Aerolíneas Argentinas confirmed today the launch of unprecedented flights that will connect Buenos Aires’ downtown airport, Aeroparque Jorge Newbery, with Miami and New York/JFK, in the United States.
As the company detailed through a press release, the operations with Airbus A330-300 aircraft at Aeroparque will begin on August 7th. Towards Miami, Aerolíneas Argentinas will operate on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Fridays, and Sundays departing at 23:30.
Flights between Aeroparque Jorge Newbery and New York/JFK will be on Mondays, Thursdays, and Saturdays departing at 23:55, with return from the US city on Tuesdays, Fridays, and Sunday departing at 15:25, to arrive in Buenos Aires at 3:25 and thus offer connections to the main tourist destinations in Argentina in the first bank of departures in the morning.
«In this way, we improve our products, being more efficient with our accounts, and simultaneously, we enhance our role by bringing more tourists from the United States who can connect with all the domestic flights in our network and with minimal connection times«, said Pablo Ceriani, president of Aerolíneas Argentinas.
Domestic flights with A330
Aerolíneas Argentinas also detailed the first domestic flights in A330 that will operate from Aeroparque.
On Mondays and Wednesdays, they will fly to Ushuaia departing at 6:55; on Saturdays at 6:55 there will be a flight to Iguazú; and also on Saturdays, but at 18:30, to El Calafate.
Aerolíneas Argentinas’ Airbus A330-200s have a configuration of 24 seats in Business and 248 in tourist. It currently owns 9 of this model, to which a tenth will be added before the end of the year.
The works at Aeroparque
From Aerolíneas Argentinas they highlighted that the operations with A330 at Aeroparque will be possible thanks to the works inaugurated in 2022: the extension of the runway from 2100 to 2690 meters, its widening to 60 meters, the installation of new signaling, the expansion of the international terminal with more boarding gates and immigration control positions, customs and security, as well as new gastronomic and commercial offers.
To all this will be added before August 7 the new platform that will allow parking more aircraft, new vehicular access, and facilities for connecting passengers.
The implications of flights to the United States from Aeroparque
As we had commented on Aviacionline in a previous article, this move by Aerolíneas Argentinas has the potential to deeply change the rules of the game in an airport from which historically, besides cabotage, only flights to neighboring countries operated (with a break between 2016 and 2019 when only flights to Uruguay were enabled, and the post-pandemic expansion of its scope to Peru and Colombia).
But what implications could this bring to the market?
In principle, once the regulations that today prohibit flights with aircraft of more than 200 seats to allow the arrival of the A330 are modified, it is very likely that the next day airlines like SKY, LATAM, and JetSMART will knock on the door to request permission to disembark with their Airbus A321, thus sharpening the competition on key routes such as Buenos Aires-Santiago, Buenos Aires-Lima or Buenos Aires-Sao Paulo.
There is also the risk that some North American airlines request to land at Aeroparque, although this may be somewhat more distant given that they do not have the appropriate aircraft to operate there without stopovers from the United States and justify a double base between Ezeiza and Aeroparque (the reality will be different when American and United begin to receive their Airbus A321XLR).
We discussed this and other issues in this video:
