Nicknuzzii wrote:

Seat1D wrote:

USAavdork wrote:

A lot of cuts happened in the past 24 hours for January schedules. A lot of my FA friends say their schedules have been drastically cut. I’m hearing RIC-LAX/LAS is consistently getting cancelled due to barely any customers.

where else are you seeing the cuts? EWR has already seen a drastic pullback since the original announcement and commencement of EWR expansion. I am seeing EWR-LAS MINT fares for $349 OW. I'd love to jump on that but I am worried it will get cancelled and I refuse to go to JFK. If EWR-LAS gets cancelled, will JetBlue force me to rebook out of JFK or can i get my money back?

What about LAX? They keep adding flights and cutting back at the same time. I know its tough trying to fill flights in these trying times but these LAX routes are mostly flown by numerous other airlines that have their loyal fliers/followers. I wonder how successful a LAX build up will be. No doubt LAX to NYC/BOS and south Florida will work but anything else, i have my doubts? I think there is a pot of gold waiting for them at SFO where there is basically just one dominant airline as opposed to LAX having A LOT.

If the flight gets canceled they can’t force you to another airport. With the original poster saying the cuts have happened already this should pretty much be the real schedule for January.

I would imagine this is the final cut. Keep in mind that cuts at EWR and LAX are basically in line with what the rest of the non-Florida stations are seeing for January. While bookings have improved quite a bit for late spring and summer months, bookings for January and February remains terrible. I wouldn't worry about EWR-LAS. It's one of their better performing routes in current environment.

A lot of the long thin transcon routes would have a hard time being 1x daily even during regular time of demand (especially in January). A low demand season like this January probably means stuff like BDL/RIC-LAS/LAX and CHS-LAX end up being at most 1 to 2x weekly. Their LAX expansion really hasn't fully started. Right now, most of their LAX flying is still mint stuff. Things aren't going to get tough for them in LAX until they start padding their west coast schedule. For most of 2021, expanding EWR and bringing back JFK is their focus.

SFO would be a good target for many reasons:
1) Greater gate availability in the new Harvey Milk terminal.
2) AS looks to be taking a step back as they are focusing more on LAX and the Airbus base is closing down.
3) TPAC demand is down for a few years, hurting UA's connection out there.

But as AS found out, battling one dominant power in SFO doesn't work out too great. And AS had a much larger presence in SFO than B6 did pre-VX merger. Demand out of SFO has dropped almost as much as NYC. It's hard to say how long that will take to recover if tech workers are allowed to work from home permanently. More importantly, SFO is not as gate constrained as LAX. Next year, Harvey Milk terminal will add 7 more gates.

If B6 would like to take on another expansion project, it could try to work with SFO to take all those gates. My guess is that they keep adding a route here and there and wait to see what happens with AS. If AS closes airbus base in a couple of years while not opening B737 base, there is at least a pathway there for JetBlue to expand.

Doing a little review of my predictions from start of this year. Looks like I got most of JFK adds right but the other ones completely wrong. Really interesting to look back to see how everything were so BOS centered and COVID turned those predictions upside down.

Completely missed on EWR and LAX. Took a look at their routes from 2018. They had between 180 and 190 in total. Since COVID, they already added over 80 routes. That's crazy to think about.

Things I learnt this year:
- JFK slots are not as valuable as I thought. JetBlue was not using all of its slots even pre-COVID. All those moves that I thought were made to conserve slots were to just increase JFK profitability so that BOS buildup can get all the resources.
- JetBlue route planners are a lot less risky adverse than I thought. I can hardly believe that all of EWR/LAX/RDU expansion happening
- JetBlue C-suite actually are more agile than I expected. They persuaded LAWA to give them more gates and stay in T-5. They worked it out with PA/UA/AS for 5 more gates at EWR by allowing UA to operate at JFK. They convinced AA to do the partnership with a deal that's more favorable than what they could've gotten from UA.
- EWR is turning into the most important of the 3 NY airports. I don't know if this will last. The contour of the AA deal is changing if EWR gates turn out to be more useful asset than LGA/JFK slots.
- SFO is not gate constrained. Really surprised here. Took a look at Harvey Milk terminal. It will have 25 gates some next year. Currently JetBlue has 2 and share 1 with WN. WN has 5 other and AA has 6. Neither WN/AA need more than that. F9/SY/HA supposedly will move in, but they have very few flights.

tphuang wrote:

My predictions for this year (announcements, not necessarily start in 2020).

