American Airlines adds 2 new LaGuardia routes for the summer

American Airlines keeps growing its presence at New York's LaGuardia Airport (LGA).

This week, the carrier is adding two new routes from LGA just in time for the peak summer season, as first seen in Cirium schedules and later confirmed by a carrier spokesperson. The new routes will service two cities in South Carolina: Charleston and Myrtle Beach.

American's affiliate Republic Airways will operate both flights using the Embraer E170 family of regional jets, featuring first-class, extra-legroom economy and standard economy cabins.

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Service from LGA to Charleston International Airport (CHS) will commence June 6 on a twice-weekly basis. Flights will operate on Fridays and Saturdays. Meanwhile, once-weekly service to Myrtle Beach International Airport (MYR) takes off June 7 and will operate on Saturdays through August.

American shared in a statement that "this summer, American Airlines is bringing customers closer to their favorite seafood places, new memories along the shore, or to a golf trip with friends with new weekend service to Charleston (CHS) and Myrtle Beach (MYR) from New York (LGA). American offers customers more convenient schedules and itineraries when traveling across our global network with more flights from MYR and CHS than any other airline."

Both of these routes are technically resumptions for American. The route from LaGuardia to Charleston last flew in April 2020, while service to Myrtle Beach last flew in 2021.

Either way, these routes boost the airline's appeal in the New York City area for leisure-focused travelers, and they come on the heels of recently added service from LaGuardia to Orlando, New Orleans, Tampa and West Palm Beach, Florida.

American isn't just trying to appeal to leisure customers. Last week, the carrier doubled the number of flights it will offer on one of the nation's most iconic business routes from LaGuardia to Boston.

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The backstory behind all of these new flights seems to be that American wants to increase its relevance in New York. That's especially true now that the airline needs to compete in the Big Apple without an assist from its former Northeast Alliance partner JetBlue Airways.

Earlier this decade, American and JetBlue teamed up to create an alliance that boosted their scale in New York and Boston, combining networks, offering reciprocal frequent flyer perks and more. The Northeast Alliance saw the introduction of a slew of new routes and destinations for both carriers. American and JetBlue said they wanted to better compete with Delta Air Lines and United Airlines in New York (Delta and United are the region's two biggest airlines).

The partnership turned out to be short-lived; the Department of Justice successfully blocked the tie-up on anticompetitive grounds, and the two airlines formally severed ties in summer 2023.

Ever since then, American and JetBlue have needed to compete independently in New York (and Boston). JetBlue's strategy has called for a sizable retreat in New York, especially at LaGuardia, where the airline just cut flights to Boston, among others.

American, meanwhile, has picked up some of the slack left by JetBlue, adding flights to more leisure and business destinations.

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