I know, you were probably expecting me to talk about JetBlue finally confirming to the Wall Street Journal it will install a domestic First Class product onboard its non-Mint fleet. But really, what would I say? Sure, I like the idea. It gives more upsell opportunities and makes the airline more attractive to high-dollar travelers who don’t want to fly coach. But that’s about all I got right now.
Today, I want to talk about Europe instead, because this I find to be a really interesting turn. I realize that it’s a small part of the JetBlue network, but it’s one I’ve always criticized. I didn’t think that it was useful to spend all that time and effort to build a Europe franchise. But what’s done is done. JetBlue now has ETOPS, and it has a fleet of A321LRs that have the legs to cross the Pond with ease. So at this point, what is the best thing to do? I wouldn’t get rid of Europe, but I sure would rethink how I served it. That is exactly what JetBlue appears to have done in the last couple of years.
JetBlue has had quite the ride with its European service taking many twists and turns. It only started in 2021, and the airline had to fight for every slot it could get back then. But the plan back in 2021 looks a whole lot different than the plan today. This is highlighted even further by JetBlue’s latest route announcement that it will fly from Boston to both Edinburgh and Madrid.
In 2021, JetBlue launched with service to London/Heathrow from JFK in August. That was followed up by a Gatwick flight in September. Why both airports? It just couldn’t get the slots it wanted at Heathrow to do what it wanted. The next expansion came in summer 2022 with flights from Boston to both London airports.
In summer 2023, the airline launched JFK to Paris/CDG and Amsterdam along with Boston to Amsterdam just after summer. So let’s take a snapshot of what that network looked like at that point.
The key to the map above is that it shows year-round routes in solid lines with seasonal routes in dotted lines. But this doesn’t really tell the whole story. That solitary dotted line from Boston to Gatwick wasn’t really seasonal. The airline just pulled down in the weakest fall (late Sep through Oct) and darkest winter (post-holiday Jan through mid-Feb). It was just so bad during off-peak times that it had to be pulled down.
All of these routes were served 1x daily with the exception of JFK – Heathrow which went 2x daily in summer 2023. This is a business schedule, and it’s one that undoubtedly worked well at some times and poorly at others. It didn’t make much sense for an airline that was targeting the leisure market. Then again, JetBlue’s moves defied a coherent strategy time and time again under CEO Robin Hayes.
Changes began in earnest last summer, but in this coming summer — 2025 — the shift continues. And yes, please forgive the crowded lines in this map:
As you can see, nearly all of the lines are dotted now. The only flights that are currently operating during the winter season are 1x daily from both Boston and JFK to Paris/CDG, 1x daily from JFK to Amsterdam, 1x daily from Boston to Heathrow, and 2x daily from JFK to Heathrow.
Heathrow is one of those that you just have to fly or you’ll lose your slots. JetBlue has clearly determined that’s worth doing. And there is enough small business travel on a budget that would make those Mint fares attractive in darkest winter, or so JetBlue hopes. For Paris and Amsterdam, I assume it is again about holding slots, but beyond that, it’s about having some kind of presence in those cities year-round since they are big and important… or something like that.
But everything else? It’s all seasonal. Those Gatwick flights have done terribly, and JetBlue has now pulled out of the airport from JFK. It still has 1x daily from Boston in the summer only, but I bet if it could snag another Heathrow slot, it would walk away from Gatwick in a heartbeat.
Boston – Amsterdam flew through last winter, but it was apparently bad enough to get suspended for this winter. But it wasn’t so terrible to cancel entirely. It’ll return in late March.
The rest of the routes are all pure leisure. Last summer, JetBlue dipped its toes into this type of flying with Boston and JFK to Dublin alongside JFK to Edinburgh. This coming summer, it has now added Boston to both Edinburgh and Madrid to the list.
Delta also flies 1x daily in summer to Edinburgh, so now we’ll see if there’s room for two. My guess is JetBlue had good indicators from last summer at JFK and decided that more could be supported.
