HiSky Launching Romania To United States Flights

In the coming weeks, Moldovan-Romanian low cost airline HiSky will begin flying to the United States. The airline has recently updated its schedule to reflect this flight being operated year-round rather than seasonally, so I wanted to recap all the details of this interesting new route.

HiSky will fly from Bucharest to New York

As of June 7, 2024, HiSky will launch a new flight between Bucharest (OTP) and New York (JFK). The flight will operate with the following schedule:

H4101 Bucharest to New York departing 8:00AM arriving 11:25AM
H4102 New York to Bucharest departing 1:25PM arriving 6:15AM (+1 day)

The 4,755-mile flight will be offered 4x weekly throughout the summer schedule Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays, and Saturdays, and then 3x weekly as of the winter schedule (which starts in late October 2024), when service won’t be operated on Saturdays. For what it’s worth, HiSky will use Terminal 7 at New York JFK, which is kind of the terminal for “random” airlines at the airport.

The flight is blocked at 10hr25min westbound and 9hr50min eastbound. Flights are on sale on HiSky’s website, and the airline has a variety of fares, and even offers business class. Fares are a lot more attractive than they were when flights first went on sale. Economy fares now start at €319.99 one-way in economy, or €1,299.99 one-way in business class.

HiSky will use an Airbus A330-200 for the flight, which is being leased from Air Lease Corporation. The plane features a total of 274 seats, including 24 business class seats in a 2-2-2 configuration, plus 250 economy seats in a 2-4-2 configuration.

HiSky’s Airbus A330-200 has the registration code YR-KID, and it’s an aircraft that first entered service in 2010, and until recently flew for China’s Sichuan Airlines.

I’ve reviewed Sichuan Airlines’ A330 business class, and the airline has keep the same seats that were available on those planes, so expect angled business class seats. However, the airline has removed some business class seats to add more economy seats, to better reflect the demand profile (so the rear mini business class cabin has been eliminated).

My take on HiSky’s new transatlantic flights

Most Americans have probably never heard of HiSky Airlines. For those not familiar, it’s a fairly new airline that was founded in 2019, but it has only really ramped up operations in the past couple of years, given the pandemic. The airline currently has a fleet of seven aircraft, including four Airbus A320s, two Airbus A321LRs, and one Airbus A330.

While I haven’t flown with HiSky, the things that I have heard about the airline have been generally positive, and it seems to be pretty well regarded, and to offer good value and a solid experience.

As far as bold new airline routes go, I have to say that HiSky’s new service doesn’t seem like a terrible idea, with one major caveat:

• It’s easy enough to make money flying across the Atlantic in summer, given the amount of demand
• While US airlines have expanded a ton with summer seasonal flying to Europe, no US carriers have planned service to Romania, so HiSky will be the only airline operating this route
• The catch is that HiSky is only selling point-to-point tickets; the airline doesn’t have a robust connecting network in Europe (when you go to HiSky’s website, you’ll see the only option for flights from New York is to Bucharest), and no partner in the United States
• The part of this plan that makes no sense is that HiSky intends to also operate this route in winter, as that seems highly unlikely to be successful; it seems much more logical for HiSky to instead operate a counter seasonal route, to a destination like Thailand
• HiSky definitely has a cost advantage in terms of flying an older A330 that’s probably not too expensive to lease, and I imagine the carrier has much better labor costs than US airlines (I doubt HiSky captains are making $400K+ per year)

I’m very curious to see how this evolves, as it’s always fun to see new airlines trying long haul routes (even if it often doesn’t end well). I think the summer service will do fine, but I have to imagine the airline will backtrack on winter service.

Now I’m just trying to decide if I should take this flight for review purposes. On the one hand, it seems like a fun opportunity to try something new. On the other hand, this is exceptionally niche…

Bottom line

HiSky will launch nonstop flights from Romania to the United States in the coming weeks. Specifically, the airline will fly from Bucharest to New York with a newly acquired Airbus A330 that used to fly for Sichuan Airlines.

I’ve gotta say, this is an interesting new route. It’s a European destination not currently served by any US airline, so that’s fun. While I think the summer service will do reasonably well, I’m skeptical of the concept of this route also operating in winter, given how challenging that can be across the Atlantic.

What do you make of HiSky’s new Bucharest to New York flight?