United Airlines has warned employees that it will pull out of John F Kennedy (JFK) Airport unless it is granted more take-off and landing slots at New York City’s biggest airport.
Writing in a letter to the Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) last week, United said it needed more opportunities at JFK to remain competitive with rival airlines.
A letter sent by United to employees on Tuesday, seen by The Independent, said the airline had again asked for capacity at JFK to be increased and that it had given the FAA an October deadline for meeting its needs.
“If we are not able to get additional allocations for multiple seasons, we will need to suspend service at JFK, effective at the end of October,” United said in its email, which was first seen by Reuters.
Seeking to compare traffic at another New York area airport, United outlined the fact that Newark has three runways compared to JFK’s four.
Despite one less runway however, Newark was able to operate 79 flights an hour in comparison to JFK’s 81, which United said had remained the same since 2008 and in spite of infrastructure upgrades.
“A comparison to Newark makes it clear that there is additional capacity at JFK,” the airline said in the email. “United believes it is in the travelling public’s interest for the FAA to quantify and permanently allocate the unused capacity that exists at JFK”.
In a statement of its own on Tuesday to Reuters, FAA acting administrator Billy Nolen said it “must consider airspace capacity and runway capacity to assess how changes would affect flights at nearby airports”.
He continued: “Any additional slots at JFK would follow the FAA’s well-established process of awarding them fairly and to increase competition.”
United, which according to Fox Business Network already has a 69 per cent share of flights departing from Newark, has just two flights taking off daily from JFK following a resumption of strives in 2021.
It said in its letter that in order to compete with airlines such as JetBlue Airways and American Airlines at JFK it needed “larger schedules and more attractive flight times flown by our competitors”.
United did not provide further comment when approached by The Independent.