Madrid is a little more interesting. Iberia already flies the route, but nobody else does. Iberia did it 1x daily last summer, but it has as many as 2x daily during peak times this coming summer. That’s not a response to JetBlue but a previous plan. Still, it’s Spain and JetBlue thinks there’s room for more.
It’s probably right, but why not the never-ending pit of demand in Barcelona? I wonder if the extra 250 miles makes the difference. Yes, it’s about the same distance as JFK to Paris and Amsterdam, but maybe it’s that hot climate on the return that made the trip a little too daunting to try.
Either way, JetBlue looks a lot different in Europe next summer, and that’s a good thing. The natural question, of course, is where do you fly all these airplanes in winter if they aren’t going to Europe? We already know that answer.
JetBlue may not need the range of the LR for it, but these airplanes are doing a lot of Phoenix and Vegas this winter. It’s not the most optimized use of an airplane with long legs, but it’s the best way to make money with those airplanes when nobody wants to go to Europe anyway.
16 comments on “JetBlue Turns Europe from Business to Leisure in Two Short Years”
Probably not the next best opportunity, and there may be too much competition to make things worthwhile, but… Given the large number of Portuguese speakers & people with Portuguese/Brasilian ancestry in the Boston area (many with roots in Brasil & Cape Verde, but some with roots in Portugal, and Portugal still sees some tourism, not just VFR), I wonder if B6 may try routes from BOS to Portugal eventually.
In the same vain, is Italy too far for an XLR at least on a seasonal basis?
SEAN – They don’t have the XLR, just the LR, and it’s definitely too far for that. It’s probably also too far for an XLR.
According to Great Circle Mapper, the distance between JFK and Rome is 3717 nautical miles.
Oh, thanks. Are there winter locations that would work in South America that work with an LR from the northeast?
There’s near infinite demand for leisure travel these days, and there’s never enough capacity to Europe in summer.
B6 can fly to (almost) anywhere in Europe and make a tidy profit. They’ll be fine.
This all simply highlights that B6 has realized it can make flying to Europe in the summer; virtually anyone can. And B6 can get decent Mint revenue to a couple destinations on a year round basis – but with a very limited fleet.
The problem is what to do with a premium configured narrowbody outside of the summer with a network that is heavily leisure-oriented.
The 16 Mint/144 coach model can work on international but the 24 Mint/114 coach aircraft will struggle with high CASM on domestic flights. There are only a couple markets in the US that support a premium business configuration and very few coach. The CASM with 140 seats on an A321 is not much better, if at all, than an international configured widebody such as DL and UA use on a number of their transcon flights and AA to a lesser extent.
B6′ current leadership team is remaking the airline with their eyes wide open. It is a shame they had to be dragged through the dirt to be freed to do what most people could see was necessary but they are taking the necessary steps to rebuild B6.
JetBlue prior to Hayes leaving is a great example of what happens when mythology and culture gets the better of common sense. They were just doing too many things (like flying LGB) for no good reason. That reached its apogee in the insane purchase of Spirit. That never made a lick of sense. There simply isn’t room for another Spirit-sized wedge of JetBlue-type service in the US. Or, if there is, it’s one you’d only succeed in achieving after the spending of $billions in brutal competition with the rest of industry, $billions JetBlue didn’t have. American, Delta, United, Southwest – every single one would have done their best to beat the cr&p out of JetBlue had JetBlue tried to turn Spirit aircraft into more JetBlue service. It’s one thing to tolerate those aircraft flying Spirit passengers you don’t care about, it’s another for them to start carrying the kind of people who fly JetBlue.
It was also Hayes falling into the same trap that many other airlines have fallen into – believing the solution to what ails you is acquisition, rather than relentless focus on operations and network. Cutting a tenth of a cent of CASM here, adding a tenth of a cent of RASM there, improving your completion rate by a percent, your on-time performance by a percent, improving your loyalty program quarter after quarter, year after year, isn’t sexy, it makes you boring at parties, but that’s what makes the difference in the long run. All that wasted time on “strategic” efforts that could have been put towards improving JetBlue’s underlying business was time ill-spent by Robin Hayes.
