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 New Jersey, to understand how LCCs are faring in the New York metropolitan area.
The Big Apple certainly needs all the capacity that it can handle! A note on definitions: For the sake of this analysis, we are: Using the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) definition of a low-cost carrier and referring to an airline as an LCC when included in the ICAO official list of LCCs . Only including data for US-based carriers. So, we align with the original OAG data, and be able to provide comparative data for all three airports.
New York JFK: Home of JetBlue We’ll start with the largest of the three: JFK is one of the nation's busiest hubs, with more than 90 airlines flying from its five terminals to over 200 destinations. It is also the home base of JetBlue , the LCC founded by David Neeleman , which acquired its first slots at JFK in 1999. The carrier now flies to over 100 destinations in the Americas and Europe, but JFK remains its largest hub.
According to data from Cirium , an aviation analytics company, JetBlue will have 8,866 flights arriving or departing from JFK in September 2024, giving it a 31% share of all domestic airline traffic at the airport and making it the largest LCC by far. Frontier, with a lowly 240 monthly flights, is the only other LCC at JFK. JFK Airline Flights (Sept 2024) % Share Alaska 599 2% American 5,235 19% Delta 13,253 47% United - - Legacy Total 19,087 68% Frontier 240 1% JetBlue 8,866 31% Southwest - - Spirit - - LCC Total 9,106 32% But JetBlue is dwarfed by Delta Air Lines, the legacy carrier that has positioned JFK as the primary transatlantic hub in its network.
Delta is the largest airline by far at JFK, with over 13,000 flights in September and a 47% share among domestic carriers. Add in over 5,000 flights for American Airlines and the fact that Southwest and Spirit don’t operate at JFK, and the legacy carriers have a 68% share. But 32% market share for LCCs is not far off the national average of 34% - so how do the other two New York area airports compare? New York LaGuardia: Delta Dominance LaGuardia is the second-largest airport in the state of New York, with over 32 million passengers passing through it last year.
LGA has a "perimeter rule" that prevents airlines from flying to airports more than 1,500 miles away, except for flights to Denver International Airport (DEN) and any flight operated on Saturdays. As a result, its primary focus is flights of 2-3 hours, and lacks the intercontinental traffic of JFK and EWR. However, it is similar to JFK in that it is also dominated by Delta Air Lines, which has over 14,000 flights scheduled at LGA in September, making up half of all domestic carrier traffic at the airport.
Small wonder then that Delta invested over $4 billion in the upgrade of its Terminal C at LGA. LGA Airline Flights (Sept 2024) % Share Alaska - - American 7,081 25% Delta 14,064 50% United 1,896 7% Legacy Total 23,041 81% Frontier 480 2% JetBlue 1,507 5% Southwest 1,922 7% Spirit 1,332 5% LCC Total 5,241 19% LGA does see flights from all four of the large domestic LCCs, and is the only New York area airport to see service from Southwest. However, with less than 2,000 flights in September and a single-digit share of traffic, this is far from a significant destination for Southwest.
Interestingly, despite its significant presence just a few miles away at JFK, JetBlue also has a notable presence at LGA. But overall, LCC share at LGA is just 19%, even less than the state average and fully 15 points short of the national average. Newark: United Hub EWR is United Airlines’ fourth-largest hub, behind Chicago, Denver, and Houston.
But unlike Chicago, where it competes head-to-head with American, United completely dominates the domestic traffic at EWR, with four out of every five flights being United aircraft. This is why United doesn’t serve JFK and maintains only a token foothold at LGA; it has such a strong position on the other side of the state line in New Jersey. EWR Airline Flights (Sept 2024) % Share Alaska 592 2% American 1,217 4% Delta 1,537 5% United 22,628 79% Legacy Total 25,974 90% Frontier - - JetBlue 1,052 4% Southwest - - Spirit 1,744 6% LCC Total 2,796 10% American, Delta, and Alaska Airlines account for the balance of legacy carrier flights to EWR, primarily routes to their own hubs elsewhere in the US.
Of the LCCs, only JetBlue and Spirit fly to EWR, accounting for just 10% of the traffic there. As a result, EWR has one of the lowest LCC market shares out of all the large airports in the US. United's largest East Coast hub has quite a lot to offer when it comes to international routes.
In summary: The three large New York area airports will each operate just over 28,000 flights from US domestic carriers in September. While the LCC market share varies between these airports, on average, LCCs only have a 20% share of flights to and from the most populous city in the US..
