JetBlue in the UK

JetBlue in the U.K. where could they serve?

As far as their U.K. aspirations go, JetBlue are the masters of suspense. They announced their formal intentions to launch Boston and New York to London back in 2019, for a 2021 launch. While Covid probably hasn’t helped, here we are in May 2021, and we are still awaiting their exact launch date and even which London airport they intend to serve!

Now, let’s push that aside for one moment, as we all know their London aspiration, but this week, Robin Hayes, their CEO, also announced that after London, they will launch Paris and ‘English regional flying’. The latter statement is where today’s piece will focus on.

‘English regional flying’ was a very specific statement. Firstly, did Robin mean specifically ‘English’ airports, or was it referring to the whole of the U.K., given a fair few Americans do mix up England/U.K. and even think London ‘is the whole of the UK’ in some instances? Personally, if the quote is accurate in its wording, I don’t think it was a mix up. The reason being is that Robin used to work quite high up in British Airways. Therefore, I’m quite confident he is well aware of the U.K. regions and is aware England doesn’t mean the whole of the U.K.

So, this leaves the question, if it was England specifically, then where could JetBlue serve?

There have been airports that have had US scheduled flights on the last 15 years. Bristol had a Daily Newark for many years courtesy of Continental, Newcastle had 2 summers of United to Newark (as well as American announcing but not starting JFK from Newcastle), and even Liverpool had a brief foray with a very hit and miss Globespan service to JFK. Jet2 did serve various airports to Newark, but given the short season almost charter setup of those flights, I won’t count the, for the purposes of this article.

The last 2 big cities that had/have US flights are Birmingham and Manchester. The former has had quite a torrent history with US flights. American served Chicago for a number of years before 9/11 hit, with United/Continental serving the city for a number of years also. In recent history, it’s seen attempts from US Airways to Philadelphia, American to JFK and the very ill fated Primera service to Newark (Boston was also announced but never started).

Manchester on the face of it has fared better, with it still having service to the USA on 3 carriers, but delve deeper and you will see that even Manchester has had mixed fortunes. United and American pulled out as covid hit, with Delta due to start Boston in 2020,but again, the dreaded C-word halted that. Thomas Cook built an extensive network to places such as JFK, San Fransisco and even Seattle, but unfortunately legacy debts caught up with the operation, and the airline went bankrupt in 2019. Nowdays, just Virgin, Aer Lingus And Singapore ply the Atlantic from Manchester.

So, history lesson done, what about JetBlue?

I firmly believe just 4 airports have even a remote chance of landing this service, if you excuse the pun. Manchester, Birmingham, Bristol and Newcastle.

Now, any JetBlue route is going to be predominantly inbound heavy, especially to begin with. The reason being is that the brand awareness is going to be heavily skewed towards the US side and will take time to get a big brand awareness in the U.K. This means destinations with ‘inbound appeal’ are going to be required, such as historical attractions (the Americans love history), national parks and culture. All 4 of my potential destinations do have these to a degree. Birmingham with the Shakespeare connections, Manchester with the castles, National parks and historic cities, and Newcastle with its coastlines, historic cities and access to the north end of the lakes. Lastly Bristol has access to the ever popular Cornish and Devon areas (Cornwall is about to get big USA exposure with Bidens first international trip next month),as well as the history around Bristol and the ‘Brunel legacy’. 

The airline itself is essentially a ‘legacy’ airline and does offer connections as well as partnerships with American Airlines in particular, so as the outbound ‘holiday traffic’ grows, connections to the likes of Orlando and Las Vegas could be well used. This means Manchester has a good chance due to the volumes these 2 destinations attract in particular.

JetBlue is actually no stranger to U.K. traffic data. It has partnerships with American and Aer Lingus (interline agreements), and did have an extensive interline with Thomas Cook back when they were solvent, so through those will have information about where passengers came to/from. 

Lastly, JetBlue is a competitive airline, particularly against Delta (when you look at the 2 carriers main TATL markets), so with the Virgin base at Manchester, who are part owned by Delta (and the fact VS on MAN-JFK/ATL is basically Delta in Virgin branding), JetBlue May decide to take that competition right to the source.

Robin Hayes stated that the English regional flying would be summer only initially, which suggests they already have the airport, or airports, in mind as it sounds like they have the specific plans drawn up already. Will the routes to the English regional be New York, Boston or both? Would it be just 1 English regional airport (the limited A321LR fleet suggests it wouldn’t be multiple points), and would it be a ‘one season wonder’? Lots of questions and no doubt we will be waiting a while for those answers (given how long it’s taking to put London on sale).

But my prediction, I think if the English regional flight comes off, it will be Manchester. I personally think Bristol and Birmingham are just a little too close to London and Newcastle probably isn’t quite ready to support a lesser known US carrier (as far as the U.K. is concerned). Manchester is central to the U.K., has US service already and will have historical data for JetBlue. Of course, I may be wrong, but that’s my prediction.

What do you think? Do you agree? Anything to add? Let me know on my twitter account!