JetBlue Airways is adding new service out of New York City and Philadelphia airports in what may be a sign of some recovery in the air travel sector. In a Thursday morning announcement, the Long Island City-based carrier shared that it would open up 30 new routes from airports in the tri-state and Philadelphia areas.
The widening service comes in stark contrast to a barrage of news from the airline industry in the last several months detailing widespread layoffs and route cutbacks. But with travelers cautiously now returning to the skies, JetBlue appears to be cautiously expanding service to meet that demand.
Among the new routes, the most salacious for travelers may be new transcontinental service that the carrier is adding between Newark, New Jersey and Los Angeles and San Francisco, California. Until recently, JetBlue, a carrier with a hub at John F. Kennedy airport on Long Island, has only offered limited service out of Newark, an airport far on the other side of the greater New York City service area. Newark, for its part, is a major hub for Chicago-based United Airlines, which controls most of the gates at that airport.
Until recently, most frequent travelers flying across the country automatically went to JFK for service on JetBlue (or American or Delta) while those on United went to Newark. With JetBlue’s new routes in play, however, there’s more diversity in the schedule.
Part of the excitement also revolves around JetBlue’s equipment operating on the new Newark-California routes. Each JetBlue flight assigned to that new route will be operated with an Airbus A321 equipped with Mint, JetBlue’s lauded business class product that includes lie-flat seats and premium meal service. Among other carriers flying between California and Los Angeles, Mint competes extremely well, perhaps matched only by American’s three-class A321T service that offers lie flat seats in Business and First.
Beyond the new Mint routes between Newark and California, JetBlue is also starting a few entirely new routes to soak up demand. Starting on this month, JetBlue will operate daily flights between Newark and Charleston, South Carolina and Jacksonville, Florida. Twice-daily service will also commence between JFK and Dallas, Texas and Detroit, Michigan.
In addition, some destinations put on hold due to the coronavirus pandemic including Aguadilla, Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket will reopen.
Later in the summer, JetBlue will continue opening new routes from JFK, Newark, LaGuardia and Philadelphia to destinations primarily served by the leisure market.
To open up all of the routes, JetBlue will pull several of its aircraft parked during the coronavirus out of storage. The carrier follows most legacy airlines in returning some mothballed aircraft to the sky following an uptick in demand; according to TSA data, passenger volumes are back at around 20% of year-over-year volume following a drop to around 5%. Adara data suggest that a disproportionate volume of that recovered traffic is from the leisure segment.
JetBlue’s initial route openings from Newark and JFK will go into effect on June 13th, while later routes will open on a rolling basis from August 6th through October 1st. A full list of routes and openings have been posted as part of JetBlue’s announcement.