From JFK - I'm assuming here JFK slot constraints stay in place and they are unable to get more good slots from anyone.
GUA/UIO/SAL - Looks like GUA is a done deal already. SAL I think will get announced also. UIO is a little iffy. Not sure if high altitude will allow this to happen. If they add these, then their Latin America VFR network out of JFK is complete.
BNA - I'm going to predict again that JFK-BNA will get added this year with 2 flights.
EYW - Another route enabled by A220. Probably a couple of flights a week in winter time.
BZN - Another route I think will be enabled by A220. Once a week in winter time.
Possible cuts to fund this and the European flights
PWM
SAV
RNO
HAV - why is this still daily? Should be made 1x per week on Saturday.
More frequencies on these routes.
SFO - this I think will get a 7th mint flight to be competitive with DL.
ATL - I think a 3rd flight

From EWR - again, depend on if FAA will allow for flights to be added in peak days.
ACK - Obvious add here for summer time.
KIN - one flight here year round
FLL/MCO - more flights to balance out the reductions at LGA

From LA Basin, possible shift off LGB-JFK/BOS flights to SNA once A220 is available in sufficient quantities. Not sure if that's 2021 or 2022.
LGB survives another year while B6 waits for more gates at LAX.

And now for the large changes at BOS. Expect them to get close to 200 flights sometimes in 2020 and reach that in March 2021 at latest. Once they get there, announcement for BOS250 when they announce the schedule/destination of London flight along with the 4 new gates + access to E gates. They should reach close to 40% domestic market share by end of 2020.
New routes:
IND/CMH/STL/SDF/MEM - I expect one to two of these to be announced
BZN - Saturday service here in winter time
EYW - Saturday service here also in winter time with A220-300
PTP - Saturday service here in winter time
Cuts:
PSP - Can't see how this lasts much longer
Longer season for seasonals:
PDX - this goes year round with arrival of A220
SMF, OAK
More frequencies
EWR, PHL, ORD - I know they are already adding frequencies here for 2020, but more will be announced for 2021. I expect schedule to get closer to AA/UA on these routes. Shuttle like service to LGA, EWR, PHL, ORD and DCA.
LGA - big guess here, they get a couple of slots as part of divestiture from DL/WS JV and add those to fill up gaps on this shuttle to match AA schedule.
IAH, DFW - add 1 or 2 to both of these routes.
Aircraft changes
- more A321s for BOS-Florida/SJU/island markets
- all SFO flights become mint
- first A220 station will be AUS and BWI. This will be followed by PDX, MSY, ATL, MSP, BNA, IAH and DFW
.

tphuang wrote:

Doing a little review of my predictions from start of this year. Looks like I got most of JFK adds right but the other ones completely wrong. Really interesting to look back to see how everything were so BOS centered and COVID turned those predictions upside down.

Completely missed on EWR and LAX. Took a look at their routes from 2018. They had between 180 and 190 in total. Since COVID, they already added over 80 routes. That's crazy to think about.

Things I learnt this year:
- JFK slots are not as valuable as I thought. JetBlue was not using all of its slots even pre-COVID. All those moves that I thought were made to conserve slots were to just increase JFK profitability so that BOS buildup can get all the resources.
- JetBlue route planners are a lot less risky adverse than I thought. I can hardly believe that all of EWR/LAX/RDU expansion happening
- JetBlue C-suite actually are more agile than I expected. They persuaded LAWA to give them more gates and stay in T-5. They worked it out with PA/UA/AS for 5 more gates at EWR by allowing UA to operate at JFK. They convinced AA to do the partnership with a deal that's more favorable than what they could've gotten from UA.
- EWR is turning into the most important of the 3 NY airports. I don't know if this will last. The contour of the AA deal is changing if EWR gates turn out to be more useful asset than LGA/JFK slots.
- SFO is not gate constrained. Really surprised here. Took a look at Harvey Milk terminal. It will have 25 gates some next year. Currently JetBlue has 2 and share 1 with WN. WN has 5 other and AA has 6. Neither WN/AA need more than that. F9/SY/HA supposedly will move in, but they have very few flights.

tphuang wrote:

My predictions for this year (announcements, not necessarily start in 2020).

