JetBlue has announced their planned date for the grand opening of their new terminal at JFK: October 1, 2008. There will be a ceremonial opening on September 22nd and then overnight on September 30th they’ll move all operations over to the new facility, with the initial flights operating at the new terminal being some red-eye flights arriving from Denver and Oakland around 5:30am on the 1st.
The announcement came in an appearance on Larry King Live last night by Dave Barger, the carrier’s CEO. The date had been rumored for a while but this was the first time I have found that someone in an official position stated something in public.
Yes, it’s a — well, first of all, from our, again, our home in New York — and we’ll open a new terminal in about 60 days, October 1st, as a matter of, the new building here at Kennedy Airport.
I’m a bit surprised that the announcement happened in such a subdued and incoherent way, considering how big this deal is and how well run the JetBlue marketing and publicity team usually runs. But it is still exciting to hear that there is a target on the calendar.
For more on the JFK T5 terminal, check out my previous post from a tour I did with a bunch of folks a couple months back.
And if you’re in the JFK area on August 23rd and are looking for something to do, you might want to head out to Terminal 5 and help them test out the luggage handling, sorting and screening systems. They’re trying to avoid a T5 fiasco on the scale of London’s Heathrow T5 opening and looking for 1000 folks to assist. If I weren’t already committed to being in Florida that weekend I’d definitely be there. I’ll just have to settle for pulling an all-nighter (or at least a VERY early wake up call) to be out at T5 when they open the doors for the first real flights.
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