With the success of JetBlue London flights, expansion to additional European destinations is inevitable, but targets are becoming clearer and seem a little odd.
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JetBlue London Flights
Despite a crowded New York-London market with British Airways and American Airlines the dominant player on the route, JetBlue has carved out a nice niche that its customers have loved. The two slot pairs to London Heathrow and Gatwick have filled nicely for the airline as it spreads its route network to Europe. JetBlue Airways has been more expensive than most carriers on the route from my research though Matthew found mixed results. Following this success, JetBlue wants to expand further into Europe.
Destination Announced, Another Rumored
JetBlue has announced it will add Paris to its route map. Matthew has some nice work on the route in the link above, but I’ll add that Matthew might have buried the lede with just how much traffic is operating between the New York metro and the Paris metro (more on that below.)
According to a job posting, JetBlue is now hiring an airport manager in Geneva, Switzerland. While the airline has not posted this as a new destination yet, it seems clear that if they are hiring someone to run airport operations at GVA, they intend to fly to and from the city.
Prestige Over Profit?
The announcement of the Paris flights was likely met with joy by enthusiastic JetBlue TrueBlue members, offering guests the chance to fly Mint studios across the Atlantic to a highly coveted European destination. The question as to whether New York needs more seats to Paris seems hardly the point. Air France has (6) frequencies on its own metal, another (2) on Delta metal, and another single flight from American. Those nine flights do not include three flights from Newark on United, French Bee, and La Compagnie.
La Compagnie is the only narrowbody on the market, an all-business class (lie flat) offering making it a total of over 600 daily seats to the French capital, is there demand for another 22 Mint suites (or 24 Mint Suites according to the marketing piece?) I have no doubt that JetBlue’s loyal members who swear by the product (it’s objectively good) will fill seats from JFK, reinforcing JetBlue management’s decision to start the route, but as the company expands further into Europe the carrier will have to begin making decisions based on whether more seats are needed on the route.
One could argue that the New York JFK-London Heathrow route didn’t need another 100 seats across the ocean but JetBlue has made that a success anyway. Its loyal base and Mint business class are likely reasons why the carrier has even made a success of London Gatwick routes, despite its less attractive positioning in London. In fairness, Gatwick is a 30-minute train ride away from central London just as Heathrow is so it’s not that actually less convenient, but still, Gatwick for many travelers in the US is an unknown. JetBlue still fills jets there regardless so perhaps it doesn’t need to be entirely attractive, or demand-based.
New York to London and Paris are prestige routes and while London has been profitable, it’s no question that growth beyond these will have to deliver real value to the carrier and its shareholders.
Future European Expansion
When I contemplated the repurposed Spirit fleet in a JetBlue merger, I put forward a number of European destinations, Paris first among them:
“Just a few more long-range planes could add Paris, Dublin, Amsterdam, Lisbon, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Manchester, and on the outskirts of that could be Madrid, Frankfurt, Munich, Copenhagen, Helsinki and others.”
Geneva didn’t make my list for the exact reason Gary Leff mentioned:
“I didn’t have Geneva on my JetBlue transatlantic route bingo card. Still may not happen, and timing contingent on when Airbus delivers A321XLRs. I don’t see how they make Geneva work in any case, to be honest. Swiss business class awards are generally pretty available on Geneva transatlantics, and American couldn’t make JFK – Zurich work (the corporate deals go to Star).”
Looking at Manchester, the city, at one point, had flights to the New York area from Delta, American, Virgin, Pakistan International and United; only Virgin remains today along with an Aer Lingus narrowbody A321 NEO. As a connection point, American also dropped Chicago, Charlotte, and Philadelphia routes, United dropped Chicago, and Delta dropped Detroit and Atlanta meaning that JetBlue has an opportunity in Manchester outside of O&D traffic but also with connecting passengers from across the network. Manchester has only grown since before the pandemic, so it’s perfect for a thin line and there’s real need.
Delta and United fly a 767 and TAP fly a pair of A321s (one each from JFK and Newark) to Lisbon. Delta and United both send a 767 to Dublin along with an Aer Lingus A330-300 to Dublin but that seems light for the line. These are both routes where JetBlue might be able to add meaningful seats to their customers and to searchers at the destination.
