JetBlue Airways which spent several months recently cutting back some of its network after a failed merger with Spirit Airlines, appears to be ready to grow again under its new leadership with 16 new routes and five new cities.
Most of the recent moves have focused on using the airline’s resources where near-term profits could be made, and many of the new moves, part of the airline’s ‘JetForward’ strategy have the same goal.
Eleven of the new routes will operate from New York area airports, seven of them at its JFK home base; five others will operate from its other big hub at Boston. In the New York area, JetBlue will now fly to Los Angeles and to Santo Domingo from Newark and to Boston from Islip on Long Island.
Many of the new routes offer opportunities to feed passengers from a variety of cities into its European flights from New York and Boston, routes which have been popular but not necessarily profitable and some of which have been scaled back. JetBlue is adding summer service to Edinburgh and Madrid from Boston this year.
