JetBlue bets big on Fort Lauderdale, from a new airport lounge to an international gateway

JetBlue Airways is already the most important airline in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and it needs to get even greater.

“Lauderdale has been a star for us,” JetBlue President Marty St. George mentioned this month about Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport.

Capitalizing on development on the Broward County airport is essential for JetBlue because it revamps its community and rolls out extra high-end choices like a home first-class cabin to return to profitability. Its final worthwhile quarter was two years in the past.

JetBlue was wanting to broaden in Fort Lauderdale even earlier than Spirit Airways, the South Florida-based discounter that was No. 1 on the airport, collapsed on Could 2 underneath the load of debt and years of snowballing issues.

JetBlue is now the highest provider with 36% market share by capability on the airport, in accordance to a Cirium tally of 2026 capability, up from about 24% a 12 months earlier. From Could to June of this 12 months, JetBlue added 5% extra capability, whereas big rivals pulled again within the Florida offseason, in accordance to Cirium.

The provider has about 106 flights scheduled a day for this 12 months on common, up from about 68 a day final 12 months, Cirium knowledge exhibits.

Simply hours after Spirit’s collapse, JetBlue and different airways laid out their very own journey plans, including flights to fill the void at Fort Lauderdale.

JetBlue raised its income forecast for the 12 months on June 1, citing sturdy demand.

“I am feeling very, very bullish about how clients have responded to JetBlue’s development,” St. George mentioned.

JetBlue says it is planning for much more development as extra gates change into obtainable after Spirit’s demise. A few of these gates are nonetheless tied up in chapter court docket.

JetBlue’s plan is to function about 150 each day flights at Fort Lauderdale within the peak winter months, which embody Presidents Day weekend and a few faculty breaks, a schedule that may put it on par with JetBlue’s Boston Logan International Airport hub, its largest after New York.

The plan consists of extra international locations leaving from Fort Lauderdale and a focus on premium air journey.

St. George mentioned the provider has been reviewing websites for a lounge — which might be the third in its community — at Fort Lauderdale to cater to these clients. It already has lounges at New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport and in Boston.

“It’s unclear proper now the place we’d put a lounge,” he mentioned. “The airport people, I believe, are equally motivated to have a lounge down there. Actually, given the dimensions of our operation and the variety of premium clients going out and in of Fort Lauderdale, I believe [it makes] a lot of sense, we simply have to discover the fitting location.”

The big aggressive risk lies about 26 miles south, at Miami International Airport, an American Airways hub that dwarfs Fort Lauderdale. Each airports, although Miami is far bigger, are main hubs for leisure clients in addition to these visiting buddies and family members in Latin America and the Caribbean.

“There’s a good variety of clients for [whom] Miami is the fitting airport, who won’t ever depart Miami, and we’re not planning on changing these clients,” St. George mentioned. “I do suppose that as we get extra service in Fort Lauderdale as a greater breadth of locations, that utility of Lauderdale Airport will go up.”

American on Friday mentioned it plans to function a document 100 locations to the Caribbean, Mexico and different airports in Latin America from the U.S., with 77 of them leaving from Miami, together with a new flight to Maracaibo, Venezuela, from July 14 and to Cap-Haitien, Haiti, beginning Nov. 1.

JetBlue, for its half, introduced Fort Lauderdale to Caracas service lately, as carriers construct up flights. American in January introduced it might resume resume service to Venezuela from the US for the primary time since 2019, weeks after the U.S. captured Venezuela’s president.