I’ve talked about how JetBlue has been making a push to replace Spirit in Fort Lauderdale and become a clear number one in the market, but this is much bigger than that. For the first time, it looks like JetBlue is trying to create a real hub for itself. Connecting the US to the Caribbean is bound to be good business, and JetBlue is going for it.
Since it first started flying, JetBlue has never had much interest in connections. Oh sure, there are pockets of connecting benefits — like on European flying, for example — but that has always been a tiny part of the airline’s network. Don’t believe me? Look at this:
% of Domestic Passengers Flying Nonstop on JetBlue by Year
US DOT OD Survey data via Cirium
I know what you’re thinking… maybe international changes this. I can’t publish international data, but I can tell you that it lowers this percentage only very, very slightly. JetBlue does not like to connect people… or it didn’t before now.
The airline has quietly been building a four-bank hub in Fort Lauderdale for this summer. The bank structure looks to have just started flying recently, so it has been hiding in plain sight. It’s just that I only stumbled upon it recently when looking at data for a presentation I’m doing on JetBlue for an investment bank.
Let’s start by looking at last summer to see what JetBlue looked like then in Fort Lauderdale.
JetBlue FLL Departures by Hour – July 14, 2025
Schedule date via Cirium
This is not a hub. As you can see, there’s no hour with more than 10 departures or arrivals. Sure, there are waves of morning and evening departures but that is built for the local market. Now take a look at this year:
JetBlue FLL Departures by Hour – July 13, 2026
Schedule date via Cirium
Look! Banks! There is now an early morning arrival bank that connects to a mid-morning outbound. As soon as that’s gone, another bank comes in and departs on a big mid-day bank. Then we have the mid-afternoon arrivals that turn to early evening departures and finally the evening arrival bank that turns to a late evening bank.
I struggled with the right way to show this, so I turned to my good friend/AI overlord Claude to help. And Claude suggested looking at this as a function of how many airplanes are on the ground at any one time. It’s not perfect since there’s no guarantee that a plane turns on itself, but it shows pretty clearly what’s happening here.
JetBlue FLL Aircraft on the Ground by Time
Schedule date via Cirium
Cool way to look at it, right? Thanks, Claude. You can see the very clear bank structure with this illustration… and the complete lack of one last summer.
The point is FLL is a great hub for reaching into Latin America. Spirit knew it, and JetBlue certainly did too. But with Spirit in the market, it wasn’t going to be as easy to make this work. Now that Spirit is gone, JetBlue can come in with fares that might actually make the airline a profit.
To do this, of course, it has to turbocharge the hub by adding destinations and frequencies. It has most certainly done that. Look at this July vs last.
Maps generated by the Great Circle Mapper® – copyright © Karl L. Swartz.
JetBlue hasn’t waited for Spirit to go away, but it waited until it was pretty clear that Spirit was going to actually go away. The build-up since last fall has been significant. There are a lot more cities with flights to Fort Lauderdale, especially from the Midwest, the South, and the Caribbean. And then there’s been more frequency added to existing routes.
Note that this doesn’t even include the already-announced fall growth which includes new service to Baranquilla and Cali in Colombia alongside Columbus and Indianapolis. That alone shows the nice balance of cities that can be added when hub economics start flowing.
If I’m JetBlue, this is by far the most exciting thing I have going. And yes, it does mean having to pull down flying elsewhere. Just this weekend, JetBlue pulled some capacity out of Newark, exited Manchester, and trimmed some Orlando and San Juan. There is going to have to be more coming, but these look like the right place to start.
JetBlue is doing everything right as it tries to build this market. It took long enough, but JetBlue is finally on the cusp of having a dominant position in a hub that it can defend.
