JetBlue has announced that it will suspend flights from popular U.S. cities until further notice, including several routes from New York’s John F. Kennedy Airport.
Travelers hoping to take flights from JFK Airport to Austin, Texas, Houston, or Miami, Florida should note that JetBlue Airways told staff Wednesday that those routes will be discontinued in 2025, according to CNBC. As a result, I was told that I needed to reconsider my travel plans.
Routes across the U.S. that major airlines have discontinued include flights from Westchester, New York, to Charleston, South Carolina, and from Jacksonville to Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
The airline is closing all flights out of San Jose and discontinuing its Mint business class service on flights to Seattle.
For those looking to use the airline to fly across the Atlantic from JFK, the airline announced it would eliminate flights between the Big Apple and London’s Gatwick. A second JFK-Paris flight is also scheduled to be canceled, CNBC reports.
The changes were announced as JetBlue’s latest efforts to return to consistent profitability and reduce costs.
“Recently, we have been able to adjust our network in certain markets, remove some underperforming flights from the schedule, and redeploy resources, including our popular Mint service, to high-demand markets and new opportunities. ,” JetBlue said in a statement to CNBC.
The announcement comes after JetBlue said its revenue and bookings for November and December beat expectations, sending its stock price soaring more than 8% on Wednesday.
But the company said it has faced profitability issues in Florida since the end of the coronavirus pandemic.
“Florida remains a strong geography for JetBlue, but since COVID-19, the company has not been profitable due to the dominance of legacy airlines such as American Airlines and Delta Air Lines in Miami. “We don’t have that,” said Dave Jenn, JetBlue’s vice president of network planning and airline partnerships. Outlet.
JetBlue also said that ending JFK-Miami service would create overstaffing in Miami, so it is collaborating on options such as relocating crew members to other cities it serves.
JetBlue CEO Joanna Geraghty and her team are focused on cutting costs and weeding out unprofitable routes, Jen said.
However, the airline said it will continue to offer flights from Miami to Boston.
The company said travelers affected by the upcoming changes may choose alternative flight options or receive a refund if other routes are not available.
The announcement of the jet’s permanent cancellation and rerouting comes as the airline and industry officials grapple with Pratt & Whitney’s engine outage.
RTX, Pratt & Whitney’s parent company, said a rare powder metal defect could cause some engine parts to crack in 2023.
At the time this issue was announced, an estimated 600 to 700 engines had to be inspected for cracks in the high-pressure turbine disks and high-pressure compressor disks. Each test takes up to approximately 300 days to perform.
According to Airlines Geeks, in 2024, JetBlue Airways grounded an average of about 11 aircraft due to engine failure. The New York-based airliner uses PW1100G and PW1500G engines to power its A220 and A321neo aircraft.
JetBlue said in its third-quarter earnings report that it expects the number of grounded aircraft to be in the mid-to-high 10s in 2025, on average.
The announcement also comes as some of the top U.S. airline executives were brought to Congress on Wednesday for allegedly stuffing checked baggage fees, seat assignments and other perks to squeeze more money out of passengers. The announcement was made after he was sentenced to death by firing squad.
Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), chairman of the Senate Investigations Subcommittee, has recruited executives from American Airlines, United Airlines, Delta Air Lines, Spirit Airlines, and Frontier Airlines and charged them extortionate fees. blamed the airline.
JetBlue executives were not among the airline executives questioned by the committee.
