stop over in MIA. I know b/c flew all these routes in the past.
We in Seattle would like to see that flight back. I used to live in SFO then IAD, two UAL hubs, and now live in a non-hub. More options here would be nice.
United leaving JFK was among the stupidest moves ever. I knew it immediately. True, airlines should not have beautiful route maps just so they can frame a diagram on the wall. Airlines are not the State Department or Foreign and Commonwealth Office. But JFK is an important station strategically and operationally.
The United airlines terminal C at Newark airport is by far the nicest airport terminal in New York. Possibly on the entire east coast. And you can fly United out of Newark to just about anywhere, they have like 7 nonstops a day to SFO and LAX from Newark.
The most viable way for UA to establish a foothold in JFK is to coordinate feeding connections with LH, LX and international carriers. Interlining agreements and providing a premium lounge experience to all high paying pax,not just international.
Those airlines don’t need feed from United at jfk. They can fill up at jfk with local
Higher yielding traffic. Besides all the places United would fly to from jfk- namely their hubs, already have either LH or LX service. Why would those airlines want low yield connections and why would United want to dedicate expensive resources to carry low yield flow traffic? Think critically here.
More flights between New York and Los Angeles should definitely compensate for the removal from a competitor from the marketplace.
What was removed? Alaska LAX-JFK? That’s all I can think of and Alaska is still serving NYC from LAX via EWR.
It’s important to note that although UA has fewer flights to JFK than its competitors, it has an outsize presence in Newark, including all of their connecting flights. Thus the JFK flights primarily serve passengers disembarking in New York (which is less convenient than Newark) or perhaps connecting to Star Alliance flights out of JFK. United loyalists looking to continue east bound will choose between Newark or (better yet) Dulles.
I personally find Newark more convenient than JFK. It helps that I live close to Penn Station, but I live on the east side. There is a myth that JFK is more convenient, but from Manhattan at least its a toss-up.
I agree that Newark is a lot more convenient than JFK, only issue is that you will probably be delayed 3 hours at Newark.
I think the high J 767-300ER that was flying the JFK flights last year when they resumed was the wrong plane. It is too low density. However, the 757-200 currently flying now is also the wrong plane. The 767 didn’t have enough economy seats, and the 757 now doesn’t have enough business seats and offers a dated product.
I believe they should upgrade their current JFK flights to an internationally configured 777-200ER. This seems like the best plane to serve this route especially given the only 2 flights they have each way to each hub right. Offers the right amount of seats in every cabin, and would be by the far the best hard product on the route in my onion, far superior to Delta 767s or American 321s, and on par with Mint.
It might be a long time until they get more slots, so for now they should just put the right type of plane on the route.
Honestly, I think a lot of you will think this sounds crazy, but the ideal plane for the current JFK flights is the 787-8 “baby” Dreamliner.
The way United has their 787-8’s configured is different than most other airlines. A lot less premium dense than most other airlines who have this plane. Only 28 Polaris seats up front, but there are about the same number of economy seats on this plane as on United’s 787-9.
While this might not be the most upgrade friendly plane, the way it is configured will make them the most profits. Going to be giving away fewer upgrades and selling most of the seats at the normal fare.
Only issue is I know United only has a dozen or so of these baby Dreamliners, so probably wouldn’t work just cause of that, but if they had enough, this is the ideal plane for their current JFK routes.
The current LAX-JFK flights should be operated by a 777-200ER or 787-10. SFO-JFK flights should be operated by a 777-300ER. They would fill these just fine, when they had the 767-300 on these routes a year ago the travel world was in a much different place, that is why they weren’t filling up.
I might be in a minority here but one of the reasons I’ve stayed loyal to United was that they flew out of EWR not JFK. I lived in NYC for many years and found JFK one of the worst airports I’ve experienced anywhere for commuting times, security, delays, staff and services. I lived in Brooklyn and it was still faster for me to get to Newark most days. JFK is a joke.
Don’t worry when the NEA is nixxed and AA pulled even more flying they can sell united their slots.
Has United’s return to JFK delayed the demolition of T7 or has United already figured out on which new terminal to occupy post T7 demolition?
UA will be cutting flights to LHR and AMS this summer from both its east coast hubs as part of a schedule reduction to ease congestion in Europe.
United should do the best they can to expand the market in general.
Apparently United desperately needs to gain a foothold in the NYC market.
Forget about EWR that airport is running out of space and JFK is the place to expand nobody cares about EWR people know JFK is the best NY airport …..
JFK is the gateway to the world, and United’s presence is significant and important to our STAR Alliance partners, for seamless transition. United’s presence in JFK will be an addition in capturing a large portion of the New York market not not serviced by EWR.
The construction of the New state of the art JFK Airport appears to be an opportunity, “seize the moment”
I don’t understand how United thinks getting more slots at JFK is contingent on a possible merger between spirit and JetBlue. Spirit has zero slots and fly zero flights out of JFK. So nothing would change. The only thing JetBlue would be best if they succeed in acquiring spirit or spirits slots at LGA.
JetBlue would have to give up slots at JFK, United imagines, as any sort of regulatory merger deal.
Scott Kirby made the decision to “dump” JFK as a hub when he was President of United. Now he is the CEO and jockeying to get back into JFK. I was a Million Miler with United but Kirby’s decision put a bad taste in my mouth. I will never fly United again.
Not true. Smisek dumped JFK before Kirby came onboard.
I returned from a trip to NYC flying into EWR and out of JFK on United. JFK was a miserable experience that will never do again without significant upgrades to the product. The gate was small cramped, no lounge access for club members, and lousy at communicating what is going on at the gate. Overall a terrible experience.
MR SCOTT PLEASE DO NOT LISTEN TO PEOPLE ABOUT WHAT THEY THINK BADLY ABOUT JFK , JFK IS THE NUMBER ONE AIRPORT IN NEW YORK LETS NOT CONFUSE PASSENGERS WITH EWR AIRPORT THATS NOT NY. I FLEW OUT OF EWR AND NEVER AGAIN, NOTHING IS NICE ABOUT THAT AIRPORT , WE NEED TO GET OUR PERMENANT TERMINAL AND GATES AT JFK AND BE THE NUMBER ONE AIRLINE IN NEW YORK . EWR IS FALLING APART AND THERES NO ROOM TO EXPAND . WE NEED TO BRING OUR WIDE BODY AIRCRAFT BACK AT JFK INSTEAD OF TRUCKING ALL OUR FREIGHT TO EWR CARGO AND JFK IS MAKING MONEY WITH ALL OTHER AIRLINES AND WERE LOOSING MONEY, JFK IS WHERE THE CARGO IS COMMING TO BE TRUCKED TO EWR AND WE NEED TO LOAD THAT CARGO ON OUR WIDE BODY AIRCRAFT JFK IS EXPANDING BUILDING NEW TERMINALS AND CARGO FACILITIES SO PLEASE LETS DO IT…..