Tulsa advocates maintain the way to unlocking the municipality’s national economic development potential is through a direct link to the United States’ largest city and financial center.
Friday, that connection was cemented.
Local officials announced nonstop service from Tulsa International Airport (TUL) to New York’s LaGuardia Airport (LGA) beginning Nov. 3. The American Airlines flights go on sale Monday on aa.com.
“This is huge for Tulsa, and it’s huge for our economic growth,” Mayor G.T. Bynum said at a news conference Friday morning at the airport. “I can tell as someone who has spent the past six years as mayor traveling all over this country with economic development leadership here in Tulsa — meeting with companies, talking with them about why they need to come to Tulsa, talking with venture capitalists about why they need to invest in companies in Tulsa.
“What I’ve heard time and time again — especially from people who are based in New York — is, ‘Do you have a direct flight to Tulsa from New York?’
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His answer, he said, always was a conversation-stopping “no.”
“That has been an unfortunate roadblock for us … for years,” Bynum said. “Now, that roadblock is gone.”
The first nonstop flight to the New York metro since United Airlines to Newark, New Jersey, in late 2014, it will carry passengers on an Embraer 170 aircraft. LaGuardia is American Airlines’ sixth nonstop added to the Tulsa network in the past three years.
Bynum singled out Jeff Stava, board member of the Tulsa Airports Improvement Trust, for being “obnoxiously focused” on broadening the city’s nonstop network.
“Not only is (New York) the financial…