News: American Airlines unveil Stansted to New York flights
Flights > News > # 1345 (06/07/2007)
American Airlines (AA) is launching flights to New York JFK from London Stansted this autumn.
The daily service takes off on October 29 and will increase to twice a day in March. AA already offers flights to New York from Heathrow, and operates services to a host of other US cities from Heathrow, Gatwick and Manchester. AA will use 221-seat Boeing 767-300 aircraft on the route.
Currently the only other flights to New York from Stansted are operated by all-business class airlines EOS and Maxjet.
Continental was the last major carrier to offer US flights from Stansted before EOS launched the business airlines revolution in 2005. Continental ran daily flights to New York using a Boeing 757-200 from May to September 2001.
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If imitation is the highest form of flattery, then Eos and Maxjet will certainly be watching this route with interest, but we expect there is just about enough room for American Airlines to squeeze in there! We're not so sure about AA's claim about Stansted being less congested from Heathrow - we certainly don't think it is from a passengers' perspective, but it does provide access to a rapidly growing part of London, as well as to Cambridge and the rest of the East Anglia. American Airlines previously operated flights to Chicago from Stansted, but this route was axed back in 1993, long before the airport got swamped by the budget airlines, and long before the arrival of business class-only long-haul specialists.
Whilst American Airlines offers two clear advantages over its smaller rivals - firstly, the ability to connect onwards to numerous other destinations throughout the Americas, and secondly its ability to mix and match between Stansted flights and a much higher frequency of service at Heathrow, these flights should also appeal to budget conscious economy travellers.
Even if American Airlines will have no intention of offering through connections with the low-cost carriers, the prospect of daily flights from Stansted to New York has to be extremely appealing to all those Ryanair passengers who live in places like Haugesund, Bydgoszcz and Balaton, and who have few other ways of accessing decently priced long-haul flights.
