As you may know by now, JetBlue’s next European city is Paris. It was disclosed some time ago and became available for sale on March 7th. The carrier has five European routes: New York JFK to London Heathrow, London Gatwick, and Paris CDG, and Boston to Heathrow and Gatwick.
Five routes, six daily flights
JetBlue’s summer European network comprises five routes with six daily flights. Paris starts on July 29th, two weeks short of the second anniversary of JetBlue’s first European service (from JFK to Heathrow).
- JFK to Heathrow: double daily
- JFK to Gatwick: daily
- JFK to CDG: daily
- Boston to Heathrow: daily
- Boston to Gatwick: daily
Click here for JFK-CDG flights.
Has less than 3% of the market
Between July 29th (when Paris starts) and October 28th, the last day of the northern summer season, OAG shows that all airlines have 18,615 non-stop flights from JFK, Newark, and Boston to Europe. JetBlue will have 552 flights, meaning it’ll have 3% of the market. It’ll be the joint 10th largest airline by this metric, on par with SWISS (also six daily; 552 services).
As JetBlue uses 138-seat, premium-heavy A321LRs, it is somewhat different if seats for sale are considered. It has 76,176 of the 4.7 million, for just a 1.6% share. It ranks 19th by this metric, one place behind Emirates but one place ahead of LOT Polish.
What about available seat miles? This is calculated as the distance per route x capacity x frequency. While JetBlue has six daily flights, this is more than offset by relatively short routes and low-capacity narrowbodies. JetBlue has 261 million Europe ASMs, or 1.5% of the total market. It ranks 18th by this metric, behind LOT Polish but ahead of Icelandair, also because of its heavy use of narrowbodies and even shorter flights.
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Paris-JFK/Newark: eight airlines
Paris-New York is the second-biggest market between Europe and the USA, behind London-New York. It also has a strong business and premium component, hence appealing to JetBlue. It must fill its Mint cabin to make it work. But with eight airlines, Paris-JFK/Newark is an increasingly competitive market.
This summer, Air France, American, Delta, Norse Atlantic, and now JetBlue will all operate between Paris and JFK. Like JetBlue, Norse Atlantic is new on the airport pair. It’ll fly daily from March 26th, when airlines in the Northern Hemisphere shift to summer schedules.
Then there’s United and Air France from CDG to Newark, french bee, and all-business La Compagnie between Paris Orly and Newark. La Compagnie and JetBlue will be the only narrowbody operators.
Click here for Newark-CDG flights.
Paris-JFK/Newark: 17 daily
Looking at August, the eight airlines mentioned above have 17 daily Paris-JFK/Newark flights. That is the joint highest frequency on record, last held in August 2017. They are broken down as follows:
- Air France: six daily CDG-JFK
- Delta: triple daily CDG-JFK
- United: double daily CDG-Newark
- Air France: daily CDG-Newark
- American: daily CDG-JFK
- french bee: daily Orly-Newark
- JetBlue: daily CDG-JFK
- La Compagnie: daily Orly-Newark
- Norse: daily CDG-JFK
