jetBlue expands domination of Boston

jetBlue, already the largest carrier at Boston’s Logan airport, announced today that they are looking to expand that lead in a big way.  The New York City-based carrier is adding about 20 flights to their schedule in Boston, expecting a total of 78 daily flights to be operating by summer 2010.  Only one new destination in the mix – a once-weekly flight to Montego Bay, Jamaica – but a whole slew of cities will be seeing additional frequencies. Among them:

• Two additional daily flights to Chicago/O’Hare (for a total of three)
• Two additional daily flights to Raleigh/Durham (for a total of three)
• One additional daily flight to Baltimore/Washington (for a total of five)
• One additional daily flight to Charlotte (for a total of three)
• One additional daily flight to Denver (for a total of two)
• One additional daily flight to Fort Lauderdale (for a total of four)
• One additional daily flight to San Diego (for a total of two)
• One additional daily flight to San Francisco (for a total of two)
• One additional daily flight to Washington/Dulles (for a total of seven)
• Four additional weekly flights to Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic (for a total of one daily)
• One weekly flight to Montego Bay, Jamaica (for a total of one weekly) (a)
• And more to come!

All this expansion comes in the face of some competition showing up at Logan, specifically in the form of Southwest.  Actually they seem do be doing it in order to directly challenge the folks from Dallas. Noted Robin Hayes, Chief Commercial Officer for JetBlue, “JetBlue has a great fare and 78 great flights for you in Boston — that’s no small peanuts!” The “peanuts” reference seems to be a repeated reference at Southwest, with jetBlue differentiating themselves by providing up to 6 snack choices on flights, not just peanuts.  A similar comment was made when jetBlue joined the Boston – Baltimore fray just a couple months ago.

It is worth noting that jetBlue has no additional aircraft deliveries scheduled for at least the next 15 months.  That means that all these additions will have to come from a combination of increased utilization and cuts from existing routes.  No real idea yet on which flights are potential losers, but it seems likely that a few frequencies will disappear elsewhere on the schedule to accommodate this.

Between New York and Boston jetBlue has done a pretty impressive job of establishing their presence in the markets.  Combine that with the fact that they are actually making money these days and things are looking might fine for them right now. 

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• Ft. Lauderdale feels the airline love

• A couple new routes for fun and sun