LaGuardia Airport has a brand new longest route — with a giant catch

Boston, Chicago and Florida — all fashionable locations from New York’s LaGuardia Airport (LGA). Salt Lake Metropolis … not a lot.

Nonetheless, Delta Air Traces is about to launch service from LGA to Salt Lake Metropolis Worldwide Airport (SLC) starting July 8, as first noticed by TPG in Cirium schedules and later confirmed by a service spokesperson.

The brand new route will function throughout the peak summer time interval by Sept. 2 aboard a 109-seat Airbus A220-100. Delta operates a hub at each airports, and it could funnel connections by Salt Lake Metropolis to cities alongside the West Coast and past.

What actually makes this route attention-grabbing is that it will turn into the longest from LaGuardia.

At 1,982 miles, the nonstop path to Salt Lake Metropolis might be simply 21 miles longer than American Airways’ flight from LaGuardia to Aruba’s Queen Beatrix Worldwide Airport (AUA), which was beforehand the airport’s longest.

Whereas the brand new route would possibly make for splashy headlines, there is a huge twist: Delta solely plans to function a complete of 10 flights in every path, solely on Saturdays.

Although Delta might actually choose way more frequent service, it merely would not have a alternative. If it desires to fly from LaGuardia to Salt Lake Metropolis, it could legally solely fly on Saturdays.

That is due to the airport’s “perimeter rule,” which restricts airways from flying to airports which are farther than 1,500 miles away with simply two exceptions — flights to Denver and any route operated on Saturdays.

So, as Delta plans its path to Salt Lake Metropolis, it is making the most of this exception to the perimeter rule.

(LaGuardia can be slot-constrained, which means that airways want particular takeoff and touchdown permissions to function flights there, however slots will not be wanted for flights on Saturdays.)

Saturday-only service is not usually all that profitable, particularly for home routes. Saturdays are normally the quietest day of the week to fly, and with practically no enterprise journey demand, airways should compete for his or her share of the leisure market touring throughout the weekend — a phase that is not normally all that worthwhile for airways. (For what it is price, introductory fares on the brand new Delta route begin at $209.)

Although the airline additionally operates a hub on the different airport in Queens — John F. Kennedy Worldwide Airport (JFK) — Delta doubtless causes that there are some vacationers who would a lot choose flying from the closest airport to Manhattan.

Apparently, this is not the primary time Delta has tried to attach LaGuardia with Salt Lake Metropolis. The airline flew the route most lately on Saturdays between December 2005 and September 2010, as seen in Cirium schedules. The airline seemingly wasn’t pleased with its efficiency as a result of the flight hasn’t returned in 12 years.

Over time, a number of different airways have tried to reap the benefits of the Saturday exception to the perimeter rule, however none have carried out nicely sufficient to function on a constant foundation.

Through the pandemic, Spirit Airways launched what was then LaGuardia’s longest flight — a 2,469-mile transcontinental to Los Angeles Worldwide Airport (LAX) — however that service has since been minimize. Delta additionally tried flights from LGA to Los Angeles in 2006, however that short-lived experiment was slashed after simply six months, Cirium schedules present.

Over the previous 20 years, now-defunct ATA Airways holds the title for having flown the longest route from LaGuardia. The low-cost airline operated a 2,579-mile route between LGA and San Francisco on Saturdays from January 2004 to September 2004, however that service (together with the airline) is now historical past.