United Airlines says it plans to halt service at Kennedy International Airport in New York subsequent month unless federal regulators let it operate additional flights there.
Without the capability to develop its operations at the airport, United can not efficiently compete with other airlines at J.F.K., it mentioned in a note to employees on Tuesday. United at present operates two everyday round-trip flights to San Francisco and one more two to Los Angeles.
“If we are not able to get additional allocations for multiple seasons, we will need to suspend service at J.F.K., effective at the end of October,” the airline mentioned in the employees memo. “That would obviously be a tough and frustrating step to take and one that we have worked really hard to prevent.”
United’s chief executive, Scott Kirby, sent a letter final week to Billy Nolen, the acting administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration, formally requesting additional space at the airport. In Tuesday’s memo, United noted that the airport had created infrastructure investments considering that 2008, like widening runways, but had not expanded flight capacity.
United resumed flying out of J.F.K. in early 2021 following a 5-year hiatus, and for additional than a year it has explored approaches to expand there to greater compete with other airlines. Earlier in the pandemic, United operated additional flights at J.F.K. by taking benefit of capacity that wasn’t getting utilised by other carriers, but now that travel has recovered meaningfully, these airlines have reclaimed their takeoff and landing authorizations.
In a statement, the F.A.A. mentioned it was often exploring approaches to safely and additional effectively use airspace in busy regions.
“The agency must consider airspace capacity and runway capacity to assess how changes would affect flights at nearby airports,” it mentioned. “Any additional slots at J.F.K. would follow the F.A.A.’s well-established process of awarding them fairly and to increase competition.”
If United have been to exit J.F.K., New Yorkers would nevertheless have access to the airline at Newark Liberty International Airport, which is a United hub. The airline is scheduled to operate additional than 12,000 round-trip flights to additional than one hundred destinations out of Newark this month.
