JetBlue Bucks Pandemic With New Flights From NYC, Newark
JetBlue Bucks Pandemic With New Leisure Flights From NYC, Newark
(Bloomberg) -- JetBlue Airways Corp. will add 30 new domestic routes, restart some suspended flights and extend its premium Mint service to Newark, New Jersey, in a bet on recovery after a collapse in travel demand.
The new routes, which are concentrated in the New York area but also include Florida and Philadelphia, are geared toward “small signs” of a rebound in leisure travel, JetBlue said in a statement Thursday. The additions and the restoration of suspended routes in July and August mean the airline will operate more than half its typical summer capacity.
JetBlue’s decision to open new routes goes further than the capacity increases at other U.S. carriers, which are using a modest rebound in travel to restore flights they suspended earlier this year as the Covid-19 pandemic all but erased demand. JetBlue is also expanding Mint service to Newark, the premium offering’s 16th city, even though business demand remains hindered by corporate travel restrictions.
“As we’ve seen demand come back, the speed with which it returned surprised us, particularly in leisure markets and particularly in the last three to three and a half weeks,” Scott Laurence, JetBlue’s head of revenue and planning, said in an interview.
JetBlue is watching demand carefully since it’s been so volatile -- and as virus hospitalizations rise in some areas.
“This crisis doesn’t conform to anything else we’ve historically experienced, so we don’t have a safety blanket of data to fall back on,” Laurence said.
Revenue Opportunities
JetBlue fell less than 1% to $11.87 at 1:45 p.m. in New York. The shares dropped 36% this year through Wednesday, while a Standard & Poor’s index of nine U.S. carriers tumbled 44%.
The New York-based airline largely selected cities where it saw demand gains but no return of service by larger competitors, Laurence said. That created an unusual opportunity to move quickly and generate revenue. JetBlue has considered adding Newark service for some time, and saw a chance now to stimulate sales by offering lower fares, he said.
Demand on transcontinental service has remained relatively strong during the pandemic, and those were among the first routes where JetBlue restored capacity, he said.
The new routes will be phased in between July and October, and become available for purchase on June 19. The airline also will resume flying some aircraft that had been parked when demand declined, but hasn’t determined the number, Laurence said. Between restoring and starting flights, it could reduce the number parked by as much as two-thirds from a peak of about 175 planes.
In addition to Mint flights from Newark to Los Angeles and San Francisco, new destinations from the New Jersey airport include Las Vegas, Phoenix and San Diego, as well as Charleston, South Carolina, and Jacksonville, Florida.
JetBlue also will add service connecting New York’s John F. Kennedy International with Dallas-Fort Worth, Detroit and Minneapolis-St. Paul. The airline is establishing new flights at multiple Florida airports.
The carrier is reopening nine temporarily closed cities and several summer destinations early next month. That list includes airports in Chicago and Houston, as well as Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket in Massachusetts.
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