The question that JetBlue needs to ask itself and the market is whether there is a novelty (or loyalty) behind flying JetBlue to Europe that translates to any route the carrier offers, or will it have to be more strategic outside of London and Paris?
Conclusion
There are plenty of reasons to love JetBlue as a trans-Atlantic flyer. It offers the most generous legroom over the ocean in economy seats not including extra legroom or premium economy products, the Mint product is exceptional, and service has been reported as exemplary. Paris and London are easily additive to the loyal JetBlue customer but as JetBlue looks further for growth on the European continent will it find the same growth on routes that do not maintain the prestige? Will it start to fill in the gaps left behind by other carriers like Manchester, in a meaningful way that makes JetBlue not just an American airline with some prestige routes but a true international option with loyalists across the pond as well?
What do you think?
I wondered if they might do some more niche wealthy leisure destinations like Nice, Palma, Milan, Dubrovnik. Felt like every wealthy person I know was flying through these airports this summer. The concept seems to work in the winter for Barbados, Grenada, etc.
Curious how you measure success? Nearly every NYC-LON flight goes out full at the moment which has more to do with LHR capacity meltdowns and pent up demand. I do think there’s a place for jetblue but the number of routes that can survive on origin-distination seems limited. Without competitive lounge offering if I’m connecting to another destination there is zero chance I’ll select jetblue (even if they can figure out code shares). Eventually they’ll likely need to pay pound of flesh and join AA-BA JV and that’ll be beginning of the end for differentiated product.
You have no idea if JetBlue’s London flights are a success. I’ve looked at the t100 traffic reports and let’s just say loads aren’t good/ middling at best. No clue what type of fare they’re getting, but at those loads the fare better be high to offset the high costs of transatlantic operations. I’m not confident that they are. I’d like to be proven wrong but time will tell. For now, though, not sure how you can claim these tours are a success when you don’t have access to fare information, and don’t even do a rudimentary reference to publicly available traffic data.
@Jason – There are a few ways to surmise the success of a route on a publicly traded airline: further investment, price respective to competitors, and travel agent available data like Expert Flyer.
They are expanding further and have been clear London has been a success, their price remains competitive if not higher than competitors (I linked to that) and low available seat count on EF in my searches, while random, would corroborate as well.
Feel free to share your contradictory intelligence.
What odd comments on accessibility to LHR vs LGW! First, LGW is nowhere near the Underground network, with Morden, the better part of 20 miles away, being the closest stop. Second, LHR will certainly have got a boost from the Elizabeth Line, which serves far more points in London than Thameslink or Gatwick Express.
@Adam – As mentioned in another reply, last week in London, Gatwick made an Underground map but upon further inspection, it was just Gatwick Express. That said, Heathrow Connect (if it’s still around) and the Elizabeth line both take about 30 minutes to get to Paddington, Gatwick Express the same to Victoria. Elizabeth line would have an advantage due to cost, but not a dramatic difference and no time advantage at all.
@Kyle. Thanks for the reply. Heathrow Connect has now gone but the Elizabeth Line does significantly reduce journey times – changing between lines at Paddington is not a pleasant or easy experience! Indeed, in transport economic terms, even Heathrow Express is likely to suffer; many pax will prefer a slower through journey than having to change at Paddington.
Gatwick is not unknown in the US. Delta, northwest, American, etc flew there for the better part of 30 years, so it is likely that millions of Americans over the years landed there. BA has also maintained a sizeable Gatwick presence. Also, the London Underground/ tube does not go to Gatwick. Finally, what does this sentence even mean? You mention something about La Compagnie( you should check the spelling as you spelled it wrong both times) does not have 600 seats a day to Paris. Redo that paragraph. Overall a sloppy piece.
@Jason – First of all, it’s always great to meet a fan. I flew Northwest from Gatwick 20 years ago, but if you ask the average flyer about flying to London, even reasonably experienced US flyers, Gatwick never crosses their lips – it’s Heathrow every time. American Airlines last flew to Gatwick nearly 15 years ago, and Northwest merged with Delta the same year. If you’re using Northwest as a reason the airport is relevant today, it’s probably not my flaw.
