Tag Archives for jfk.
American today could have been a real player in New York. Instead the world’s largest airline doesn’t seem to know what to do – or if they should do anything at all – with the nation’s most important air city.
They don’t serve New York JFK – Zurich. They don’t serve Frankfurt. Or Munich. Or Amsterdam. Or Tel Aviv. Or.. Denver. And they keep cutting markets.
TSA agents are expressing themselves at New York JFK during the government shutdown, while they’re expecting not to be paid until the shutdown ends — though they’re getting some pay anyway, in hopes they’ll show up to work.
Their choice of music is everything.
Kenya Airways just launched new Nairobi – New York JFK service a couple of months ago and already they plan to scale back to five times a week at least for winter.
Nonetheless RwandAir is moving forward with service to the U.S. They aren’t quite sure yet whether that will be Newark or New York JFK. They’ll use an Airbus A330neo for the route that offers flat beds in business class and premium economy. But the flights won’t be New York – Kigali.
Delta’s operations at New York JFK are split across two separate terminals, terminal 2 and terminal 4. Delta wants all of its operations under one roof. And they want all of SkyTeam under their roof too. In order to accomplish that they need to push out several airlines that currently operate out of terminal 4.
I don’t know about you but on a flight less than four hours I may not use the lavatory, especially if I’m in a window seat. I’ll just make a stop in the restroom on the way out of the terminal.
That doesn’t always work if you’re flying into New York JFK, though. This morning in terminal 5 a water main break caused the airports to lose pressure and close down the bathrooms.
In writing about New York’s $13 billion plan to renovate New York JFK airport I pointed out that the redesign wasn’t about serving the passenger, it’s about serving investors.
Airports aren’t being designed with passengers as the focus, they’re being designed with selling to passengers as the focus.
We’d be much better off with airports that efficiently moved people from their initial location to their gate, and on arrival to their final destination, than with sprawling complexes that are cumbersome to traverse but accommodate more retail.
You can only sell off the airport’s future income stream once. Investing the money is new mega-terminals means not investing the money in things that would actually improve the airport most. As a result these choices mean the New York JFK travel experience will be worse than it otherwise could be.
Effective September 1 the New York JFK lounge will have 35% more space because they’re converting the attached B concourse Admirals club to become part of the Flagship lounge. This adds 7000 square feet to the existing 19,541 square foot Flagship lounge footprint.
That means the only Admirals Club at JFK will be the C concourse lounge. However most domestic flights — which is what most Admirals Club passengers are flying — depart out of the satellite C concourse and as a result the B club which was renovated last summer doesn’t ever seem busy.
New York JFK airport is a disaster. Governor Cuomo’s $10 billion plan won’t begin to fix it. The people who work there are bad enough but the physical plant itself is irredeemable.
Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel -- a topic he has covered since 2002.
Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »
