JetBlue Makes Its Move in Fort Lauderdale

Sep 18, 2025

More Reading on This Topic: JetBlue

There is no market more interesting than Fort Lauderdale right now — or will be depending upon what happens with Spirit — and JetBlue is doing what it can to seize the moment. With Spirit hanging on for dear life, it’s a chess match as airlines look to figure out what they might be able to do there in the future.

To really understand what’s going on, we have to take a look at the situation today (and as planned in the future). So, here is FLL in all its current and future glory.

There are currently four terminals with seven concourses that run from the top right to the bottom left in the map above. Terminal 5 with five new gates is being built at the bottom middle of the image for JetBlue.

In Terminal 1, Southwest was building its empire in both the A and B gates. It has now shrunk back as it relocated its Caribbean hub to Orlando, and it now uses seven gates in the central B concourse. (Yes, it uses A1, but that should really be a B gate based on location.)

The old A gates are now occupied by cats and dogs. There’s Alaska and its one daily flight along with Avianca, Caribbean, and Copa all bumming around. And then there’s Frontier which looks like it uses one gate full-time and then uses other A gates as needed. In other words, it’s not relevant. Since this is South Florida, there are probably a few DC-3s and MD-80s on airlines you’ve never heard of that may or may not occasionally use this terminal too. I’m kidding. Sort of.

The C concourse has United using somewhere between four and five gates these days, and then there’s Allegiant with a mere two gates and a couple of common-use gates that it looks like United and Allegiant both may use at various times. Allegiant seems like it should be bigger there, but it is not. Perhaps it seems bigger because when JetBlue was going to buy Spirit, it was going to give its five new gates in Terminal 5 to Allegiant as a concession to the feds.

Terminal 2 and its D gates are primarily the domain of Delta. It has seven gates there, though Air Canada has two gates and WestJet uses Delta space.

Terminal 3 at the west end has American with four gates alongside cats and dogs Avelo, Flair, Porter, and Sun Country at the end of the E concourse. But the main tenant is JetBlue which uses 11 gates in the terminal. JetBlue also has dibs on four gates in the Terminal 4 G gates, and it was named as the primary tenant in the five new gates in Terminal 5 which should open next year.

The last four gates in Terminal 3 are Spirit’s, alongside eight that it uses in Terminal 4’s G gates. The last couple gates in G are for the cats and dogs like Azul and El Al.

Why don’t Spirit and JetBlue just swap the G and F gates so they are all in one place? I assume it’s because customs is in Terminal 4 but not in Terminal 3. Good times.

There is some gate space available now that Southwest has backed off, but it’s tight. But if Spirit were to go away, the question is… who would move in and take over that space?

I had wondered if United would be interested, but as I understand it, United would want a whole lot more gates than it could get its hands on. It doesn’t seem willing to lose money while it tries to build a hub, or at least that’s what it says. This could, of course, be a head fake.

Allegiant and Frontier might be interested as well, but nobody is showing as much love for FLL these days as JetBlue.

JetBlue’s Moves

Even if Spirit continues to fly, JetBlue will have those five new gates coming on. It recently added nine new destinations and increased capacity on nine more. Here’s that rundown:

NEW

Aruba – 3x weekly
Cali (Colombia) – frequency unknown
Cartagena (Colombia) – 4x weekly
Grand Cayman – 3x weekly
Liberia (Costa Rica) – 1x daily
New Orleans – 2x daily
Pittsburgh – 1x daily
St Maarten – 4x weekly
San Pedro Sula (Honduras) – 4x weekly

INCREASE

Atlanta – add 2x daily
Boston – add 1x daily
Cancún – add 5x weekly
Hartford – add 3x weekly
Kingston – add 3x weekly
Punta Cana – add 3x weekly
San Jose (Costa Rica) – add 1x daily
San Juan – add 1x daily
Santiago (DR) – will now fly 1x daily year-round

This is all on top fo the last announcement from July when it added Atlanta, Austin, Norfolk, and Tampa in the first place. It also added an extra daily then to Las Vegas, LA, Phoenix, Raleigh/Durham, and Richmond.

In other words, JetBlue is trying to become the dominant player in Fort Lauderdale, and it’s making some real progress in positioning itself if Spirit were to go under. Not all competitors have schedules filed for March and beyond, but in Jan/Feb of 2026, JetBlue is north of 23 percent of departing seats. In Jan/Feb 2025, it was closer to 18 percent.

I’ll bring in this chart from a recent Cranky Network Weekly to show what JetBlue has done at a higher level.

