Now that American Airlines and JetBlue Airways have terminated their Northeast Alliance, American is bringing back a pretty crucial business route.
In this post:
American’s BOS to LGA route resumes as of October 2023
Even though American has a significant presence in both Boston and New York, the airline doesn’t currently operate a flight between Boston Logan (BOS) and New York LaGuardia (LGA). That will finally be changing, as flagged by @IshrionA.
As of October 29, 2023, American will launch 4x daily flights in the market. All frequencies on this short 185-mile flight will be operated by Airbus A319s, featuring 128 seats, including eight first class seats and 120 economy class seats.
For context, pre-pandemic, American operated hourly flights in the market, which was branded as “Shuttle” service. This came with special perks, like flexibility to change flights, complimentary drinks and snacks in all cabins, and more.
As you’d expect, at the start of the pandemic, American reduced frequencies in the market (given the extent to which business travel suffered). Then in early 2022, American discontinued the route altogether.
Why American hasn’t been operating this route
The reason American entirely discontinued the Boston to New York LaGuardia route in early 2022 was due to its Northeast Alliance with JetBlue. With this, the two airlines could coordinate schedules and swap slots in many markets. American made the decision to hand over this route (along with quite a few slots) to JetBlue.
At the time, both airlines viewed this as a win-win. American’s goal was to grow its long haul presence out of New York Kennedy, while American and JetBlue coordinated schedules within the Northeast, to be as efficient as possible. Since the two airlines offered some reciprocal points opportunities and elite perks, the argument was also that this was best for customers.
However, the Department of Justice challenged the Northeast Alliance between the two airlines, and ultimately won. As a result, the airlines are having to completely rethink their strategy in New York and Boston, as they have to undo the routes they’ve coordinated and slots that they’ve swapped.
I think it was a given that American would bring back service between these two key airports. However, American’s planned schedule is hardly competitive. Delta offers hourly service between the two airports, while JetBlue offers nearly hourly service between the two airports. By comparison, American’s four daily frequencies is nothing.
I’m curious to see if American ramps up service in the market in the coming months, as it gets back more of its slots from JetBlue.
Bottom line
American will resume its Boston to New York LaGuardia route as of late October 2023, with 4x daily frequencies using Airbus A319s. It’s nice to see American returning to the market, though this is a far cry from the service we saw pre-pandemic.
What do you make of American bringing back its BOS to LGA route?
I am thrilled as I am a flight attendant for AA and grew up in NY. Although JetBlue has been wonderful to us, I love the fact that I can ride the jump seat to get home! I also love the passengers that fly us between Bos and Lga…. Hooray, finally some great news for us employees….
Is there enough demand for all three airlines to have hourly service? I guess this is a very price sensitive route. Problem with Acela is that it is not very fast. Four to six hours or so to Boston? In fact compared to high speed rail elsewhere in the world it is very slow...
For a 185 mile flight, why isnt AA using AA Eagle regional to lower the cost of operation? This route would benefit from less capacity/higer frequency. It also would be any easy way to slot squat.
A319 is an interesting choice for aircraft. That's got to have the lowest premium seat ratio in their entire fleet right?
My Name is Junayed Khan I am from Bangladesh , I want to come in USA New York City ,
When will AA bring back its flights out of ISP?
AA only flew to PHL and canceled often. Not many people flew them from ISP. Made sense to shift flight 50 miles away to LGA/JFK.
Just shows the Justice department was right in ruling against the alliance between JetBlue and American. More competition. Hopefully JetBlue increases service to ORD as well
I had a $400 RT non stop from JFK-SLC booked on AA flown by B6 in July. Do you seriously think that next year, I will get that flight cheaper now that the NEA is dead? DL was significantly more expensive too.
This is awesome!
More options to/from Boston/NYC
Whats the purpose of this route? Is there a reason why someone do not build a maglev and go between the cities within 45 minutes.
I dunno? You got a 100+ billion dollars burning a hole in your pocket?
I would imagine the average person does not have the building materials for a maglev train.
Jokes aside, it's an incredibly complex issue that cannot be summarized in one comment. You'll have to search online for the answer.
It's criminal that the "wealthiest country on Earth" can't afford to build a super high speed rail in this corridor. Instead, we will spew tons of carbon into the air for a flight that doesn't even have time to get up in the air before it needs to land again.
