We saw Spirit Airlines cease operations early this morning, after losing money for seven years straight, and filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy twice. It goes without saying that Spirit going out of business is a bit of a relief for some of the other airlines in the country that are losing money and struggling, like…
Continue reading: JetBlue Plans Big Fort Lauderdale Growth, Filling Gap Left By Spirit
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With Brightline, I think FLL isn't as bad of an airport choice as it used to be (if you are going to downtown/South Miami). I don't know if jetBlue has a partnership with Brightline yet, but if not, they definetly should partner and promote it. Especially with B6 basically pulling out of MIA recently.
The big issue with FLL is the yield per PAX. FLL is more leisure (retirees, connecting to cruise line ports, vacation, etc) as opposed to MIA which is business oriented and higher yield.
@ JB -- Brightline and JetBlue do have a partnership. The issue, as I see it, is that the Brightline station at FLL is about six miles from the airport, so it's not exactly seamless connectivity.
@ Exit Row Seat -- I wouldn't say Miami is "business oriented," and there's also good money to be made with leisure travelers nowadays.
But yeah, MIA is definitely the preferred airport for more affluent passengers. But with growth opportunities so limited there, FLL is the next best option.
I don’t think we will see much change, given the very high fuel environment. Also, let’s remember that we are going into the Hurricane season in Florida.
United doesn’t tend to grow outside of its hubs. They don’t operate “focus city’s”
Delta already considers FLL a “key city” and basically has its own terminal (alongside westjet/AC) in FLL. They have their eyes set on Austin and are being disciplined due to Fuel costs.
American will not expand meaningfully, they already have MIA.
Southwest already consolidated to MCO.
Frontier …who knows what the dart board has in store.
Breeze is probably the most likely candidate who can target growth.
S. Florida is a much stronger market than it has ever been and FLL has a good chance of developing into a genuine hub. Wealth is being pushed further north from MIA.
FLL fares were brought down by NK because their product was so substandard. B6 could stand a chance of making FLL work w/ a better product that should be more rationally priced.
B6' problem is that they will be competing to all of the big 4's major hubs; it doesn't take much for each one to bleed B6 just a bit and collectively they make B6' life very miserable.
FLL can work for B6 if they build out a strong hub to the Caribbean and Latin America so they don't have to compete just for local FLL traffic.
as for what gets cut in order to fund this growth, a 10% cut at JFK could be enough to lease UA the slots it wants. I believe the chances are high that the "flight time" swap at EWR will be ruled anti-competitive if UA tries to give schedule coordinate flight times to B6. It isn't clear that UA can succeed at adding any flights to JFK given that they tout their #1 size in NYC already.
If UA does succeed at starting flights at JFK, it is almost certain that DL will start EWR transcon flights.
as for SJU, that is and always will be a vulnerable market that other carriers including F9 need to serve and which doesn't command great fares in volume. Not sure SJU will work out any better for B6 than it has in the past.
pulldowns in MCO are likely to help DL and WN who will both seize opportunities.
It's not just staffing; B6 announced 11 new routes from FLL to backfill former NK markets, 6 of which are new stations for B6. All go on sale on Monday: https://www.jetblue.com/flights/more-flights-from-fll
As you said, crew base size doesn’t automatically correlate to flying, but there must be some relationship there.
It’s not FLL, but interesting to see how EWR plays out. If B6 draws down, on top of the 32 Spirit flights that operated there, how would those “timings” (I know they’re not slots) be allocated?
Do airlines bid for them? I can’t imagine there’s much appetite to give them to UA, but who else would want them? WN already closed the station, NK is gone, B6 might reduce flying.
UA taking NK’s FLL gates would be an operational mess without a gate reshuffle. Best case scenario would be a WN move to T4 and UA takes over B concourse in T1. T1 is best suited to function as a hub for a legacy carrier.
Could, in theory, make T1 *A, T2 DL and partners. T3 OW and B6. T4 everyone else. FLL can’t get the T1-2-3 connectors built fast enough.
I'm not of the opinion that UA wants a Florida hub (unless AA abandons MIA!). More online av-geek speculation than anything else.
The question can JetBlue raise fares? FLL has tended to be low yield. JetBlue does not need to fill seats, the airline needs to fill seats profitably. JetBlue flamed out at MIA.
@George.. FLL is now a premium market serving coastal South Florida and wealthy people flying back and fort to NYT and the West Coast. Jetblue has had huge success with Mint service and I can see First Class on Jetblue being very successful.
JetBlue will be filling for bankruptcy in 2027 and need to reorganize (less flights!). Maybe even later this year. It will continue to circle down the drain to insolvency.
Worse, United buys in 2027 making the US commercial landscape even more dark and smelly.
Miami is not a business city.
Miami is majorly tourism oriented with few newly moved in finance bros, that’s it, no industry was formed in Miami. You can’t say business traveling happening a lot to Miami.
EWR is schedule coordinated which means anybody can choose to add flights within the schedule limits the FAA has set.
I am sure UA will try to grab as many of the NK flight timings as they can while B6' news that they will draw down EWR while leasing slots to UA at JFK will raise antitrust concerns.
Other airlines could well take some of those flight timings and I expect several will just to keep "ammo" ready for a competitive response if UA succeeds at getting into JFK.
although the internet is fixated with bankruptcy, B6 really has very little unsecured debt that isn't owed to the government - which means little can be discharged in bankruptcy.
the biggest potential in chapter 11 would be to cut employee pay and to reject assets that B6 can't use - potentially include leases for ground and aircraft assets.
you can argue that NK pulled down fares at FLL. B6 should be able to get higher yields as long as F9 doesn't come in and tank the market.
I don't think F9 is interested in taking on B6 or the legacies that operate a number of routes that B6 is trying to start.
Practically every Latin American business that has a US HQ, has that HQ in Miami. To say it is not a business city is just not really accurate. Yes, it doesn't have a high number of true 'headquarters" for US companies, especially for its size, but it has massive amounts of offices of LATAM companies.