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American Airlines to fly Stansted to JFK from October

Published: 13/07/2007 - Filed under: News »

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American Airlines has announced that it will launch daily services from London Stansted to New York's JFK from October 29, 2007. The new service will be operated by a two-class Boeing 767-300 aircraft with 221 seats including 30 new business class seats in a 2-2-2 configuration.

The Stansted departure opens up the possibility of passengers flying out of Stansted to JFK, while returning from that airport to Heathrow. Craig Kreeger, Senior Vice President International of American Airlines told Business Traveller that this was something that corporate clients, particularly those based in the City of London and Docklands, had indicated would be welcome. Stansted already has New York services in the form of business-class-only airlines Maxjet and Eos, but American will be the first to offer an economy product from the Essex airport to New York, and in addition, Kreeger pointed out that the new $1.3billion American Airlines terminal at JFK would allow passengers to directly connect onward to over 200 destinations across America, on both American and American Eagle services. A second daily service is scheduled for introduction at the end of March 2008, though timings for the second service have yet to be finalised. Return fares for the flights start at £232 in economy (an introductory fare for bookings made by July 24), and £1391 in business class.

American plans to build a dedicated premium lounge at Stansted, but the facility will not be completed in time for the launch of the new service. Kreeger said: "We are still working on details of the lounge facilities, and we will initially be using a facility that's already there. A dedicated lounge will be ready for when the second flight starts in Spring 2008."

In addition, American has also announced that it will be moving one of its two daily flights from Gatwick to Dallas-Fort Worth to Heathrow. In addition the airline will be moving its Gatwick to Raleigh/Durham service to Heathrow, both changes effective from March 30, next year, following the implementation of the new US/EU 'Open Skies' agreement. This will leave just a single American Airlines service in Gatwick. Kreeger described this decision to be a difficult one, and reaffirmed there were no plans to leave Gatwick completely. "Heathrow is constrained, and will continue to be so," he said. "There's clearly a role for Gatwick, but just what exactly that role will be, remains to be seen".

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