United Airlines will restart service to John F. Kennedy International Airport after a half-decade absence.
In a Tuesday announcement, the major airline said it will provide nonstop flights to Los Angeles and to San Francisco beginning in February 2021.
“The airline’s entry back into JFK after five years reflects not only its strong commitment to the New York City area, but a continuation of aggressively and strategically managing the impact of COVID-19 by increasing service to and from the places where customers want to fly,” United’s announcement read.
The airline will focus on providing twice-daily flight service from JFK to San Francisco and Los Angeles, a strategy the company shifted away from in 2015 amid intense competition from other airlines to provide service to cross-country routes. At the time, United Airlines sold its JFK slots to Delta Air Lines and shifted its service to Newark Liberty International Airport.
The coronavirus pandemic has led to some airline companies giving up prized slots at top airports, such as Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport, Houston’s George Bush Intercontinental Airport, and JFK. This provided an opportunity for United to access the coveted openings at JFK that had been unavailable before the virus temporarily shuttered the transportation industry.
“I have been waiting a long time to say this — United Airlines is back at JFK,” CEO Scott Kirby wrote in a statement released on Tuesday. “Come early next year, we will be serving all three major New York City area airports with a best-in-class product to provide our customers unmatched transcontinental service from New York City and the west coast.”
In October, Kirby told investors that “the light at the end of the tunnel is now visible,” before urging calm as the industry weathers a difficult moment attributed to safety concerns surrounding the transmission of the coronavirus in closed spaces. Kirby said he expects some level of normalcy in the industry by the end of 2021.
“It’s a long tunnel, and it will have twists and turns, but we’ll begin to move back toward normal with what health experts are telling us is a widely available vaccine around the end of next year,” Kirby said.