From JFK - I'm assuming here JFK slot constraints stay in place and they are unable to get more good slots from anyone.
GUA/UIO/SAL - Looks like GUA is a done deal already. SAL I think will get announced also. UIO is a little iffy. Not sure if high altitude will allow this to happen. If they add these, then their Latin America VFR network out of JFK is complete.
BNA - I'm going to predict again that JFK-BNA will get added this year with 2 flights.
EYW - Another route enabled by A220. Probably a couple of flights a week in winter time.
BZN - Another route I think will be enabled by A220. Once a week in winter time.
Possible cuts to fund this and the European flights
PWM
SAV
RNO
HAV - why is this still daily? Should be made 1x per week on Saturday.
More frequencies on these routes.
SFO - this I think will get a 7th mint flight to be competitive with DL.
ATL - I think a 3rd flight

From EWR - again, depend on if FAA will allow for flights to be added in peak days.
ACK - Obvious add here for summer time.
KIN - one flight here year round
FLL/MCO - more flights to balance out the reductions at LGA

From LA Basin, possible shift off LGB-JFK/BOS flights to SNA once A220 is available in sufficient quantities. Not sure if that's 2021 or 2022.
LGB survives another year while B6 waits for more gates at LAX.

And now for the large changes at BOS. Expect them to get close to 200 flights sometimes in 2020 and reach that in March 2021 at latest. Once they get there, announcement for BOS250 when they announce the schedule/destination of London flight along with the 4 new gates + access to E gates. They should reach close to 40% domestic market share by end of 2020.
New routes:
IND/CMH/STL/SDF/MEM - I expect one to two of these to be announced
BZN - Saturday service here in winter time
EYW - Saturday service here also in winter time with A220-300
PTP - Saturday service here in winter time
Cuts:
PSP - Can't see how this lasts much longer
Longer season for seasonals:
PDX - this goes year round with arrival of A220
SMF, OAK
More frequencies
EWR, PHL, ORD - I know they are already adding frequencies here for 2020, but more will be announced for 2021. I expect schedule to get closer to AA/UA on these routes. Shuttle like service to LGA, EWR, PHL, ORD and DCA.
LGA - big guess here, they get a couple of slots as part of divestiture from DL/WS JV and add those to fill up gaps on this shuttle to match AA schedule.
IAH, DFW - add 1 or 2 to both of these routes.
Aircraft changes
- more A321s for BOS-Florida/SJU/island markets
- all SFO flights become mint
- first A220 station will be AUS and BWI. This will be followed by PDX, MSY, ATL, MSP, BNA, IAH and DFW
.

This post leaves out COVID. I’m not sure how anybody could do that.

You honestly think that Jetblue would be expanding it in Newark and Raleigh and Boston would be shrinking in a normal world?

Jetblue, like all airlines, is collapsing at the moment. They are losing millions of dollars a day. The moves that they have made upended your predictions because they are doing anything and everything to stay alive.

They didn’t just decide to become the next F9 in terms of routes added, they did it out of necessity. They will continue to do it out of necessity until things return to some what normal conditions.

Going forward the airline will still have its core hubs with LAX replacing LGB. EWR will stay. AA will develop, but most of the changes that occurred this year will be muted in a more normal environment.

To talk about predictions and validity of past predictions, you need to acknowledge the present and not pretend we are in normal ops.

Looking forward into next year for EWR I think it would help a lot to look at the markets the added and how they’re doing,

