Tucson International Airport on Friday celebrated the launch of new, daily nonstop flights between TIA and New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport on American Airlines.
At a ceremony at the airport before the scheduled 8:15 a.m. departure to JFK, speakers said the new flight gives the Tucson region direct access to the nation’s most important financial center and helps local tourism.
The flight also offers key new connections to destinations across the Atlantic, along the Eastern seaboard and into Canada, the airport said.
Landing the new flights was the result of more than three years’ work by airport officials and local business leaders.
The event included Tucson Metro Chamber President and CEO Mike Varney and CAID Industries CEO Bill Assenmacher, who led the chamber’s Air Service Task Force that worked with community leaders to help secure the flights; along with Tucson Mayor Jonathan Rothschild, Visit Tucson President and CEO Brent DeRaad, American Airlines’ Regional Director of Government Affairs Joseph Hughes, Tucson Airport Authority Board Chair Tony Finley and Tucson Airport Authority President and CEO Bonnie Allin.
“What’s most impressive about this celebration today is that it shows what happens when we as a community come together to do something,” Finley said in prepared remarks.
“Now it’s up to us as a community to take this opportunity and make something of it.”
Subject to adjustment, the American flight to JKF will depart daily at 8:15 a.m. and arrive in New York at 4:02 p.m. (local times), and the New York JFK flight will depart for Tucson at 5 p.m., arriving at 7:24 p.m.
When daylight savings kicks for most of the nation on Nov. 6, the Tucson departure will be at 9:15 a.m. and the arrival time will be 8:24 p.m.
The daily flights between Tucson and New York are aboard 160-passenger Boeing 737-800 aircraft featuring 16 recliner seats in first class, 30 “main cabin extra” seats with more legroom, and 114 coach seats.
