New Jersey’s Newark Liberty International Airport is one of the major international airports
serving the New York metropolitan area and is around 9 miles from Manhattan. Newark is dominated by United Airlines
(and United Express) – with the airline flying to almost two-thirds of the passengers passing through the airport. Here are the busiest routes from Newark scheduled for the month of October 2024 per data from Cirium (an aviation analytics company).

United’s dominance of Newark Airport

Newark Liberty International Airport
is the second-busiest airport in the New York area (behind New York JFK Airport
and ahead of domestic-focused LaGuardia Airport
). In 2023, Newark served some 49.1 passengers, with around 50 carriers flying into the airport. Of these carriers, United dominates. Of the ten busiest flights (as measured by number of operations in October), United has 8 (including the 8 busiest).

United Airlines 787 by Vincenzo Pace-4

Photo: Vincenzo Pace | Simple Flying

United offers 26 of the 30 busiest routes from Newark. The top ten United destinations with the most flights are Chicago O’Hare, Houston, San Francisco, Boston, Washington DC, Orlando, Denver, Los Angeles, Pittsburgh, and Las Vegas.

Five busiest destinations:

  • Chicago O’Hare
  • Houston
  • San Francisco
  • Boston
  • Washington DC

The busiest route from Newark is United’s service to Chicago O’Hare International Airport with some 406 flights scheduled for October (carrying 70,979 seats). The next busiest are to Houston’s George Bush Intercontinental Airport (310 flights), San Francisco International Airport (301 flights), Boston Logan International Airport (300 flights), Washington DC’s Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport (295 flights), and Orlando International Airport (289 flights).

United’s monopoly of Newark

United’s dominance of Newark has not gone unnoticed – it controls around 73% (or 902 of 1,233) of the slots at the airport. In 2016, the Department of Justice reported United “abandoned its plans to purchase 24 take-off and landing authorizations – or “slots” – from Delta Air Lines Inc. (Delta) at Newark Liberty International Airport (Newark).” This would have increased its share to 75%.

United Airlines Boeing 737 900ER

Photo: United Airlines

In 2016, United was accused of taking slots and then not using them to push competition out of the airport.

“On April 1, 2016, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) announced that it plans to lift slot controls at Newark, which will ease entry and promote competition at the airport. The FAA explained that capacity exists for additional flights at Newark, in part because slots that have been allocated are not being fully utilized. At the same time, the existence of slot constraints has forced the FAA to deny requests from United’s competitors to add service. As alleged in the department’s complaint, United “grounds” more slots on any given day than any of its competitors have the option to fly, while keeping them out of the hands of potential competitors.” – Department of Justice

Non-United flights from Newark Airport

While United may dominate Newark Airport, it doesn’t own it
. The five busiest non-United routes (in order) are Porter Airlines
to Toronto, Delta to Atlanta, Air Canada to Toronto Pearson, American Airlines to Charlotte Douglas, and American Airlines to Chicago O’Hare.

C-GKQC Porter De Havilland Canada Dash 8-400 (1)

Vincenzo Pace | Simple Flying

Porter Airlines flies to Billy Bishop Toronto City Airport – a secondary airport serving Canada’s largest city of Toronto. At 273 scheduled flights for October, this is the 9th busiest route from Newark. The second busiest non-United (and 10th busiest overall) route from Newark is Delta Air Lines flights to Atlanta (268 flights for October). The other three busiest non-United flights offer 216, 171, and 152 October flights respectively.

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