Largest expansion at the airport in more than four decades
Mar 25, 2012
NEW YORK, March 25, 2012 ? Delta Air Lines (NYSE: DAL) today began flights to 11 new cities from LaGuardia as it embarks on the largest expansion of the New York City airport in more than 40 years.
Video b-roll of today’s inaugural event is available for download:
Gail Grimmett, Senior Vice President ? New York, Delta Air Lines
Lysa Scully, Deputy General Manager, Port Authority
David Hopkins, Director of Aviation, New York City Economic Development Corporation
Leroy Comrie, Council Member, New York City Council
Event B-Roll
Service from LaGuardia to a 12th new city begins Monday.
The new flights are part of a major expansion by Delta in New York to create a domestic hub in the busiest aviation market in the world. The airline will increase service at LaGuardia by 60 percent, with 100 new flights and 26 new destinations in spring and summer 2012. When its full schedule is implemented, Delta will operate more than 260 daily flights between LaGuardia and more than 60 cities, exceeding any other carrier.
Delta also will invest $160 million to modernize two terminals at LaGuardia and build a connector between them, a project that will provide construction jobs for city residents along with the roughly 700 permanent jobs Delta will add at the airport.
?An important part of our strategy to become the preferred airline in New York is connecting to key business markets, and that includes daily jet service between LaGuardia and cities in upstate New York as well as others around the country,? said Gail Grimmett, Delta?s senior vice president ? New York. ?We?re excited to be serving new routes and upgrading service to many cities with larger jet aircraft.?
Delta will operate some of the new LaGuardia routes with regional jets that offer First Class as well as Economy and in-flight Wi-Fi, amenities that other carriers don?t offer. Regional jets are a significant upgrade from previous service on some routes operated by another carrier using smaller, turboprop aircraft.
Beginning today, customers can connect to new business markets through LaGuardia, including Dallas; Miami; Washington-Dulles; Syracuse, N.Y.; Buffalo, N.Y.; Rochester, N.Y.; Richmond, Va.; Norfolk, Va.; Manchester, N.H.; Burlington, Vt.; and Greensboro, N.C. Service to Louisville, Ky.; will begin Monday.
Delta will offer up to four million additional seats in New York without added to congestion.
Customers who fly to LaGuardia will appreciate the convenience of its location with easy access to Manhattan.
By mid-summer, LaGuardia will serve nearly all of the top domestic markets. On July 11, Delta will initiate Phase two of the LaGuardia expansion, with new routes to: Denver; Houston; Cleveland; Philadelphia; Pittsburgh; Milwaukee, Wis.; Charlotte, N.C.; Wilmington, N.C.; Roanoke, Va.; Charlottesville, Va.; Myrtle Beach, S.C.; Montreal, Quebec; and Ottawa, Ontario.
To further enhance its new domestic hub, Delta has increased frequencies from LaGuardia to cities that include Fort Lauderdale; Orlando; Jacksonville, Fla.; Ft. Myers, Fla.; Indianapolis; Kansas City; Chicago; Nashville; Raleigh-Durham, N.C.; Greenville, S.C.; Columbia, S.C.; Portland, Me.; and Bangor, Me.
At JFK, Delta also serves domestic cities with new routes that include Austin, Texas; Jacksonville, Fla.; Louisville, Ky.; Charleston, S.C.; Dayton, Ohio; Elmira, N.Y.; Milwaukee, Wis.; Greensboro, N.C.; New Orleans and Kansas City. Customers also can use Delta?s international hub at JFK to reach five continents, a claim no other airline can make.
Delta?s three metropolitan area airports carried 20.8 million domestic and international passengers in 2011. The preferred airline for New York travelers expects that number will rise to 24.6 million in 2012, mostly due to the increase at LaGuardia. The airline has 7,000 New York-based employees.
Delta Air Lines serves more than 160 million customers each year. During the past year, Delta was named domestic ?Airline of the Year? by the readers of Travel Weekly magazine, was named the ?Top Tech-Friendly U.S. Airline? by PCWorld magazine for its innovation in technology and won the Business Travel News Annual Airline Survey. With an industry-leading global network, Delta and the Delta Connection carriers offer service to 343 destinations in 62 countries on six continents. Headquartered in Atlanta, Delta employs 80,000 employees worldwide and operates a mainline fleet of more than 700 aircraft. A founding member of the SkyTeam global alliance, Delta participates in the industry?s leading trans-Atlantic joint venture with Air France-KLM and Alitalia. Including its worldwide alliance partners, Delta offers customers more than 13,000 daily flights, with hubs in Amsterdam, Atlanta, Cincinnati, Detroit, Memphis, Minneapolis-St. Paul, New York-LaGuardia, New York-JFK, Paris-Charles de Gaulle, Salt Lake City and Tokyo-Narita. The airline?s service includes the SkyMiles frequent flier program, a world-class airline loyalty program; the award-winning BusinessElite service; and more than 50 Delta Sky Clubs in airports worldwide. Delta is investing more than $2 billion through 2013 in airport facilities and global products, services and technology to enhance the customer experience in the air and on the ground. Customers can check in for flights, print boarding passes, check bags and review flight status at delta.com.
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