Ahead of the summer season, airlines are amping up their flights to Europe and planning around demand for different cities.
In October, United Airlines (UAL) -) launched new flights to Reykjavik, Rome, Brussels, Malaga and the Portuguese city of Faro and is starting what were traditionally summer flights from Chicago to Italy's Rome and Milan and Washington, D.C. to Lisbon and Barcelona in February. Delta Air Lines (DAL) -) also launched a new flight from New York to Naples and brought back summer routes to Ireland's Shannon and Switzerland's Zurich.
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But by far the most popular hub for the European continent has always been London. Earlier this month, Richard Branson's airline Virgin Atlantic announced that it will be adding its seventh daily flight between London and New York and its second daily flight from the city to Boston ahead of its summer 2024 season.
Virgin Atlantic
'An increase of 11% compared to summer 2023...'
"Next summer, the airline will offer a record number of flights between London and New York, with a seventh daily flight to JFK, and together with Joint Venture partner Delta, will offer ten daily services to the Big Apple, an increase of 11% compared to summer 2023," the airline said in announcing the news.
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The routes will be run on the airline's newly-acquired Airbus (EADSF) -) A350-1000 and A330-900neo planes and bring the number of Virgin's daily flights to London from various American cities to an average of 27 a day.
When looking at the London-New York route in particular, Virgin's and other airlines' expanded schedule between the two cities will also bring the total number of daily flights on all carriers to 27 by the summer of 2024.
The airline running the most daily flights between NYC and London is no surprise
As tallied up by flying website Simple Flying, this also includes 4 daily JFK-Heathrow flights from American Airlines (AAL) -), two JFK-Heathrow and one JFK-Gatwick daily flight from Delta, two JFK-Heathrow and one JFK-Gatwick flight from JetBlue Airways (JBLU) -) and one JFK-Gatwick flight from Norway-based budget airline Norse.
The airline with the most flights between the two cities, however, is still Great Britain's flagship carrier British Airways — starting from May 2024, the airline will run eight daily flights between Heathrow and JFK and one daily flight between Gatwick and JFK. Virgin and Delta together make up 37% of the flights between the two cities while British Airways is singlehandedly at 33% of total coverage.
As travel picks up significantly during the summer months, these numbers are from May onwards. While the business and cultural ties between the two capitals mean that there is always a steady inflow of traveler demand, the number of daily flights between January and February can drop to an average of just 10 a day before picking up as spring advances. Even with high demand, airlines are still competing to show why customers should pick them amid so many options.
"By [using] our brand new A350 and A339 aircraft, our passengers can travel in style with Virgin Atlantic, as we commit to operating the routes that our customers love to fly," Virgin Atlantic's Chief Commercial Officer Juha Jarvinen told media outlets in a statement.