AUA - We haven’t seen much from this route yet, but it looks to be doing decently on the very limited schedule it’s actually flying on. By the end of next year this route should be daily or very close to such.
ATL - This route will do very well for B6. NK and DL kill it on this route and B6 will grab all the passengers in between who can’t afford DL or refuse to fly NK. There is lots of VFR on this route amongst a bit of leisure. I’d expect this one to at least be 2x daily next summer.
AUS - This route has been doing okay for B6. Nothing special but it’ll definitely grow.
CUN - It’s hard to mess up on EWR - CUN and B6 definitely won’t. This route will do just fine.
CHS - The A320 was too much capacity for this route in the beginning so swapping it for the E190 and eventually the A220 will help. It’s another route that pax will soon discover the benefits of B6 flying.
JAX - This route is doing just fine. Again, the E190 helped it a lot so as demand returns I could see it heading back towards an A320.
LAS - Another huge market for EWR. Mint is going to be a little difficult on this route especially in this market because I’m not really sure if premium demand is there right now for LAS. But 2x daily on the A320 will do well.
LAX - Another strong route for EWR. It started out 3x daily but is now scheduled for 5x. I actually believe it was even supposed to go up to 6x daily but that never came to fruition. Probably next year though!
MIA - This route will do great from EWR, does anything to Florida do bad? It won’t launch with 4x daily but certainly come next summer and winter it’ll get very close.
MBJ - It’s gonna take time with the growing cases for all these island routes to work out the way B6 intended, but that is expected. MBJ will probably outperform some others on this list.
NAS - B6 is struggling here. The A320 is a lot of capacity here on top of whatever UA is offering. Correct me if I’m wrong but UA might even have regional aircraft on this route. This one will do better with the A220 and maybe even just 4-5x a week.
PHX - This route will benefit from the AA partnership but the demand is there already. Mint would honestly probably work on this route but I don’t seem them adding it anytime soon.
PLS - This route is doing okay for B6. Nothing special but not awful.
PUJ - Another route developing just like the other island ones.
RDU - 3x with the E190 might be a lot for this one but eventually I guess they could get there.
SAN - Probably one of the funniest routes that is being played around with from EWR. It was doing just fine in the fall but now has been trimmed back much more. We will see how it goes down the line though.
SFO - Ouch. B6 is struggling here. UA is throwing both the 777s and 78X on this route. B6 is of course gonna be the under dog but AS has made it work. B6 should be able to hold its own in this market.
SRQ - This route was pushed back several times but finally just started last month. It’ll be interesting if this one stays.
SXM - Another route that’s doing better than I expected but still not phenomenal. I could easily see more Mint flights per week on this route.

There are a few trends to pick up on in the new routes that they have added that I think for sure will play into the markets we see come online for next year. I do for sure think we’ll hear another announcement in March with June launch dates. For this one I could easily see mostly domestic routes being announced. In 2021 B6 should launch;

EWR -
ACK - B6 is very familiar with the market and it’ll work from EWR during the summer.
ORD - This is primarily a business route but tons of VFR too. It would do just fine 2x daily with an E190.
DEN - Huge outdoor market and that’s what people have and are gonna be looking for in the future. 2x A320 should work. F9 is on the route alongside UA already.
BNA - I’m surprised this hasn’t started up yet. We shall see if tourism is a bit dampened here following yesterday’s events though.
MSY - Huge leisure route, it’ll work 1x daily.
SAV - Just like CHS and JAX, the E190 would make this route a success.
SEA - I’m surprised SAN came before this one. While I’m not sure if it’ll launch with mint it should certainly have it down the line.

I’d honestly not be surprised if there were a lot more routes than this announced next year. B6 wants and needs EWR gate space, a lot of their loyal customers just moved to NJ! Within years I don’t think it’s too far fetched to say EWR will reach 100-125 flights a day.

tphuang wrote:

- JetBlue C-suite actually are more agile than I expected. They persuaded LAWA to give them more gates and stay in T-5. L
.

[/quote]

No they didn’t. In fact AA is looking at ways to speed up the T4/T5 project, plus has already moved all regional flying to T5 way earlier than planned and other airlines, jetBlue included, now have less time left at T5 than pre-COVID. They’ll be kicked out faster as LAX owes AA the gates they gave up in the regional connector to speed up capital improvements on that side of the airport. Not a bad thing since their new home will likely be the new Midfield Terminal.

Stop repeating this made up story.

MAH4546 wrote:

tphuang wrote:

- JetBlue C-suite actually are more agile than I expected. They persuaded LAWA to give them more gates and stay in T-5. L
.

