A JetBlue Airways plane prepares to take off from the Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, on Jan. 31, 2024.
Joe Raedle | Getty Images
JetBlue Airways told staff on Tuesday that it’s culling a bunch of routes, making it the carrier’s latest move to chop costs within the wake of a failed attempt to accumulate Spirit Airlines and a Pratt & Whitney engine issue that has grounded a few of its Airbus planes.
The carrier will reduce its departures from Los Angeles International Airport from about 34 a day to 24, specializing in profitable transcontinental routes that include its Mint business class cabin, in keeping with a memo to staff, which was seen by CNBC. Cuts include service from Los Angeles to San Francisco; Seattle; Miami; Las Vegas; Reno, Nevada; and Puerto Vallarta, Mexico.
JetBlue can also be ending flights to Bogota, Colombia; Quito, Ecuador; Lima, Peru; and Kansas City, Missouri, in June, and flights between Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and Austin, Atlanta, Nashville and Salt Lake City in addition to between Recent York and Detroit.
“With less aircraft time available and the necessity to improve our financial performance, greater than ever, every route has to earn its right to remain within the network,” Dave Jehn, vice chairman of network planning and airline partnerships, said within the memo.
Together with transcontinental flying, JetBlue said it can deal with “bread and butter” routes along the East Coast, and people serving Caribbean vacation destinations.
CEO Joanna Geraghty is a month into the highest job and is under increasing pressure to cut back expenses and return the airline to profitability after activist investor Carl Icahn disclosed an almost 10% stake within the carrier last month and won two board seats.
JetBlue had already begun a cost-cutting program before Icahn’s stake and said in January that it was on the right track to cut back expenses by $200 million by the tip of the 12 months. The carrier trimmed another routes earlier this 12 months, CNBC reported.
The changes announced Tuesday don’t affect JetBlue’s planned capability for the 12 months, which it expects to be down within the low single digits from 2023, the memo said.
JetBlue is charting its path as a stand-alone airline after a judge blocked its plan to buy Spirit Airlines in January. JetBlue walked away from that deal entirely earlier this month. Last 12 months, a separate judge knocked down its partnership with American Airlines within the Northeast.
