Summary LCCs hold 34% of US flights, but have a much lower share in the New York area airports. Delta dominates JFK and LGA traffic, while United prevails at EWR, squeezing out the LCCs. Overall, the LCC share across the New York metropolitan area remains only 20%.
Low-cost carriers (LCCs) account for 34% of all US scheduled airline seats, more than double their share from just 15 years ago. However, this LCC share varies significantly between states. I recently penned an article that examined data from aviation analytics provider OAG, and looked at why Georgia has less than half the national average LCC share despite being a top-five state for total traffic.
Top 5 US States for Domestic Air Traffic State Annual Flights % Legacy Carriers % LCCs California 141,593,162 63.9% 36.1% Florida 135,220,035 53.
8% 46.2% Texas 131,407,633 67.5% 32.
5% New York 99,720,320 74.9% 25.1% Georgia 66,126,331 83.
1% 16.9% Source: OAG But that wasn’t the only state that stood out. New York is also a top-five state for air traffic, and its LCC penetration is nearly ten points below the national average.
The state's air traffic is dominated by its two large airports, John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK) and LaGuardia Airport (LGA) , which combined account for more than 90% of the air traffic in the state. So let's take a closer look at these two New York Area airports, as well as its third significant airport, Newark Liberty International (EWR) , which sits just across the Hudson River in N.