You've heard of Acela. No one is going to be able to plow a corridor through Providence, New Haven, Brigidgeport. Stamford, and Westchester.
You don't need a maglev, you just need faster HSR. The DC-PHI-NYC route is already dominated by the Acela and it funnels way more traffic through various bottlenecks like the hudson tunnels. You don't need to shave off much more time from the existing route to essentially make the LGA-BOS route uncompetitive (LGA has a particularly horrible location with no transit connectivity).
"Is there a reason why someone do not build a maglev and go between the cities within 45 minutes"[?]
It's because the same people who thoughtlessly say things like this are also the first to scream "not in my back yard!" when someone tries to build anything.
And in this case there are literally millions of residents who would be impacted. It is completely urbanized between the two.
Blows my mind how much pearl clutching goes on over the poor homeowners impacted (and not always even forced to move) when rail projects that would objectively improve the travel situation in every way are proposed, but any time a highway needs another half-dozen lanes it's full speed ahead, get that crap built. There's 0 reason the existing alignments between Boston and NYC can't be improved to allow for higher speed train sets and lower travel times.
“There's 0 reason the existing alignments between Boston and NYC can't be improved to allow for higher speed train sets and lower travel times.”
Completely wrong. The NE Corridor is already basically maxed out at 150 mph, and that is only in a few sections. Curves and a lack of distance between the tracks significantly limits any future speed increase. The NYC - Boston corridor is even worse (in terms of curves, space limitations, and...
“There's 0 reason the existing alignments between Boston and NYC can't be improved to allow for higher speed train sets and lower travel times.”
Completely wrong. The NE Corridor is already basically maxed out at 150 mph, and that is only in a few sections. Curves and a lack of distance between the tracks significantly limits any future speed increase. The NYC - Boston corridor is even worse (in terms of curves, space limitations, and bridges). It needs hundreds of millions of dollars in upgrades, and that still won’t increase speeds significantly.
That’s not to say that HSR shouldn’t be built between DC and Boston, but it is impractical to do it on the current alignment,
Not wrong. There is enough room in the existing RoW to space out the tracks and allow more superelevation on the curves. That coupled with better tilting trainsets would allow for higher speeds on the existing bottlenecks in the system. This is a solved problem, it seems, everywhere but in the US. And I do agree that a completely separate system should be built, but that's letting perfect later being the enemy of good now....
Not wrong. There is enough room in the existing RoW to space out the tracks and allow more superelevation on the curves. That coupled with better tilting trainsets would allow for higher speeds on the existing bottlenecks in the system. This is a solved problem, it seems, everywhere but in the US. And I do agree that a completely separate system should be built, but that's letting perfect later being the enemy of good now. Adjusting the tracks a few feet and adding a few additional inches of superelevation would go a long way.
With reduced demand for business travel, if American is smart they should offer two morning and evening departures each and they may do fine. Unless they are looking to slot squat, I think 4 flights between the market is enough to “text the waters”.
American continues to fly jfk - Boston, although more accessible to international connections, American probably understands that the business market has evolved since Covid.
In addition to ATL, AA needs to bring back MCO and LAS flights.
MCO is workable but LAS is outside the flight radius and unlike DEN isn't specifically excluded.
American should bring back New York LaGuardia - Atlanta flights. They should also add Boston - Atlanta , and JFK - Atlanta flights.
The original idea of the Shuttle service was to provide very regular service for business travelers going between two high business destination cities. Ditto for LGA/DCA. But since then the Acela came along (far easier for inner city) and airlines have decided flights must be packed to the gills. Hence no longer the frequency. I think DCA/LGA is every two hours, or there abouts. That DCA route for me tends to be either easy to...
The original idea of the Shuttle service was to provide very regular service for business travelers going between two high business destination cities. Ditto for LGA/DCA. But since then the Acela came along (far easier for inner city) and airlines have decided flights must be packed to the gills. Hence no longer the frequency. I think DCA/LGA is every two hours, or there abouts. That DCA route for me tends to be either easy to upgrade or F sells really cheap. Sometimes on the weekend when I have time I'll fly DCA/LGA/MIA back to Miami because the F fare is really good and I get a nice side trip to see the Manhattan skyline.
It will absolutely go back to hourly. They need to get slots back from JetBlue which will be a phased-in process between October and spring 2024. This article should add that important context.
We shall see...count me as skeptical