News: London to New York flights price comparison
Flights > News > # 2073 (04/02/2009)
London to New York is arguably the world’s most competitive international passenger flights route, with no less than seven airlines vying for your custom.
British Airways (BA) offers the most comprehensive selection of flights to New York, with services to JFK and Newark airports from Heathrow and JFK from Gatwick. Continental operate flights to their Newark hub from Gatwick and Heathrow, Virgin Atlantic offer JFK and Newark flights from Heathrow, whilst Delta Air France serve JFK from Gatwick and Heathrow.
Finally, American Airlines (AA), Air India and Kuwait Airways compete on the Heathrow to JFK route.
Such competition usually results in lower fares compared to other flights of a similar distance. This explains why you can often find flights to New York (3455 miles from London) for under £300, whereas you will rarely find flights to Accra (3170 miles from London) or Lagos (3110 miles from London) for less than £450.
We selected three different types of flight for our comparison; a last minute booking (leaving February 5, returning February 12), a mid-week trip (Tuesday March 17 to Thursday March 19) and a weekend city-break (Friday April 10 to Sunday April 12). The prices for flights to New York listed below are per person in economy class including taxes, charges and card fees.
The first thing we noticed when searching for New York flights was how closely matched the prices are, for example, there is only £2 difference between the BA (£277.10), Virgin Atlantic (£277.80), AA (£278.20) and Continental (£279) fares for the last minute bookings. However, Kuwait Airways are offering New York flights from £249, thus undercutting the big boys by around £30. The Kuwait Airways flights are easily the cheapest, so if it is a straight bargain you are after then this is the way to go. However, we would recommend paying a little bit extra to use BA or Virgin because they offer the flexibility of multiple flights per day compared with Kuwait Airways’ three flights per week.
The mid-week flight prices were far more varied, ranging from £1086.80 with Virgin, down to £249.05 with Kuwait Airways. Once again the core rivals (BA, Virgin, AA, Air France Delta and Continental) were very closely matched, but all far more expensive than the Kuwaitis. In this case Kuwait Airways is so cheap compared to any of the other airlines that the flexibility issue becomes largely irrelevant.
Finally we looked at weekend mini-break flight prices. There were no flights available with Air India or Kuwait Airways, whilst there was no more than £10 difference between the five remaining airlines. Air France Delta just undercut the others with New York flights for £344.50, with Continental the most expensive at £354.
Our research shows that fares with the main five airlines operating flights from London to New York are virtually identical, whether you are booking last minute, for a mid-week trip or a weekend getaway. Deciding which airline to use therefore comes down to factors such as which airport you’d prefer to fly from (Heathrow of Gatwick, JFK or Newark), national loyalties (BA or Virgin versus AA, Continental or Delta Air France) and what time of day you want to fly. The “wildcards” are Kuwait Airways and Air India – both are often far cheaper than the big five, but do not offer anything like the same of number of flights.
Next week we take a look at flight prices from London to Lagos to see what impact the loss of Virgin Nigeria has had on this route.
Words and research by Mark Avery, content editor Flightmapping.com
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