JetBlue Launching Amsterdam Flights In Summer 2023

This is exciting — JetBlue will be adding service to a third European city. In August 2021, JetBlue launched transatlantic flights using Airbus A321LRs. Up until now, the airline has exclusively flown to London (out of Boston and New York), and then in June 2023, the airline will launch flights to Paris (initially out of New York).

A couple of weeks ago the airline revealed plans to fly to Amsterdam, and tickets for these flights are now on sale… I’m impressed!

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JetBlue adding Amsterdam flights from New York and Boston

JetBlue has announced that it plans to add flights from both New York (JFK) and Boston (BOS) to Amsterdam (AMS). The schedules for these flights have now been published, and the flights are on sale.

As of August 29, 2023, JetBlue will launch daily flights between New York and Amsterdam with the following schedule:

B62288 New York to Amsterdam departing 10:00PM arriving 11:35AM (+1 day)
B62289 Amsterdam to New York departing 1:35PM arriving 4:00PM

The flight covers a distance of 3,643 miles, and is blocked at 7hr35min eastbound and 8hr25min westbound.

Then as of September 20, 2023, JetBlue will launch daily flights between Boston and Amsterdam with the following schedule:

B631 Boston to Amsterdam departing 8:00PM arriving 9:35AM (+1 day)
B632 Amsterdam to Boston departing 11:35AM arriving 2:00PM

The flight covers a distance of 3,457 miles, and is blocked at 7hr35min eastbound and 8hr25min westbound.

JetBlue plans to use Airbus A321LRs for both of these routes, which feature just 138 seats. This includes 24 Mint seats, spread across 12 rows in a 1-1 configuration.

22 of those seats are Mint Suites, which are the standard business class seats. These are fully flat, have direct aisle access, and each have a privacy door.

Two of those seats are Mint Studios, which are the seats in the first row, and they feature significantly more room. They also have a buddy seat feature, so that you can have someone else join you during the flight.

JetBlue then has 114 economy class seats, 24 of which are Even More Space (extra legroom) seats.

JetBlue has an exceptional soft product in all cabins. There’s also complimentary Wi-Fi for all passengers, plus personal televisions, including on demand and live TV programming.

JetBlue’s challenges securing Amsterdam slots

For some background, for several months now, JetBlue has been pursuing launching nonstop flights from both New York and Boston to Amsterdam. The airline has wanted to serve each route daily using Airbus A321LRs. Unfortunately up until recently, JetBlue had been unable to secure slots for Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport, so in mid-February, JetBlue sought the help of the Department of Transportation (DOT):

• In September 2022, JetBlue requested Aeroflot’s slots for the airport, given that the airline can no longer fly to the European Union; however, the airport removed those slots altogether, rather than allocating them to another airline
• More recently, JetBlue requested Flybe’s slots (as the airline ceased operations), but was initially also denied for that
• The Dutch government has been trying to reduce landing slots at the airport as part of a green initiative, though a court recently blocked that

JetBlue had requested that the DOT force KLM to give up some slots in order to make JetBlue’s service possible. The argument was that the Delta and KLM joint venture currently offers the only service from Boston and New York to Amsterdam, so more competition is needed to lower fares.

JetBlue essentially wanted the DOT to challenge the antitrust authority that the two airlines have as part of their joint venture, arguing it’s bad for consumers.

JetBlue overcame obstacles to make this service work

With all the challenges that JetBlue has faced, how is this new service possible? Well, a couple of weeks ago JetBlue was granted slots from Flybe, which went out of business. Unfortunately at the time that was the extent of the good news for JetBlue:

• The airline had only been granted these slots for the summer 2023 airline schedule, which runs from late March until late October 2023
• There were no assurances that JetBlue would be able to maintain these slots for the winter schedule, or for the next summer schedule
• The slot times that JetBlue had been given were undesirable and variable, which made it impossible to maintain a consistent and attractive schedule for consumers

JetBlue’s efforts seem to have paid off, as the airline has now secured two daily slot pairs at the airport on a long-term basis, with an attractive schedule no less. I suspect this is at least partly possible thanks to a court blocking the plans for Amsterdam Schiphol Airport to shrink.

JetBlue’s challenging road to growth in Europe

JetBlue has ordered 14 Airbus A321LRs, specifically to be able to operate flights from Boston and New York to Europe. This was a bold move, as it’s always hard for a new challenger to come into a market with established players and be successful.

But JetBlue’s even bigger challenge has proven to be securing slots for European airports, given how many of them are slot restricted. There are only so many European destinations that JetBlue can fly to profitably year-round out of the Northeast, and many of those airports are slot restricted.

So JetBlue’s strategy in being able to offer this service has largely been to beg for slots — in some cases JetBlue has requested that competitors be forced to give up slots, while in other cases the airline has claimed that it should receive available slots over competitors.

JetBlue has had surprisingly great luck with this strategy, slowly but surely securing both Heathrow and Gatwick slots, and now securing Amsterdam slots. JetBlue is succeeding with taking a foot in the door approach to launching this kind of service, and it has been successful.

I can appreciate JetBlue’s argument about how competition is good for consumers. That being said, I’d say a strong argument could be made that it would be in the better interest of consumers to grant additional slots to airlines operating larger aircraft, since that would add more capacity to markets. Is a JetBlue flight really better for competition than another airline operating a flight with twice as many seats?

Bottom line

JetBlue has officially unveiled plans to launch flights to Amsterdam from both New York and Boston, and flights are now on sale. Initially JetBlue had trouble securing the slots required to operate this service, but the airline overcame those challenges, and can now add these flights. It’s exciting to think that in a matter of weeks, JetBlue will fly to London, Paris, and Amsterdam!

What do you make of JetBlue’s Amsterdam flight plans?