American Adds 2 New Exciting Domestic Routes From DC, New York - The Points Guy (2023)

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American Airlines is increasing regional connectivity at two major hub airports in the Northeast.

The Fort Worth-based airline unveiled plans over the weekend to add LaGuardia Airport (LGA) to Iowa's Des Moines International Airport (DSM) and Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport (DCA) to Baton Rouge Metropolitan Airport ( BTR) of Louisiana, as first seen on Cirium Timetables and later confirmed by the airline.

Both flights will start on June 1 and will operate every day of the year in a 76-seat Embraer E175.

American Eagle's regional subsidiary, Republic Airways, will fly the LGA route, while wholly owned subsidiary Envoy Air will operate the DCA flight.

Perhaps most interestingly, the new Baton Rouge flight has been in the works for years. Local officials worked with the Federal Aviation Administration to secure $1 million in funding from the Small Community Air Service Development Program to help launch the route.

This grant, first announced in 2021, can be used to incentivize airlines to launch new routes. Incentives typically include income guarantees, landing fee waivers, a marketing budget, and more.

“Over the past two years, we have made record investments at the Baton Rouge airport to enable better inflight service from the region. Based on passenger data, Washington, D.C. and Chicago are the two most common destinations from our airport. This investment will help establish a direct flight between Baton Rouge and Washington DC. God knows Washington needs our help right now," said US Representative Garrett Graves.sayingat the time of award notification.

While American could enjoy some incentives for DCA's new Baton Rouge flight, it needs to use a couple of valuable slots at DCA to make the new route work.

To manage capacity, the FAA classifies DCA as a Tier 3 airport, which means takeoff and landingPermissions are managed through slots. There is a strict limit of 48 operations per hour at the DCA per FAA regulations between the hours of 6:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m. m. and 11:59 p.m. m.

Each new flight requires a couple of slots, and American has not cut any routes to or from DCA as part of this week's planned workload. It remains to be seen if American will need to make changes elsewhere to its DCA flight schedule to accommodate the new Baton Rouge flight.

LaGuardia's new service follows abig push in home connectivitythat the airline announced late last year as part of itsMerger of Northeast Alliance with JetBlue Airways.

American is preparing to add the following six targets to its LaGuardia network on May 5:

• Birmingham, Alabama: once a day.
• Buffalo, New York - three times a day.
• Columbia, South Carolina - once a day.
• Grand Rapids, Michigan: once a day.
• Greenville, South Carolina: Twice a day.
• Knoxville, Tennessee: once a day.

JetBlue also announced thisfour new LaGuardia routesat the same time as American, and these new flights recently went on sale.

In a statement confirming the new LGA route, a spokesperson said:

American Airlines is pleased to connect Des Moines International Airport with New York's LaGuardia Airport this summer. This new daily flight brings our DSM service to six destinations this summer. We're excited to offer our customers more ways to experience all that New York City has to offer and offer residents additional access to American's global network.

Like DCA, LaGuardia is aAirport controlled by time slots. American did not make any major cuts to its LaGuardia network in this latest schedule update, so it was not immediately clear which slots American will use for the Des Moines flight.

For more information on the US network, see:

• American is adding 2 new routes from its Washington hub
• American, JetBlue to add 11 new routes as part of expanded Northeast Alliance
• American announces additional long-haul flights for summer 2023
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