JetBlue is pulling completely out of seven cities and trimming 24 routes as it refocuses service in the Northeast. Is the future of JetBlue just a regional airline?
JetBlue Ends Service To 7 Cities
Determined to return to profitability, JetBlue is cutting service altogether to seven cities including some it has seved for nearly 20 years:
- Charlotte (CLT)
- Minneapolis-St. Paul (MSP)
- San Antonio (SAT)
- Hollywood-Burbank (BUR)
- Tallahassee (TLH)
- Palm Springs (PSP)
- Pointe-a-Pitre, Guadeloupe (PTP)
Maybe the Guadeloupe route cut makes sense due to tepid demand, but how can JetBlue expect to cut its way to growth? How can it build loyalty by eliminating service to major cities like Charlotte or Minneapolis?
I’m not a professional route planner and the key with aircraft utilization is not necessarily what is profitable and what is non-profitable, but what represents the best use of an aircraft. Even so, these route cuts are surprising.
Route Cuts
Route cutes include:
- Los Angeles (LAX) – Nassau, Bahamas (NAS) – ends September 7, 2024
- Boston (BOS) – Charlotte (CLT) – October 26, 2024
- Boston (BOS) – Minneapolis (MSP) – October 26, 2024
- Boston (BOS) – San Antonio (SAT) – October 26, 2024
- Newark (EWR) – Montego Bay, Jamaica (MBJ) – October 26, 2024
- Los Angeles (LAX) – Los Cabos, Mexico (SJD) – October 26, 2024
- Los Angeles (LAX) – Salt Lake City (SLC) – October 26, 2024
- New York (JFK) – Burbank (BUR) – October 26, 2024
- Raleigh-Durham (RDU) – Cancun, Mexico (CUN) – October 26, 2024
- Raleigh-Durham (RDU) – Orlando (MCO) – October 26, 2024
- Fort Lauderdale (FLL) – Tallahassee (TLH) – October 27, 2024
- Newark (EWR) – Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic (SDQ) – January 6, 2025
- Fort Lauderdale (FLL) – Guayaquil, Ecuador (GYE) – January 6, 2025
- Fort Lauderdale (FLL) – San Diego (SAN) – January 6, 2025
- New York (JFK) – Palm Springs (PSP) – will not resume this winter
- New York (JFK) – Palm Springs (PSP) – will not resume this winter
- New York (JFK) – Pointe-a-Pitre, Guadeloupe (PTP) – will not resume this winter
Route Suspensions
Furthermore, JetBlue will suspend the following routes:
- Boston (BOS) – Amsterdam (AMS)
- ends October 26, 2024
- resumes March 29, 2025
- Boston (BOS) – Milwaukee (MKE)
- ends October 26, 2024
- resumes April 30, 2025
- Boston (BOS) – Salt Lake City (SLC)
- ends October 27, 2024
- resumes June 12, 2025
- will operate during “peak winter periods”
- Buffalo (BUF) – Los Angeles (LAX)
- ends October 27, 2024
- resumes April 29, 2025
- will operate during “peak winter periods”
- New York (JFK) – Austin (AUS)
- ends October 27, 2024
- resumes April 30, 2025
- New York (JFK) – Seattle (SEA)
- ends October 27, 2024
- resumes April 30, 2025
It must be sobering that JetBlue has not been able to make a route like JFK-SEA work.
JetBlue Adds Northeast Routes
JetBlue plans to redeploy some of those aircraft to new routes focusing on travel between the Northeast and Florida. In addition to service from its hub in Boston, it will add service from nearby Providence, Rhode Island and Manchester, New Hamshire.
To/From: |
City: |
Frequency: |
Begins: |
Presque Isle, ME (PQI) |
Boston (BOS) |
1x daily, year-round |
9/5/2024 |
Providence, RI (PVD) |
Fort Myers (RSW) |
1x daily, winter seasonal |
10/27/2024 |
Providence, RI (PVD) |
Tampa (TPA) |
1x daily, winter seasonal |
10/27/2024 |
Providence, RI (PVD) |
San Juan, PR (SJU) |
1x daily, year-round |
10/28/2024 |
Portland, ME (PWM) |
Orlando (MCO) |
3x weekly, winter seasonal |
10/28/2024 |
Manchester, NH (MHT) |
Orlando (MCO) |
1x daily, year-round |
1/23/2025 |
Manchester, NH (MHT) |
Fort Myers (RSW) |
3x weekly, winter seasonal |
1/23/2025 |
Manchester, NH (MHT) |
Fort Lauderdale (FLL) |
4x weekly, winter seasonal |
1/24/2025 |
JetBlue will also add Mint (business class) service between Boston and Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport (PHX).
