Delta Announces Service From Kansas City and Milwaukee to JFK

Delta Air Lines has announced 2 new routes from New York (JFK): Kansas City (MCI) and Milwaukee (MKE).

Both of the routes will launch on June 6, 2022, and will operate once daily — here’s the rest of what you need to know about these upcoming Delta routes.

New Regional Service From JFK

Interestingly, both of these routes have been served before by Delta, though it’s almost been a decade since the airline has operated either of them, so we’ll talk about them as if they’re new routes instead of resumptions.

This is the current schedule for the JFK-Kansas City flights:

• Depart New York (JFK) 5:30 p.m. — Arrive Kansas City (MCI) 7:50 p.m. 
• Depart Kansas City (MCI) 9:15 a.m. — Arrive New York (JFK) 1:15 p.m. 

And the JFK-Milwaukee flights will operate according to the following schedule:

• Depart New York (JFK) 6 p.m. — Arrive Milwaukee (MKE) 7:40 p.m. 
• Depart Milwaukee (MKE) 7 a.m. — Arrive New York (JFK) 10:20 a.m. 

The flights will be flown with Endeavor Air’s RJ-700 and RJ-900 aircraft as Delta Connection flights.

In the Name of Competition

Competition in the aviation world is usually a good thing for travelers. When several airlines operate flights between a given city pair, it typically means fares are driven down, especially when a low-cost airline is in the mix.

However, Kansas City and Milwaukee already have several flights per day to the New York area’s 3 major airports — JFK, LaGuardia (LGA), and Newark (EWR) — so fares are not likely to be affected in a major way as a result of Delta’s addition of these JFK flights.

Delta itself already operates nonstop flights between both of these cities and LaGuardia, so it could stand to reason that these flights were added to serve the abundant transatlantic connections Delta provides at JFK, where LaGuardia acts as the primary airport for local New York City traffic.

Airlines don’t just decide to operate new routes without serious consideration first. Delta’s network planning team must have found some interesting data somewhere to get the green light for these latest additions.

Or, Delta’s new routes could simply be a direct response to JetBlue’s recent announcement that it too will add flights between its hub at JFK to the same cities.

Bottom Line: Whatever the reasoning Delta employed when adding these flights, it’s exciting to see new routes as travel continues to rebound in the post-pandemic world.

Final Thoughts

In early June, Delta will start flights between New York’s Kennedy Airport and Kansas City and Milwaukee.

Even though both of these Midwestern cities are well-served to the New York area, we welcome new routes with open arms, and it’ll surely be interesting to see if Delta remains in each of the markets this time around.