At 9:15 AM local time this morning, the inaugural JetBlue flight from JFK airport in New York to St. Kitts and Nevis took off, marking a new milestone in the airline’s growth in the Caribbean market.
The aircraft, an Airbus A320 with registration N627JB, is expected to land at the Robert Llewellyn Bradshaw International Airport (SKB) at 1:26 PM local time.
St. Kitts is JetBlue’s 25th destination in the Caribbean, where it will fly three times a week, on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Sundays, departing from New York at 8:29 AM to arrive in the Caribbean country at 2:14 PM. The return flight will be at 3:30 PM, arriving at JFK airport at 7:00 PM.
“We look forward to continuing to diversify our network, providing our customers exceptional travel experiences to more destinations,” said David Jehn, vice president of network planning and airline partnerships at JetBlue.
“This new nonstop route not only introduces our low fares and great service to customers traveling to and from St. Kitts but provides access to all the cities we serve from New York and strengthens our presence in the Caribbean,” he added.
St. Kitts is JetBlue’s 39th international destination, and it leans on the diversification strategy the company is pushing forward in New York (where it has peaks of 180 daily departures), which includes developing a stronger network in Latin America and the Caribbean.
Competition in St. Kitts
Regarding the New York – St. Kitts route, JetBlue will compete directly with American Airlines, which has a weekly flight from JFK airport.
The island’s connectivity with the United States also reaches Charlotte-Douglas (a weekly flight by American Airlines) and Miami (eight weekly flights by American Airlines).
JetBlue in the Caribbean
According to data obtained by Aviacionline through Cirium, in November JetBlue will operate an average of 776 weekly flights to its 25 destinations in the Caribbean, translating to an offering of 248,335 seats per direction on 72 routes:
The destinations served by JetBlue in the Caribbean include Antigua, Aruba, Bermuda, Bridgetown, Aguadilla, Curacao, Grand Cayman, Grenada, Kingston, Montego Bay, Nassau, Port Au Prince, Providenciales, Puerto Plata, Port of Spain, Ponce, Point-a-Pitre, Punta Cana, Santo Domingo, San Juan, St. Kitts, Santiago de los Caballeros, St. Thomas, St. Maarten, and St. Lucia.
This allows them to capture 25.4% of the seat offer between the United States and the Caribbean, placing second after American Airlines (26.9%), and ahead of Delta Air Lines (11.2%), United Airlines (10.5%), Spirit Airlines (9.9%), Southwest Airlines (6.3%) and Frontier Airlines (6.3%), among other smaller operators. The ranking positions are similar in frequency counts.
In terms of capacity measured in available seat-kilometers (ASK), JetBlue leads the US-Caribbean market with 28.2%, ahead of American Airlines (22.2%), United Airlines (14%), Delta Air Lines (12.2%), Spirit Airlines (9.2%), Frontier Airlines (6.7%) and Southwest Airlines (5%), followed by other smaller airlines.
