Runway construction at Newark Airport is now complete, nearly two weeks ahead of schedule, and as United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby has frequently reminded us, there are excellent deals available out of Newark this summer. Here’s a very poignant example.

Hot Deals From Newark Airport As Runway Construction Completed Early

Some Award Expert clients needed to fly from the New York City area to Athens in a couple of weeks. Nonstop tickets on American Airlines and Delta Air Lines were over $8,000 each in business class. United from Newark? $4,535 each… that’s worth the drive through the Holland Tunnel!

(Emirates, which flies from Newark to Athens, was also over $8,000)

We’re also seeing a lot of saver award space in economy class across all routes and in business class to Italy, which is usually so very difficult to score during the peak summer travel season.

While this may indicate an overall saturation point of transatlantic traffic…we’ve seen many carriers try to cash in on what is perceived to be lucrative flying…Kirby made his rounds across the media last week to argue that “once-in-a-lifetime” deals from Newark were available this summer. He told The Wall Street Journal:

“The media storm caused people to book away. This has been a huge perception issue. Newark is safe.”

Regardless of that, Kirby admitted that United’s load factors out of Newark were down 15% following the initial disruptions (load factors have rebounded, but are still down) and there are great deals available now:

“Because we lost a lot of bookings, there’s a lot more seats available. It’s going to be the cheapest it’s probably ever going to be in history. I don’t really like that, but you ought to book: prices are lower than they otherwise would be.”

My anecdotal experience above confirms this. With the runway now open, operations should further improve. With the construction complete, 34 arrivals and 34 departures are now allowed per hour (versus 28 during runway construction).

In fact, Kirby now believes that Newark will beat both Kennedy and LaGuardia in terms of on-time performance this summer:

“EWR will likely be the most reliable and have the highest on-time performance out of the other New York City airports this summer because of the changes with the FAA. However, bookings are down – so it’s short-term painful for us right now, but it’s long-term beneficial because the FAA is going to manage the number of flights like they do at JFK and LGA.”

That remains to be seen: there are still air traffic control personnel shortages and outages that could adversely impact operations that have been unique to Newark.

But if you have procrastinated on your summer travel booking, look to Newark for potential deals.

CONCLUSION

Runway construction is now complete at Newark, an impressive 13 days ahead of schedule. With all runways now operational, United can increase traffic from Newark earlier than expected. Even so, the air traffic control issues and construction have hit the reputation of EWR particularly hard, prompting ticket and cancellations and now cheaper flights and more available seats this summer. As my Athens example shows, there are truly some excellent deals bookable now.