Delta Adds Nonstop Flights To NYC

Delta Airlines is adding daily, nonstop flights between Milwaukee Mitchell International Airport and LaGuardia Airport in New York City’s JFK International Airport.

These new nonstop flights add more options for traveling to New York from Milwaukee. Delta already offers nonstop flights to LaGuardia.

“This service also opens up easy one-stop flight connections to dozens of new domestic and international destinations, including many cities in Africa and Europe, from Delta’s JFK hub,” said Airport Director Brian Dranzik in a statement.

The new daily flights from Delta will leave Milwaukee at 7:00 a.m., arriving in New York at 10:20 a.m. The return flight will leave JFK each day at 6:00 p.m., landing in Milwaukee at 7:40 p.m.

Delta will also operate flights between Milwaukee and Atlanta, Boston, Detroit, Minneapolis-St. Paul and Salt Lake City this summer.

This announcement from Delta is only the latest in expansion in flights for Milwaukee. JetBlue, a major carrier headquartered in New York, recently began offering flights to and from Milwaukee.

The first JetBlue planes began landing in Milwaukee in late March, offering daily, nonstop flights to JFK in New York and Boston Logan International Airport. The Milwaukee flights are part of Jet Blue’s Midwest expansion. “Adding Milwaukee to our route map will help diversify our markets, support our Northeast growth strategy and give our customers more travel options,” said Andrea Lusso, vice president of network planning for JetBlue, in a statement announcing the new service.

Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley said of the JetBlue flights, “I commend the Airport team for successfully recruiting JetBlue to MKE. We are excited to use the new service!”

“Many people have been asking when JetBlue would come to Milwaukee,” Dranzik said. “I’m glad that day has arrived.”

Mitchell Airport and Dranzik have been working to increase the flight offerings to encourage more Wisconsin travelers to use the airport instead of nearby competitors like Chicago O’Hare International Airport. A marketing campaign was launched to support the effort called FlyMKE.

The airport has been trying to brand Milwaukee Mitchell as the “hometown airport” for Milwaukee County residents, and other Wisconsinites. As demand increases at Milwaukee Mitchell it will draw additional service from carriers, potentially even lowering prices for flights out of the airport.

Air traffic took a major hit at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, and it’s still working its way back to pre-pandemic levels. Though, the latest data indicates that passenger traffic at Milwaukee Mitchell is inching closer to where it was in 2019 before the pandemic hit; and passenger traffic in 2019 was roughly in line with traffic at the airport throughout the previous decade.

More than 789,000 airline passengers had gone through Milwaukee Mitchell by the end of February. At that time in 2019, just over 987,000 passengers had gone through the airport.