No they didn’t. In fact AA is looking at ways to speed up the T4/T5 project, plus has already moved all regional flying to T5 way earlier than planned and other airlines, jetBlue included, now have less time left at T5 than pre-COVID. They’ll be kicked out faster as LAX owes AA the gates they gave up in the regional connector to speed up capital improvements on that side of the airport. Not a bad thing since their new home will likely be the new Midfield Terminal.

Stop repeating this made up story.

Why don't you show your source. JetBlue has been pretty public they are not going anywhere.
https://crankyflier.com/2020/07/13/jetb ... se-at-lax/
"Scott explained that JetBlue had wanted to make this move for a long time. It just couldn’t get more than the 2.5 gates it uses at LAX today… until COVID moved things around. JetBlue will be getting only one more gate now, but it says it has plans to double flights by 2025, so that would obviously require more. Scott said that they are expecting to be able to remain in Terminal 5 as they grow and others move off to the Midfield Satellite Concourse."

This is straight from the JetBlue route planner! They are not going to midfield terminal. Show your proof. You are pretty much the only one on this forum who thinks JetBlue will move out.

I inquired about this topic during one of the last pocket sessions. Let's just say MAH's sources appear to be more connected on this matter. While it's true LAWA is willing to work with B6 to help accommodate their expansion, it was never guaranteed to be in T5. Leadership would prefer to remain in T5 so I guess we'll see what transpires when the dust settles.

tphuang wrote:

MAH4546 wrote:

tphuang wrote:

- JetBlue C-suite actually are more agile than I expected. They persuaded LAWA to give them more gates and stay in T-5. L
.

No they didn’t. In fact AA is looking at ways to speed up the T4/T5 project, plus has already moved all regional flying to T5 way earlier than planned and other airlines, jetBlue included, now have less time left at T5 than pre-COVID. They’ll be kicked out faster as LAX owes AA the gates they gave up in the regional connector to speed up capital improvements on that side of the airport. Not a bad thing since their new home will likely be the new Midfield Terminal.

Stop repeating this made up story.

Why don't you show your source. JetBlue has been pretty public they are not going anywhere.
https://crankyflier.com/2020/07/13/jetb ... se-at-lax/
"Scott explained that JetBlue had wanted to make this move for a long time. It just couldn’t get more than the 2.5 gates it uses at LAX today… until COVID moved things around. JetBlue will be getting only one more gate now, but it says it has plans to double flights by 2025, so that would obviously require more. Scott said that they are expecting to be able to remain in Terminal 5 as they grow and others move off to the Midfield Satellite Concourse."

This is straight from the JetBlue route planner! They are not going to midfield terminal. Show your proof. You are pretty much the only one on this forum who thinks JetBlue will move out.

Like all public airports, LAX makes all it's meetings public. There are no secrets. You can literally look up all modifications and changes to leases. You are making the blatantly false claim that during COVID jetBlue negotiated new lease terms to stay in Terminal 5. It hasn't. And since this information is public, we could easily look it up here:

https://www.lawa.org/lawa-governance/la ... c-meetings

So yeah, I'll take LAWA over a route planner saying "they are expecting,..to remain in Terminal 5."

Everybody is being kicked out by American who is funding the new T4-T5 project. jetBlue isn't exempt.

And while one might think that COVID might gave airlines time at T5 as AA re-builds out its operation, AA did agree to give up it's remote regional gates (which are going to be replaced 1:1 by T5 gates) earlier than anticipated in order to allow LAX to speed up some capital improvements. So it's already voluntarily cutting its access to gates before other airlines move out (originally the regional gates would have close simultaneously with airlines leaving T5).

jetBlue will be moving to Midfield. Now, in the future, if it maybe wants to make an arrangement with American Airlines to sublease or takeover some of AA's T5 gates or stay in T5 for a little longer, maybe AA will be open to that. But that hasn't happened, so for now, we can only assume it will join all the other T5 airlines in relocating to Midfield (or maybe it finds space somewhere else like T6 or T7, who knows).

To prevent gate hogging, LAX does have minimum gate usage rules, so if for whatever reason AA (or any airline) is under-utilizing gates, then yeah, jetBlue might find an opportunity in the future depending on how AA, DL, and UA rebuild out their LAX ops.

So again, please stop repeating this lie that jetBlue has negotiated to stay in T5 longer. There is no proof and LAX lease agreements, like all airport lease agreements in the United States (except the privately-operated Branson Airport), are public.