I was mistaken regarding the Gatwick Express as it shows on a London Underground map (it did last weekend when I was in the city) but upon closer inspection, it is referring to the rail service and not the Tube. The time is correct, however, just 30 minutes and this remains as competitive as Heathrow in terms of journey time to Zone 1 so that remains unchanged.
With regard to La Compagnie, I said: “Those nine flights [JFK departures] do not include three flights from Newark on United, French Bee, and La Compagnie.
La Compagnie is the only narrowbody on the market, an all-business class (lie flat) offering making it a total of over 600 daily seats to the French capital, is there demand for another 22 Mint suites (or 24 Mint Suites according to the marketing piece?)” What’s not clear about the total of the market and not just La Compagnie making it 600 business class seats? I just mentioned nine JFK flights, two others at EWR plus a narrowbody (should have been clear right there) for La Compagnie.
Can someone explain the attraction to JetBlue? To me, a born-bred-and-resident Chicagoan, it just seems like another Noo Yawk thing that the rest of the country is supposed to get but really doesn’t. In fact, since a great deal of the country hates New York (including me; how dare you say you have the best pizza?), that might explain the fact that JetBlue hasn’t expanded successfully anywhere other than Boston and Fort Lauderdale, where New Yorkers go to die. What’s so damn great about Mint that it’s better than other business class or first class offerings from US-based airlines? I really don’t get it.
I flew JetBlue once, ORD – JFK, as an experiment to see what was better in terms of getting to places in the New York metro and Long Island. Experiment failed. The flight was nothing special, and JFK was annoying to get out of, and I switched to MY hometown airline, United, to LGA. And considering how atrocious LGA is, that really says something about JFK.
To those of us in America outside of the NY media bubble and general attitude, JetBlue is a minor airline and undeserving of the constant coverage it receives from the avgeek blogosphere. Get more than two gates at O’Hare and maybe we here in Flyover (and Fly Into) Country will care.
@O’Hare – I can shed some light on this, but can’t speak for the undying loyalists. When you look at what United, American, and Delta were flying from JFK/BOS to the west coast, JetBlue was such a great leap above and beyond what was available on the market and they often priced it lower than the bigs. The carrier continued to offer live TV as United (from Continental) phased it out and AA/DL started to remove IFE from planes (Delta has since put it back onboard.) They also offer more space in the back without paying more, and FlyFi internet was the only offered at the time to be fast enough to stream.
That’s just a better product if it suits your market which, of course, it doesn’t from Chicago. I’m in the same boat at PIT, but if I was based in NYC or Boston and only flew to big cities, it would be hard to fly anything else I’d imagine.
American operated JFK-ZRH continuously from 1987 to 2015. It shifted the route to Philadelphia when it lost what was its biggest corporate contract in the market: Credit Suisse. It could not compete on product, running outdated 763s on the route.
JetBlue is at best, a niche player on the TATL market. The airline is an operational basket case and pretty much always has been, and thus doesn’t really reach far into corporate clients. a handful of flights to LHR, LGW, and soon, CDG do help the network benefit, but without lounges on either end and an abysmal on time performance across the board, it is highly unlikely B6 will ever do much more than nip at the heels of AA/BA and DL/VS, or UA.
GVA is an interesting choice, and for JetBlue, a gamble. And a big one. GVA Airport has a very significant catchment area, and a wealthy one at that, between Switzerland and France, but the NY-GVA market is about to get saturated with DL jumping in. DL has the advantage of a strong sales network in Europe generally and the strength of the AF alliance. LX and UA have the market to themselves and much of the corporate business that flies to GVA flies LX.
GVA may not be a bad jumping off spot to visit other places in Central Europe. With excellent rail options I could see it working and as access point to French Alps in winter…Just not sure about a daily flight though.
The average JetBlue customer probably isn’t headed to the French Alps.
What happened to the Spirit 500 points Cyber Monday post?
JetBlue bought it and merged it with this article.
B6 cannot just rely on North American PAX.
It needs to pull in the Brits and French seeking a holiday in the US and deliver a quality experience with connections via BOS & JFK. Advertising, visiting travel agents and Euro travel shows can garner PAX to equal out holiday run ups and lulls. Take note Harvard MBAs, this is something that is nurtured over time, not developed overnight.
My concern is the NK consolidation. This could divert attention and resources from Euro development.