United Airlines to stop service at JFK.
United Airlines has said it will suspend service to New York’s JFK International Airport in late October.
“Given our current, too-small-to-be-competitive schedule out of JFK — coupled with the start of the Winter season where more airlines will operate their slots as they resume JFK flying — United has made the difficult decision to temporarily suspend service at JFK,” United said in a memo seen by Reuters.
Earlier this month, United had threatened to take the action if the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) did not grant the airline additional flights out of JFK, where flights are tightly regulated.
United said its “discussions with FAA have been constructive” but added “it’s also clear that process to add additional capacity at JFK will take some time.”
United’s last inbound flights to JFK are scheduled for October 29. The airline said it was “working with customers who have tickets after that date to make new arrangements.”
In a statement from earlier last month, the FAA said that the agency “continually looks for ways to increase the efficiency of airspace in busy metropolitan areas safely,” adding that the FAA “must consider airspace capacity and runway capacity to assess how changes would affect flights at nearby airports. Any additional slots at JFK would follow the FAA’s well-established process of awarding them fairly and to increase competition.”
United argues there is room to grow at JFK, the 13th-busiest US airport, after the FAA and the Port Authority since 2008 have made significant infrastructure investments, including “the widening of runways, construction of multi-entrance taxiways, and the creation of aligned high-speed turnoffs.”
On Friday, United said it was “eager” to return to JFK “as soon as possible.”
The 100 people who work for United at JFK are being transferred to positions at nearby airports, the carrier stated.
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