Before the pandemic, JetBlue served a lot of destinations with a decent number of seats. It was a big Embraer 190 hub for the airline. With the pandemic, JetBlue pulled back. It also upgauged so seats didn’t fall nearly as much. In fact, seats per departure went from about 140 to 160. But now, the growth begins. The airline now has fewer destinations than it had before the pandemic, but it has a lot more seats. It is looking to have the frequency to become more of a carrier of choice in the area.

This is an investment. If Spirit survives, perhaps this ends up not working out. But if Spirit goes, then JetBlue will be well-positioned to keep growing even more.

Brett

5 responses to “JetBlue Makes Its Move in Fort Lauderdale”

Paper Boarding Pass

Sep 18, 2025 at 5:37 am

JetBlue wants to protect its southern flank via beefing up FLL. However, items to consider:
– B6 flights out of FLL have a north/south bias. Yes, it does serve LAS, LAX, MSY, PHX, & SFO. However, it needs a few more west & mid-west destinations to fortify its 3rd most important airport.
– There is an existing lounge in T3 (Escape Lounge). From what I understand, it’s affiliated with American Express, but open to the public for a flat fee. Either B6 buys out the lounge or opens one in T4. Part of its program to move up the food chain of airlines.
– What’s handicapping UA is the number of gates and immigration at T1. Terminal T4 is the major immigration station at FLL. Mr Kirby does not want to spend the money to upgrade or move to T4.
– B6 needs to move quickly or the other ULCC carriers will absorb the surplus. Breeze has proven itself to move its footprint at a moment’s notice. Allegiant & Frontier also smell blood in the water. Also, nothing prevents the Big Four from syphoning off PAX as well.
– Long term, B6 needs to join Star with UA’s blessing as UA is a founding member with veto power. B6 could act as the transfer agent for Latin American service. Also, FLL has no Euro service, just EL AL for the Middle East. Could invite a Euro Star carrier to touch base at FLL and let B6 handle the domestic leg.

This is three dimensional chess. B6 needs both tactical and strategic planning to prosper and stay relevant at FLL.

Reply
1. SEAN
  
  Sep 18, 2025 at 6:14 am
  
  The way things are going with Spirit right now would indicate that they are about to file chapter 7 very soon & Fronteer isn’t far behind. This could be a big win for JetBlue if they pick up additional 320’s & use them for new destinations that are suitable for FLL flyers. Also, you are correct joining Star would be a huge boost for them.
  
  Reply
Tim Dunn

Sep 18, 2025 at 6:04 am

good for B6 for building on their position at FLL. FLL is a good market for narrowbody service into S. America and can support more service to the Caribbean and Central America – but not when two carriers are trying to knock the other out of the market.

The narrowbody LCC/ULCC model works at FLL even though there is clearly too much capacity given how financially poorly so many airlines that have/have had large operations there. The economics of expanded legacy carrier service esp. with higher fares are questionable.

The terminal situation is not conducive to much growth by anyone; FLL’s terminals look like LAX but are even harder to connect (and aren’t in most cases). Moving other airlines out of the primary tenant’s terminal is possible but won’t happen quickly. B6 has the best chance of growing its operation even if it ends up being spread over a lot of real estate for the near term.

Reply
1. SEAN
  
  Sep 18, 2025 at 6:39 am
  
  “The terminal situation is not conducive to much growth by anyone; FLL’s terminals look like LAX but are even harder to connect (and aren’t in most cases). Moving other airlines out of the primary tenant’s terminal is possible but won’t happen quickly. B6 has the best chance of growing its operation even if it ends up being spread over a lot of real estate for the near term.”
  
  Correct me if I’m wrong, but FLL wasn’t really designed for connecting traffic that we see today. That didn’t take off until the 1990’s when the ULCCs grew like weeds & wanted secondary airports like FLL as they were cheaper to fly into.
  
  As a side note, I remember when FLL was renovated in the mid 1980’s & the internal design reminded me of a Haagen Dazs that was in Mamaroneck NY for decades. Same red brick tiles on the walls, metallic ceilings & recessed canned light fixtures with fluorescent lighting in the trim. A very distinctive look at the time.
  
  Reply
emac

Sep 18, 2025 at 7:31 am

Kirby says United needs 35-40 gates to make a hub (FLL) work. So 4-5 of its own plus 12 from NK if it grabs them all, maybe it can push its way to another couple to get to 20. Who knows how many would be widebody for EU and South America flights. (For reference, UA has about 18 at LAX, its smallest hub. DL, who elbowed their way into another corner-of-the-country hub, has about 21 in BOS.) JetBlue’s will soon have 20 at FLL, everyone else has 20-30, 70-ish total.

Meanwhile MIA has 130 gates (!!!), AA has something like 70 of them.

So could UA make a FLL hub work if they could win the NK gates instead of B6 or F9? Maybe. But it would start small, and you have to imagine that AA down in MIA would do everything they could to mess with UA.

Reply