United Airlines announced that it will suspend its flight services to New York’s John F. Kennedy Airport (JFK) starting late October 2022.
United Airlines said in September 2022 that it would suspend flights to JFK if the federal government did not grant the Chicago-based airline permission to increase its operations at JFK, New York’s busiest airport.
After resuming flights in 2021 following the pandemic, United Airlines has been flying just twice daily to San Francisco and Los Angeles from JFK.
In a memo seen by Reuters, United cites a “too-small-to-be-competitive” schedule out of JFK and the start of the winter season, normally a peak time for flights, as factors in making its “difficult decision” to halt services.
“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.
The airline did not specify when it might resume the service.
United said that the 100 employees who work at JFK will be transitioned to other nearby stations and also emphasized that jobs will not be lost.
Meanwhile, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) told Reuters that it is “dedicated to doing its part to safely expand New York City airports and airspace capacity.”
“We will follow our fair and well-established process to award future slots to increase competition,” the FAA said.