Tuesday Travel News: United Airlines is dumping JFK for EWR, and Delta is expanding at JFK by reducing flights at EWR. Basically, they are trading slots. Here are the details:
Beginning in October, all UAL international flights and all transcontinental flights to Los Angeles and San Francisco will be via Newark. United will continue to use LaGuardia for shorter-range flights, including to and from its Chicago hub.
United is trading its JFK gates with Delta, which is giving its Newark gates to United.
Delta is beefing up flights between JFK and LAX and SFO.
Starting in November 2015, Delta will increase service between New York-JFK and Los Angeles from nine to 10 daily peak-day flights, including four with Boeing 767 widebody aircraft.
Delta will also be upgrading three of its eight daily flights between New York-JFK and San Francisco to Boeing 767 widebody aircraft, making it the only airline to operate widebody service with flatbeds in first class on both important and popular routes.
The additional LAX and SFO will use Delta’s newly upgraded Terminal 4 at JFK.
United also announced a multi-million dollar renovation of its Terminal C lobby at Newark, and to all United Club locations at EWR. That’s in addition to the $2 billion it’s already spent to upgrade its gateway there with chef-driven restaurants and more appealing lounge-like gate areas.
In gate areas, United customers will be able to use nearly 6,000 iPads throughout the terminal to track their flights and order food and beverages for delivery to the gate within 15 minutes. Dela has a similar iPad system at Terminal 4 at JFK.
United also is adding international-style inflight service to Los Angeles and San Francisco flights, with flat-bet seats in Business First, more in-flight Wi-Fi and on-demand entertainment, and other extra-fee perks.
It is unclear what happens to the 200 people who work for United at JFK, and it is also unclear whether this move will boost airline tickets, since flights in and out of Newark are often more expensive than the same destinations on other airlines in and out of JFK, including Delta and JetBlue. But you can be pretty sure the price will go up, since more flat-bed seats mean there’s less room on each plane for affordable economy tickets.
And you can be pretty sure a lot of New Yorkers don’t like Jim Compton, United’s vice chairman and chief revenue officer, describing Newark Liberty as the New York area’s “premier airport”, as he did in the press release United sent me.
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