Kirby wants JFK back, and he's shopping for slots to get it

Ten years after American Airlines pushed him out and United hired him the same day, Scott Kirby is still competing against his old employer in the market that matters most. This time he intends to win New York.

In an interview with CNBC published over the weekend, the United chief executive said the carrier expects to return to JFK through its Blue Sky partnership with JetBlue as early as next year, and that he wants a meaningfully larger footprint than a codeshare would deliver. United, he said, has multiple irons in the fire, including buying takeoff and landing rights from carriers that are losing money on their JFK flying. At a slot-controlled airport where every departure is spoken for, that is a direct message to the smaller and lower-margin operators in Queens.

The history explains the urgency. United abandoned JFK for Newark in 2015, a decision Kirby has called a mistake because it handed American a clean shot at Manhattan's corporate accounts. A pandemic-era return in 2021 lasted barely a year. The JetBlue tie-up, announced last year, was always the vehicle for a third attempt; the slot hunt is what turns it into a real hub strategy.

The wider picture is an airline that already leads US carriers in international flight volume and sees no reason to stop. Kirby named South America and the south-eastern US as the two regions where United is structurally thin and where building a hub from scratch is hardest. He was blunt that Miami is the natural gateway to Latin America and that American controls it, with more than 60 per cent of boardings last fiscal year.

That helps explain the merger chatter. Kirby has now floated combinations with both American and Delta and been turned down by both. He told CNBC he has no interest in buying a smaller carrier, JetBlue included, and that any deal needs a willing partner. Organic growth, then, and on Tuesday United was due to show what that looks like: a Newark hangar event unveiling its first Airbus A321XLR, a 150-seat jet built for long, thin transatlantic routes, alongside a fresh batch of 2027 international destinations. Executives have promised at least one new long-haul service from Denver and something Kirby described as really special. His staff, he admitted, no longer tell him the routes in advance because he cannot keep a secret.