Air Senegal Ending New York Route With A330-900neo
Intro
A couple of days ago, Air Senegal announced that it would be ending its route from Dakar to New York, operating twice weekly with an A330-900neo. While it is sad to see this route coming to an end, it definitely makes sense financially.
Let's get into it!
The Details
Air Senegla has announced that the last flight will be from New York (JFK) to Dakar on September 19th, 2024. After that, the route will no longer operate. The 3380 is currently operating with the following schedule twice weekly:
HC407: Dakar to New York departing 4:00 AM and arriving at 9:00 AM
HC408: New York to Dakar departing 1:30 AM and arriving at 1:50 PM
Air Senegal is reputable for being, let's just say, not the greatest airline in the world. There are constant delays (which I have suffered from), not the greatest customer service, and a few other reasons. Now, it will be sad to see the Dakar route being cancelled as Delta now has a monopoly on the market. Delta already charges astronomical fares across the board, so I'm sure this isn't going to help😒.
This Route Was Destined To Fail
If we look at the facts, this route never really had a chance of being profitable. Air Senegal doesn't have an FAA category 1 rating, meaning that they had to register their A330-900neo with Hi Fly in order to fly it to the USA. That plane then got grounded, meaning they had to fly different A330-900neos to New York to make this route work.
I'm quite skeptical about Air Senegal's planning on the New York (JFK) route. They had the inbound from Dakar scheduled to land at 9 am and the outbound departing at 1:30 am. That meant a 16-hour downtime in New York. Why they didn't have a midday departure landong in the early hours of Dakar is beyond me, then again a lot of Air Senegal is beyond me.
Combining that with no code-share agreements, a load factor of under 70%, and New York being one of the most expensive airports to operate into, the route was ultimately cut.
Final Thoughts
If you are looking to fly on an Air Senegal A330-900neo, your last major option is Paris since the airline has now cut New York (JFK) as of September 19th. To break it down in one sentence: Air Senegal was severely losing money on its New York route due to low demand, expensive operating fees, and no codeshare agreements. Therefore, the route has been cut.
Great, now we have to deal with the outrageous Delta fares🥴.
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