American Airlines will discontinue direct flights between New York City and Puerto Rico effective Aug. 22, the company announced this month.
The airline has operated flights between the John F. Kennedy International Airport and the Luis Munoz Marin International Airport since 1971, according to USA Today, but it is ceasing operations there as a part of a larger cutback in the Caribbean.
“We have made the difficult decision to cancel our service [between JFK and San Juan],” AA spokeswoman LaKesha Beown said in a statement last week. “We continually evaluate our network, looking at supply and demand for each route we serve. We want to ensure our fleet and crews are serving routes that are profitable, better positioning us for long-term success against global competition.”
To the rescue?
USA Today reported that the departure of AA leaves an opening for JetBlue, which has been eager to expand its operations throughout the Caribbean.
JetBlue currently offers five daily round-trip flights between JFK and San Juan.
That route will also continue to be serviced by Delta, which offers four daily roundtrips between JFK and San Juan, as well as three daily flights between Newark and San Juan.
Meanwhile, AA will continue to operate two flights per day between JFK and San Juan until Aug. 22, the flight tracker Routes Online reported.
The airline will also continue to operate 21 daily flights between San Juan and five other hubs: Charlotte, Chicago O’Hare, Dallas/Fort Worth, Miami and Philadelphia.
Those 21 daily flights are a far cry from the nearly 100 daily flights AA flew between various hubs and San Juan as recently as 2008.
USA Today stated that the airline began drastically reducing that number when it officially “de-hubbed” San Juan in 2013.
That was the year AA also ceased operations of its subsidiary, American Eagle, between San Juan and this territory.
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