JetBlue Ends All Miami Flights, After Failed Experiment

American and Delta will be celebrating.

Tough to compete in another airline's hub. Southwest learned that at EWR too.

United and JetBlue have the same regrets. United for leaving JFK. JetBlue maybe for leaving MIA. JetBlue passengers in Miami can fly United.

Is there a comparison of the amount of space that a Mint seat takes versus a Mini Mint seat? I'd love if JetBlue just rolled out Mint everywhere (for consistency), but I assume it's just not nearly as efficient.

You totally forgot to call out that B6 originally had the Northeast Alliance with AA to support the flights there, and now they don't.

It's tough for airlines, which have huge fixed costs and need to find routes that people will pay a premium for to cover the costs. Everyone loves Miami, but American seems to fly there 30 times a day from the Northeast. Leisure demand is spread out across the world, and Miami finance/tech/crypto demand isn't high enough to sustain a bunch of airlines.

We are seeing some of the same issues in hotel demand - with so much travel really being elective, I wonder if some of these air and hotel markets aren't just overbuilt?

The only reason JetBlue served Miami was due to the long gone NEA. The corridor between MIA and JFK, LGA, and BOS is crowded, competitive, and is owned by AA and DL. There's no room for B6.

Much respect Ben, but...

B6 had so few flights that AA and DL have no need for an exaggerated celebration. It just highlights it was a poor commercial decision, even if the NEA was approved.

I find the talk out their introduction of F pretty silly. Will it be a good thing? Yes. But it's 8-12 seats of an aircraft that seats 160-180 passengers, depending on variant. On the competitive East Coast the yield improvement is marginal, especially as they have to price vs the AA/DL/UA networks. They also don'r have the corporate contracts, so they have to price for leisure paxs (though could get SME). Also, it costs money to reconfigure the seats...and cash flow at this point is critical to manage.

B6 introduced MIA to try to have a quid pro quo with AA as part of the NEA.

AA never had intention of allowing B6 to succeed on the MIA end and DL put B6 in a box in NYC and BOS.

B6 is a failed strategic project from which DL will gain the biggest benefit.

not to JFK or BOS, they can't fly UA

@LAXLonghorn - While I understand your point, those points overlook some factors. For one, many corporate travelers flying on their companies dime (and likely paying a lot more than regular leisure passengers) like to fly on airlines that offer a domestic First Class product, and many of them avoid airlines that don't have that in order to have a chance at free upgrades with their status. I know this personally because I have been in that boat, along with a number of family and friends. I would often book away from Southwest for my typical work routes in favor of American because of this. As a result, I would also choose AA for my leisure travel most of the time because of my status benefits (including free upgrades). Additionally, with a First Class cabin, jetblue may be able to get more corporate contracts, especially with their newer transatlantic routes, allowing corporate travelers a premium cabin all the way for those not originating in NYC or BOS. Many corporations have requirements for airlines to have a premium cabin for some of their employees. And the companies with this requirement also pay more for premium seats than leisure travelers.

As a result, Jetblue introducing a domestic First Class product would open up a lot more opportunities for the airline, and make it more attractive for certain groups of people (who spend more on tickets) to book with the airline, both in First Class and in Economy. This is the same reason Frontier has rapidly introduced a premium cabin on it's aircraft. However, since Jetblue is most dominant in NYC and BOS, these opportunities are even more important for the airline.

Not sure that Jetblue's reason for existence is really clear anymore. We pseudo commute from NJ to south Florida (8-12 times a year), and generally stopped using Jetblue a while ago as they are simply operationally incompetent... website problems, cancellations, crew that never showed up, planes that take outages, app outages, etc, etc.... its always something with this company, and they are good at public company nonsensical excuses... It stopped being worth the constant hassle with the company, when UA or AA got the job done with little fanfare.

Its basically a 2 hour flight, and there's like 50 a day from the NJ/NY area, so you can almost always get to south Florida one way or another on any given day. Jetblue simply brought nothing new to the game.... and even did that poorly.

And first class on Jetblue? nonsense... for a 2 hour flight, we'll even take basic economy if that's all there is. who cares.... if we're flying to Asia, we'll pay for first or business, but to south Florida, just silly

Miami is the most congested airport for entering the US. I have no idea how you managed to get a picture of a gate without thousands of people crammed up against it, spilling out their tank tops, smelling like SPF-50 and trash-tallking. MIA is a disaster.

Jet Blue isn't much more to sneeze at. I don't know the politics of JB, UAL, JSX, but Jet Blue sucks so badly it should stand right back there at #3 after Ryan and Spirit.

They're still around, so they must be meeting someone's need. From my POV release the gate slots and slink off, JB.

100% agree! I also fly regularly between FLL and LGA/EWR/JFK with homes in both places. And I think of FLL-NYC as a flying bus, it's a <3 hour flight with 50+ flights a day. Just get me there on time with reliable Wi-Fi on board, heck I bring my own bottled water (!), so I don't even need their "snacks". So based on that, I don't care if I fly DL/UA/B6/NK, I fly based on schedule / price / reliability for the FLL-NYC route.

Without the NE MIA for Jetblue doesn't make sense. AA has numerous flights between LGA/JFK/EWR. UA to EWR along with DL from LGA and JFK. MIA is a high cost airport and can be congested.

No mention of MIA’s landing fees, which kept discount carriers away for decades.

Ridiculous post regarding “congested airport”. But typical.

Their value is the slots they control. Otherwise, not much to offer.

Bold of you to assume these people are smart enough to wear sunscreen.

But agree with you otherwise. It's a miserable airport that always seems to have a weird smell, like it's baked into the carpets.