MAH4546 wrote:

tphuang wrote:

MAH4546 wrote:

No they didn’t. In fact AA is looking at ways to speed up the T4/T5 project, plus has already moved all regional flying to T5 way earlier than planned and other airlines, jetBlue included, now have less time left at T5 than pre-COVID. They’ll be kicked out faster as LAX owes AA the gates they gave up in the regional connector to speed up capital improvements on that side of the airport. Not a bad thing since their new home will likely be the new Midfield Terminal.

Stop repeating this made up story.

Why don't you show your source. JetBlue has been pretty public they are not going anywhere.
https://crankyflier.com/2020/07/13/jetb ... se-at-lax/
"Scott explained that JetBlue had wanted to make this move for a long time. It just couldn’t get more than the 2.5 gates it uses at LAX today… until COVID moved things around. JetBlue will be getting only one more gate now, but it says it has plans to double flights by 2025, so that would obviously require more. Scott said that they are expecting to be able to remain in Terminal 5 as they grow and others move off to the Midfield Satellite Concourse."

This is straight from the JetBlue route planner! They are not going to midfield terminal. Show your proof. You are pretty much the only one on this forum who thinks JetBlue will move out.

Like all public airports, LAX makes all it's meetings public. There are no secrets. You can literally look up all modifications and changes to leases. You are making the blatantly false claim that during COVID jetBlue negotiated new lease terms to stay in Terminal 5. It hasn't. And since this information is public, we could easily look it up here:

https://www.lawa.org/lawa-governance/la ... c-meetings

So yeah, I'll take LAWA over a route planner saying "they are expecting,..to remain in Terminal 5."

Everybody is being kicked out by American who is funding the new T4-T5 project. jetBlue isn't exempt.

And while one might think that COVID might gave airlines time at T5 as AA re-builds out its operation, AA did agree to give up it's remote regional gates (which are going to be replaced 1:1 by T5 gates) earlier than anticipated in order to allow LAX to speed up some capital improvements. So it's already voluntarily cutting its access to gates before other airlines move out (originally the regional gates would have close simultaneously with airlines leaving T5).

jetBlue will be moving to Midfield. Now, in the future, if it maybe wants to make an arrangement with American Airlines to sublease or takeover some of AA's T5 gates, maybe AA will be open to that. But that hasn't happened, so for now, we can only assume it will join all the other T5 airlines in relocating. Or it might make arrangements with United or Alaska or whoever, who knows.

So again, please stop repeating this lie that jetBlue has negotiated to stay in T5 longer. There is no proof and LAX lease agreements, like all airport lease agreements in the United States (except the privately-operated Branson Airport), are public.

You need to apologize to me. You accused me of lying and making things up when I clearly got it from JetBlue's head of route planning. Things could very easily have changed since Scott Laurence made those comments. It wouldn't be the first time in the history.

You have been calling me a liar on this forum without knowing what I looked at to make my points. That's certainly the case here. Does it look like I lied or made it up or repeating something I've read from JetBlue themselves? You tell me.

We will see what comes out of this but I certainly don't think JetBlue's dialog with LAWA or AA has concluded. We will see where JetBlue ends up in the interim or long term. Maybe it will end up in whatever they build over Eagle's nest. But until things are finalized between JetBlue and LAWA, we just don't know where they will be.

The reality is MSC is not big enough by itself to accomodate JetBlue's planned expansions + all the other carriers moving over from T-5.

tphuang wrote:

MAH4546 wrote:

tphuang wrote:

Why don't you show your source. JetBlue has been pretty public they are not going anywhere.
https://crankyflier.com/2020/07/13/jetb ... se-at-lax/
"Scott explained that JetBlue had wanted to make this move for a long time. It just couldn’t get more than the 2.5 gates it uses at LAX today… until COVID moved things around. JetBlue will be getting only one more gate now, but it says it has plans to double flights by 2025, so that would obviously require more. Scott said that they are expecting to be able to remain in Terminal 5 as they grow and others move off to the Midfield Satellite Concourse."

This is straight from the JetBlue route planner! They are not going to midfield terminal. Show your proof. You are pretty much the only one on this forum who thinks JetBlue will move out.

