Eastern Airlines Launches Scheduled Service to Ecuador and Guyana from New York
Eastern Airlines is plotting a comeback.
Once one of South Florida’s largest employers, Eastern Airlines, now based in Pennsylvania, launched scheduled service earlier this month out of John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City. The move marks the airline’s resurrection after bankruptcy in 1989 and a failed attempt to break into the Cuba charter flight market in 2015.
Eastern is operating a nonstop weekly fight from Guayaquil, Ecuador to JFK on Sundays and a nonstop weekly flight from JFK to Guayaquil on Mondays. In March, Eastern will increase the route’s frequency to twice weekly. LatAm and JetBlue currently operate the same route.
On March 5, Eastern will begin round-trip, nonstop service from JFK to Georgetown, Guyana on Thursdays and Sundays. American Airlines and Caribbean Airlines currently operate the same route. The company is looking at starting scheduled service from JFK to Cabo San Lucas, Mexico this year, said Shawn Erving, who does charter sales and marketing for Eastern. The U.S. Department of Defense is considering granting Eastern a contract to fly U.S. troops, Erving said.
This isn’t the first time someone has tried to bring Eastern Airlines back to life.
The original Eastern ceased operations in 1991 after filing for bankruptcy in 1989. In 2015, new owners brought the brand back for charter flights to Cuba but ended operations just two years later. The airline’s current owners, Dynamic International Airways, purchased it in 2018 and re-branded as Eastern Airlines LLC. The company no longer has a presence in South Florida, outside of the occasional charter flight to the Caribbean.
The newest Eastern Airlines began flying charter service in March 2019 on its eight Boeing 767s. CEO Steve Harfst, who used to head Allegiant Air, told AdWeek that Eastern will focus on secondary markets.
“We can serve these markets two to four times a week and be profitable,” he said. “Those markets aren’t big enough to support large legacy carriers.”
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