Summary
- Uzbekistan Airways operates a non-stop flight to JFK from Tashkent, spanning over 6,400 nautical miles.
- Kuwait Airways offers a singular flight from Kuwait to JFK four times a week using a Boeing 777-300ER.
- Air Serbia operates the only US route out of Belgrade with a nonstop flight to JFK using Airbus A330 jets.
Located in the world’s largest and most important financial hub, it is unsurprising that
New York John F. Kennedy International Airport
(JFK) has increasingly become one of the world’s most connected global travel gateways. The facility, which features four massive runways and a handful of ultra-modern terminals, saw over 62 million passengers pass through its doors in 2023, according to the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey statistics.
As a result of the airport’s impressive prominence, a proxy for the size and financial importance of New York City, several foreign airlines go out of their way to offer service to JFK. However, several foreign airlines that serve the Queens airport are going above and beyond this, but do not operate flights to others in the United States.
There may be many reasons for an airline to provide service to New York, including the potential of lucrative business travel to an important financial center. However, other carriers primarily serve JFK with political motives, to maintain strong cultural and diplomatic connections with the United States. Let’s take a deeper look at some airlines offering JFK as a singular US destination.
A non-stop pathway to Central Asia
The first of our airlines which operates a route to New York as its singular US connection is Uzbekistan Airways, the three-decade-old flag carrier of its namesake central Asian nation. This connection stands out among the others within the carrier’s network as one of its longest and traverses an impressive distance of over 6,400 nautical miles.
According to the flight tracking website FlightAware, the service departs shortly after 1 in the afternoon from New York, touching down at Tashkent International Airport (TAS) between 9 and 10 AM the following morning. In the reverse direction, the flight departs around 6:45 AM from Tashkent and touches back down in New York around 11 after over 11 hours of flight time.
Photo: Bui Le Manh Hung I Shutterstock
The service is operated by one of Uzbekistan Airways’ Boeing 787-8 jets, the longest-range and most modern aircraft to be deployed by the carrier on its long-haul network. While the company formerly operated several Soviet-built aircraft, the airline now relies heavily on Western-built aircraft, including all the following models:
- Airbus A320-200
- Airbus A320neo
- Airbus A321neo
- Airbus A321LR
- Airbus A330-200
- Boeing 757-200
- Boeing 767-300ER
- Boeing 787-8
Despite nearly 60 destinations served by a fleet of over 30 aircraft, the carrier’s reach does not push far beyond Eurasia, with some other notable destinations including London Heathrow Airport (LHR) and Shanghai Pudong International Airport (PVG). Despite its relatively limited long-haul presence, Uzbekistan Airways has sought to expand its international presence, including the world’s third-longest A320 flight which launched back in April.
An often overlooked Middle Eastern carrier
Often passed over in favor of the giant superconnectors of the region, Kuwaiti flag carrier Kuwait Airways operates just a singular flight to the United States which, much like the Uzbekistan Airways flight, connects its primary hub to JFK. A four-times weekly service operating on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays, this ultra-long haul flight caters primarily to business travelers between the oil-rich nation and the world’s financial capital.
For this service, Kuwait Airways deploys its Boeing 777-300ER, an impressively high-capacity aircraft and the largest within the airline’s fleet of over 30 aircraft. In addition to the 777s that are currently in operation, the carrier also flies an assortment of A320 narrowbody jets. Outstanding orders still remain on the airline’s books for ultra-modern Airbus A350-900 jets alongside Airbus A330neos.
In the outbound direction, this flight departs from Kuwait International Airport (KWI) at 7:40 AM before touching down just before 2 in the afternoon in New York, after roughly 12 and a half hours of flight time. According to FlightAware, the service follows an overnight schedule in the inbound direction, taking off from JFK at around 5:30 PM and touching down the following morning at around 8:45 AM.
A central European connection
The final flight we will be discussing is the nonstop connection between Belgrade’s Nikola Tesla International Airport (BEG) and JFK, a service which stands out as the only US route operated by the former Yugoslav nation’s flag carrier. With over 80 destinations, the airline has expanded drastically over its decades of operations, having undergone multiple different rebrandings to come to today’s operational name.
Photo: Leonard Zhukovsky | Shutterstock
The carrier’s diverse fleet consists of over 30 aircraft, including the Airbus A330s that operates its sole US-bound route. The many carriers which eventually merged and transformed to become today’s Air Serbia over the years operated many different kinds of planes, including those which were Soviet-built. Today, the airline operates a fleet including all the following types:
- Airbus A319
- Airbus A320
- Airbus A330
- ATR 72-600
- Embraer E190
- Embraer E195
The carrier’s nonstop service to New York, as previously mentioned, operates using its A330 jets, which are equipped with over 250 spread across business and economy class cabins. The outbound service to New York departs from Belgrade at around 1:30 PM, touching down shortly past 5 PM in the Big Apple. In the reverse direction, the carrier’s flights depart at shortly after 7 PM, arriving the next morning around 10 AM, according to FlightAware.