Like all public airports, LAX makes all it's meetings public. There are no secrets. You can literally look up all modifications and changes to leases. You are making the blatantly false claim that during COVID jetBlue negotiated new lease terms to stay in Terminal 5. It hasn't. And since this information is public, we could easily look it up here:

https://www.lawa.org/lawa-governance/la ... c-meetings

So yeah, I'll take LAWA over a route planner saying "they are expecting,..to remain in Terminal 5."

Everybody is being kicked out by American who is funding the new T4-T5 project. jetBlue isn't exempt.

And while one might think that COVID might gave airlines time at T5 as AA re-builds out its operation, AA did agree to give up it's remote regional gates (which are going to be replaced 1:1 by T5 gates) earlier than anticipated in order to allow LAX to speed up some capital improvements. So it's already voluntarily cutting its access to gates before other airlines move out (originally the regional gates would have close simultaneously with airlines leaving T5).

jetBlue will be moving to Midfield. Now, in the future, if it maybe wants to make an arrangement with American Airlines to sublease or takeover some of AA's T5 gates, maybe AA will be open to that. But that hasn't happened, so for now, we can only assume it will join all the other T5 airlines in relocating. Or it might make arrangements with United or Alaska or whoever, who knows.

So again, please stop repeating this lie that jetBlue has negotiated to stay in T5 longer. There is no proof and LAX lease agreements, like all airport lease agreements in the United States (except the privately-operated Branson Airport), are public.

You need to apologize to me. You accused me of lying and making things up when I clearly got it from JetBlue's head of route planning. Things could very easily have changed since Scott Laurence made those comments. It wouldn't be the first time in the history.

You have been calling me a liar on this forum without knowing what I looked at to make my points. That's certainly the case here. Does it look like I lied or made it up or repeating something I've read from JetBlue themselves? You tell me.

We will see what comes out of this but I certainly don't think JetBlue's dialog with LAWA or AA has concluded. We will see where JetBlue ends up in the interim or long term. Maybe it will end up in whatever they build over Eagle's nest. But until things are finalized between JetBlue and LAWA, we just don't know where they will be.

The reality is MSC is not big enough by itself to accomodate JetBlue's planned expansions + all the other carriers moving over from T-5.

I agree. The mods are gonna get angry if that happens again. We would all have to wait 6 days in order to continue the JetBlue Network Thread Discussion in 2021 if this behavior continues. (tphuang is all good)


Anyways, back to the topic at hand.
I believe that B6 will stay in Terminal 5 at LAX for the foreseeable future. I believe that it makes more sense than B6 moving to the Midfield Concourse because they want to stay with HA at T5 (That is, if HA ends up staying, and not moving to the Midfield Concourse.) Even if HA moves to the Midfield Concourse, B6 would still have tons of room in T5 since most of you guys are saying that almost all the other airlines in T5 are moving to the new concourse. I guess we'll have to wait and see what happens with B6 and LAX soon.

tphuang wrote:

MAH4546 wrote:

tphuang wrote:

Why don't you show your source. JetBlue has been pretty public they are not going anywhere.
https://crankyflier.com/2020/07/13/jetb ... se-at-lax/
"Scott explained that JetBlue had wanted to make this move for a long time. It just couldn’t get more than the 2.5 gates it uses at LAX today… until COVID moved things around. JetBlue will be getting only one more gate now, but it says it has plans to double flights by 2025, so that would obviously require more. Scott said that they are expecting to be able to remain in Terminal 5 as they grow and others move off to the Midfield Satellite Concourse."

This is straight from the JetBlue route planner! They are not going to midfield terminal. Show your proof. You are pretty much the only one on this forum who thinks JetBlue will move out.

Like all public airports, LAX makes all it's meetings public. There are no secrets. You can literally look up all modifications and changes to leases. You are making the blatantly false claim that during COVID jetBlue negotiated new lease terms to stay in Terminal 5. It hasn't. And since this information is public, we could easily look it up here:

https://www.lawa.org/lawa-governance/la ... c-meetings

So yeah, I'll take LAWA over a route planner saying "they are expecting,..to remain in Terminal 5."