Playing The Long Game For An Alaska Airlines Merger?
I’m just speculating–perhaps hoping–but a JetBlue – Alaska Airlines merger still seems plausible to me in a few years. If JetBlue continues to develop its presence in the East, where Alaska is weakest, while Alaska continues to build up in the West, I see a merger possibility with a largely non-overlapping route network.
JetBlue and Alaska are not exactly siblings in terms of in-flight products, but I think there are synergies and potentially even a way for the two to become a better rival to the US legacy carriers.
CONCLUSION
JetBlue has announced its latest round of route cuts, including the total elimination of service to seven cities. Instead, JetBlue will focus more on the Northeast and Florida. As JetBlue searches for profitability, it is finding less routes outside its East Coast concentration.
image: JetBlue at Burbank (BUR)
Sad to see them exit BUR. And year round service from LAX is now limited to just JFK, BOS and FLL- quite a change from just a year ago.
So JetBlue is increasingly focused on Florida and Puerto Rico routes. All beach/leisure, highly seasonal, with tons of capacity and a lot of low yield. It is shrinking its operations further. Not a good sign. While American Airlines is not performing well, it stands to gain the most for the inevitable end of JetBlue as an independent airline and when that happens, look for AA and UA to divide up the spoils at JFK, BOS, and for United in particular, in Florida.
OK, living in the midwest (but often flying elsewhere), my longstanding issue with JetBlue is that they are too concentrated in the Noo Yawk and Boston markets. Well, their answer to this critique seems to be “ok, lets double down on Noo Yawk and trim elsewhere”. Cutting significant and growing markets from the system is stupid. That’s right, I said stupid. Because it is. The fewer options that you give travelers, the more likely they are to book elsewhere. This is part of what’s been happening at BOS; they’ve been trimming, DL smelled blood and the tide has shifted heavily. This is not a recipe for success.
It’s sad, because I’ve flown JetBlue (MKE-BOS) in this case) and my flights were fantastic, It was a very positive experience until I arrived at Logan Airport at 9 pm on a weeknight. Then it was hell, bus that’s a different story and not JetBlue’s fault. Still what are they thinking? Being the official airline of one market? A market that you’ll never serve thoroughly enough to be number 1 in?
At least AS is a regional airline and does a great job of that. They are super strong in the far west and have critican mass to make it. But JetBlue isn’t even regionjal. They are JFK and FLL (to a much lesser extent). You can’t make a living that way.
Blame Joe and the Ho for their hatred of capitalism. JetBlue had multiple plans ruined by their dreams of everyone having the same assets and income, except them of course.
And the cackling c#cksucker will only be worse if blacks and women vote against their own self interests.
The judge who ruled in favor of the US Government was a Reagan appointee, so kinda hard to see how his ruling was a hatred of capitalism. I think the judge got it wrong in terms of long-term competition and viability, but to say the decision was anti-capitalist is just wrong.
Uncle Joe and Kamala’s executive branch challenged the AA B6 agreement
@Dave is right. B6 had a great chance to grow …destroyed by communistic ideals. Prayers that this administration goes bye-bye.
Or perhaps they were destroyed by capitalism and poor management? That is they grew too fast, wasted resources on European flights, wasted time and resources on mergers that were absurd and clearly going to raise eyebrows, became notorious for canceled and delayed flights systemwide – alienating many of its loyal flyers, and finally formed a disjointed route network that relied on people choosing them over powerhouses like Delta in Boston and JFK?
We can only hope and pray that they GO AWAY!,,,,,..!!Let only informed voters VOTE!
Another Midwesterner here who has experienced Jetblue a couple of times and my experiences have been… mixed. Summary: anything that involves being on the plane, Jetblue is above average. Anything that does not involve being on the plane, Jetblue is below average.
See: extreme schedule changes, where I was offered alternative flights arriving 6 to 23 hours later than before. Not being able to change your flight on the app or the website and having to deal with a several-hour-long wait on the phone/IM chatroom in the middle of the night. The most restrictive and convoluted system for their “flight credits” when COVID hit in 2020. A change in the pricing structure for the flights so that one wasn’t able to buy a ticket that included baggage fees. Not being able to earn AA miles anymore because of the discontinuation of the NE Alliance.
Jetblue was fine for a short period of time. Then they steadily got worse and worse. I’m still a bit disappointed that they will be leaving my home airport but I’d be hesitant to give them another chance or pony up the cash to fly Mint.