As it seeks a return to profitability, JetBlue is retreating from Los Angeles and also suspending nearly half of its service to South America.
JetBlue Cuts Service To Eight Cities From Los Angeles
In a memo to employees reviewed by Live And Let’s Fly, Dave Jehn, JetBlue’s Vice President of Network Planning + Airline Partnerships argues that “it’s more important than ever that we are surgical about every route in our network, especially as court decisions around the Northeast Alliance and Spirit have impacted our ability to grow.”
Pursuant to that aim, JetBlue is cutting the following routes from Los Angeles (LAX):
- Cancún (CUN)
- Las Vegas (LAS)
- Liberia (LIR)
- Miami (MIA)
- Puerto Vallarta (PVR)
- Reno (RNO)
- San Francisco (SFO)
- Seattle (SEA)
Here is how JetBlue explains it:
We had hoped to increase our relevance in LAX by combining with Spirit to better compete with the big legacy carriers. Without Spirit, and without aircraft time and gates available to grow organically, we need to refocus. We have decided to scale back our flying in LAX from about 34 to 24 flights per day, focusing on transcontinental and Mint routes while ending a number of intra-west and international markets that have underperformed in this very crowded market.
“Very crowded” is key. LA has no clear dominant hub. Alaska, American, Delta, and United are all strong and JetBlue faced stiff competition on every one of these routes.
For this LA-based flyer, that is bad news. JetBlue’s departure will likely push fares up and I always enjoy flying JetBlue (free wi-fi and extra legroom). While the cuts are understandable, especially as JetBlue is not profitable, it still seems to me that if JetBlue wants to attract more Southern California customers on its coast-to-coast flights, it needs to offer service to other big cities as well (or at least start partnering with American Airlines again now that the Spirit Airlines merger is dead).
JetBlue South America Cuts
JetBlue will also eliminate three routes to South America effective June 13, 2024:
- Bogotá, Colombia (BOG)
- Lima, Peru (LIM)
- Quito, Ecuador (UIO)
It will still serve:
- Cartagena, Colombia (CTG)
- Guayaquil, Ecuador (GYE)
- Georgetown, Guyana (GEO)
- Medellin, Colombia (MDE)
Plans to proceed further south to Brazil remain stalled.
Per Jehn’s memo:
“While we always hate to see a market come off our route map…[t]hese markets are unprofitable and our aircraft time can be better utilized elsewhere.”
CONCLUSION
JetBlue is struggling. It therefore makes sense that it would put a stop to unprofitable routes, especially if there are better viable alternatives those aircraft could be utilized on. As much as I would like to see more West Coast flying on JetBlue and a more diverse route structure, I recognize that given the current market realities that won’t happen. As for what is next, we will wait and see. Again, per Jehn:
Our “bread and butter” routes serve customers up and down the East Coast, to Caribbean vacation and VFR destinations, and on long-haul, cross-country flights.
We can certainly expect more of that in the weeks to come…
So sad. They used to be a powerhouse at Long Beach then a medium sized player at LAX. It is possible they will be a Tower Air or Braniff eventually.
JetBlue was not a medium sized player at LAX. They are currently running 34 daily flights, and that will go down to 24 post cuts (and I suspect more cuts are going to follow, with just BOS, JFK, FLL left in the long run). Many of B6’s LAX routes made no sense, like SFO, LAS.
They never got the gates they needed when the opted (foolishly) to move from LGB to LAX and B6 just isn’t a West Coast carrier.
@derek … perhaps they have “the blues” ?
Agree with derek. I, for one, love LGB and avoid LAX at all costs. I don’t think I’m the only one. Southwest expanded at LGB after JetBlue left and seems to be doing quite well. It is ironic that JetBlue moved from LGB to LAX because they wanted to expand and Long Beach locals wanted to limit their growth.
I too prefer LGB to both LAX and SNA (and not just because Long Beach is my actual destination when I come to SoCal 3-5 times a month. Unfortunately, WN’s pricing on routes into LGB is so high that, for the price of a WN ticket that allows boarding early enough to not risk a middle seat, I can fly into LAX or SNA on UA in F and earn miles useful for award travel to places I’d actually like to go, like Europe and Asia. I wish WN had some real competition at LGB.
Long Beach was the crown jewel on the west coast. It was the differentiator for JetBlue. Boutique airport with a lot of perks for flyers. They did well for decades in LGB, but when they hit headwinds they started to cut frequencies to important destinations (SEA, PDX, SLC, etc) and tried tinkering around with Anchorage, Bozeman, etc) and moving things around— it caused regular flyers (like biz travelers) to get annoyed and moved to other airlines and airports. They moved to LAX and and Southwest moved in AND grew LGB in many of the the same markets B6 left. WN made it work with consistent and regular schedules and destinations. Long Beach and OC travelers refused to go to LAX for B6.
We loved JetBlue in Long Beach—- this is a sad end but not surprising.
You are correct! Very good point.
Southwest understands California-based flyers. jetBlue does not. jetBlue is basically only relevant to originating traffic along the Eastern Seaboard and Florida. Years ago there was another airline with strength similar to jetBlue. It was called Eastern.
“LA has no clear domiant hub”.
@Matthew, you are clearly wealthy and intelligent enough to afford spell-check software (most of them are free) or hire a proofreader. Every other article you write is filled with typos and grammatical errors. Some of them are egregious enough to the point where it actually confuses the meaning of your writing. I appreciate the high volume of content you put out every day. But please, focus more quality over quantity.
Spell check and Grammarly did not pick it up. Not sure why.
LAX is a fragmented and hyper competitive market. It is difficult for East-coast based Jetblue to earn money for non hub-connected routes. Especially, some routes jetblue only have one daily while other airlines offer 4 or more.
So they left their niche captive market in LGB because they couldn’t get a CBP facility there, only to move into hyper-competitive LAX just to drop nearly all international flying anyway and trash yields. The strategic blunders made under Hayes know no bounds.