What the new team is doing now feels a lot more grounded in reality. Alaska has shown that, by building on dominance of one or two geographies, an airline can do well. In their case it was the Pacific Northwest and Alaska. So to me, if JetBlue shows the same single-mindedness about the Northeast, there’s a decent shot they can create a sustainable business. I have never bought the notion they need to have a west coast presence, any more than I have bought the notion Alaska needs an east coast presence.
Honestly now that I think of it – an Alaska/Hawaiian merger with JetBlue may actually work out. East and West Coasts together is a good airline.
Jet Blue’s “single-mindedness” on exclusively flying people in and out of JFK and BOS is the reason that I have never flown Jet Blue as I have never had reason to travel to either city, but I have to admit using those airports as connections to Europe does make alot of sense and if they can build on what they have started they can be a strong competitor in trans-Atlantic travel and I wish them all the best. And if they ever do take a long-abandoned hub, someplace like MCI, STL, or MEM and build a domestic network from it I’m sure I’ll give them a try. But that probably won’t be in my lifetime, if ever.
I’ve always thought it’d be interesting if JetBlue tried mid-tier US east coast cities to its mid-tier partner(ish?) hubs in Europe (TAP/Lisbon, Icelandair/Keflavik, Aer Lingus/Dublin). They’re clearly not winning the New York to London battle (or other any other transatlantic major city to major city).
It would take more coordination with any of those partners than I believe they currently have, but I’d gamble that some stuff like RDU-LIS, CHS-DUB, BDL-KEF, etc. (if they hit a connecting bank on the European side) could actually do decently well. All of those cities are still at least 1 connection from most European cities already, so why not hop the pond on a route with no competition and still provide the same (if not better) connectivity than any of those Americans already have to Europe?
I was thinking the opposite. Go for US-Secondary Europe from JFK and BOS: MAN, BHX, LUX etc…maybe the Mint cabins are too premium for some of those markets but the competition would be negligible.
If those routes work, they make more sense for the partner airline to fly directly rather than having JetBlue involved.
For the international flights, you would generally want a pilot base at the origin, which for JetBlue would just be BOS, FLL, JFK, LAX, and MCO. You don’t want to have to fly a premium-heavy 321LR on JFK-CHS just to position a plane and crew for a CHS-DUB flight. The European airlines would have a pilot base on their end (at LIS, DUB, KEF), so are better positioned for the opportunity.
JetBlue also doesn’t have a joint venture with any of their European partners, which significantly limits how much coordination they can do. They can’t coordinate fares, and they can’t share revenue to share the benefit that each carrier receives from higher volumes of connecting traffic.
Aer Lingus is already doing this – no partner needed. They fly from DUB to CLE and BDL, and they are adding IND and BNA next year on their new A321XLR. Similarly, Icelandair already flies from KEF to RDU and PIT, and is adding KEF-BNA next year.
There is no real reason to partner with JetBlue unless they are bringing connecting traffic from flights within the US.
My guess is the Pyrénées mountain range lying just North of Barcelona makes the route longer to just be able to gain enough altitude and hop over it, so route would be longer.
A few decades ago, planes from Mexico City to Pacific resorts town were flying through mountain passes to get down to see level quicker, but not sure that would fly well with regulators anymore …
The Pyrenees are 50 miles from Barcelona. They aren’t that tall either, up to like 12,000 feet. They have zero effect on arrivals into Barca.
JetBlue’s European services are now starting to look like WestJet’s services from Canada to Europe. Keep a couple of key cities year-round, but most other places are seasonal – summer mostly. Sun Country famously does this with its seasonal service to tourist areas, yanking them in the summer but keeping some for the winter. Their map sometimes retracts a lot when their seasonal services end. But with the need to keep a presence in markets, many airlines continue year-round service only ramping up or ramping down the frequency, but at least keeping some presence even if it’s less than daily.