Delta is going to turn New Yorks Kennedy
Airport into a hub this year, primarily by adding dozens of flights
from the Northeast to feed traffic to its growing international
service at Kennedy.
Previous attempts
to make Kennedy work as a hub have fared poorly, perhaps in part
because it is congested and often is the least convenient of the
New York-area airports for travelers. But JetBlue has made Kennedy
work as its home base, aside from recent troubles with on-time
performance.
Delta COO Jim
Whitehurst insisted that Deltas plan will work.
If you look at
most of the prior examples, it was international carriers with
limited to no domestic presence, he said. This is built on our
network, which is the largest domestic airline. It allows us to
build on very strong markets.
The rationale for
adding most of the domestic flights, Whitehurst said, is
connectivity to international services.
One of the
reasons were doing this is to make sure we have the short-haul feed
we need into JFK, which will help support our longer-haul flying,
he said.
Delta has been
building up its international services at Kennedy. By summer, it
will be serving 31 international destinations, with a growing
emphasis on eastern Europe to capitalize on the Northeasts ethnic
market.
But Whitehurst
said many of Deltas customers in the Northeast have been forced to
fly to Deltas Atlanta or Cincinnati hubs to connect to
international flights.
The new domestic
services will be timed for connections to the international
flights. Theyll also be priced first for those connections, and
then to compete for domestic traffic after Delta determines how the
international sales are going, Whitehurst said.
The emphasis on
connectivity shows up in the choice of new domestic markets, most
of which are within 425 miles of Kennedy.
The new cities
include Buffalo, N.Y.; Cleveland; Montreal; Rochester, N.Y.;
Washington (Dulles); Philadelphia; Albany, N.Y.; Syracuse, N.Y.;
Hartford, Conn.; Providence, R.I.; and Richmond, Va.
Flights are being
added for existing service from Detroit; Norfolk, Va.; Baltimore
and Washington (Reagan National).
All flights will
be Delta Connection service operated by Comair or Freedom Airlines
using 50-seat regional jets or 37-seat turboprops. Customers
generally prefer regional jets over turboprops, but Whitehurst said
turboprops burn less fuel and generally are being used for flights
of an hour or less.
The new service
also includes San Diego flights that begin June 8 on mainline jet
aircraft.
All told, Delta
will be adding 46 new daily domestic flights between June and
September, for a total of 139 peak-day flights at Kennedy to 67
destinations worldwide.
Delta also
expects to finish work by late 2006 on $10 million in renovations
to its Terminal 2 and 3 facilities at Kennedy.
To contact
reporter Andrew Compart, send e-mail to [email protected].