Everybody is being kicked out by American who is funding the new T4-T5 project. jetBlue isn't exempt.

And while one might think that COVID might gave airlines time at T5 as AA re-builds out its operation, AA did agree to give up it's remote regional gates (which are going to be replaced 1:1 by T5 gates) earlier than anticipated in order to allow LAX to speed up some capital improvements. So it's already voluntarily cutting its access to gates before other airlines move out (originally the regional gates would have close simultaneously with airlines leaving T5).

jetBlue will be moving to Midfield. Now, in the future, if it maybe wants to make an arrangement with American Airlines to sublease or takeover some of AA's T5 gates, maybe AA will be open to that. But that hasn't happened, so for now, we can only assume it will join all the other T5 airlines in relocating. Or it might make arrangements with United or Alaska or whoever, who knows.

So again, please stop repeating this lie that jetBlue has negotiated to stay in T5 longer. There is no proof and LAX lease agreements, like all airport lease agreements in the United States (except the privately-operated Branson Airport), are public.

You need to apologize to me. You accused me of lying and making things up when I clearly got it from JetBlue's head of route planning. Things could very easily have changed since Scott Laurence made those comments. It wouldn't be the first time in the history.

You have been calling me a liar on this forum without knowing what I looked at to make my points. That's certainly the case here. Does it look like I lied or made it up or repeating something I've read from JetBlue themselves? You tell me.

We will see what comes out of this but I certainly don't think JetBlue's dialog with LAWA or AA has concluded. We will see where JetBlue ends up in the interim or long term. Maybe it will end up in whatever they build over Eagle's nest. But until things are finalized between JetBlue and LAWA, we just don't know where they will be.

The reality is MSC is not big enough by itself to accomodate JetBlue's planned expansions + all the other carriers moving over from T-5.

You made an unsubstantiated claim that JetBlue "persuaded LAWA to give them more gates and stay in T-5." This is factually wrong. That has not happened. You've brought this claim up multiple times and never have been able to show that it is correct. I'm happy to apologize if you can prove that statement, but I've brought it up a few times and you've never been able to prove it. I, on the otherhand, correctly pointed out a that LAX is a public facility and amendments to leases are public knowledge. We wouldn't have to play guessing games - we can simply go to LAWA's website and look up if there have been any lease amendments. I did look it up, and there have not been any.

The reality is that it doesn't matter how big the MSC is. AA is taking over T5. If airlines "over grow" during COVID utilizing temporary resources, like jetBlue is doing at LAX right now, they do it fully realizing those resources are just that, temporary.

We literally know what the dialogue between airline and airport is because its all public information and you can literally read all of it on the website I linked to you.

There are minimum gate usage rules at LAX that make sure no airline hogs gates they aren't using, though, so a single airline can just hog gate leases and underutilize them, if to comes to that. In the event AA can't meet minimum usage of its gate, others will be allowed to usage of those underutilized resources.

Iggy500 wrote:

I believe that B6 will stay in Terminal 5 at LAX for the foreseeable future. I believe that it makes more sense than B6 moving to the Midfield Concourse because they want to stay with HA at T5 (That is, if HA ends up staying, and not moving to the Midfield Concourse).

Like all T5 tenants that are not American Airlines, Hawaiian is at T5 on a temporary basis. It will also be leaving T5, absent negotiated terms to stay longer with AA (jetBlue could likewise also negotiate with AA to stay longer).

MAH4546 wrote:

tphuang wrote:

MAH4546 wrote:

Like all public airports, LAX makes all it's meetings public. There are no secrets. You can literally look up all modifications and changes to leases. You are making the blatantly false claim that during COVID jetBlue negotiated new lease terms to stay in Terminal 5. It hasn't. And since this information is public, we could easily look it up here:

https://www.lawa.org/lawa-governance/la ... c-meetings

So yeah, I'll take LAWA over a route planner saying "they are expecting,..to remain in Terminal 5."

Everybody is being kicked out by American who is funding the new T4-T5 project. jetBlue isn't exempt.

And while one might think that COVID might gave airlines time at T5 as AA re-builds out its operation, AA did agree to give up it's remote regional gates (which are going to be replaced 1:1 by T5 gates) earlier than anticipated in order to allow LAX to speed up some capital improvements. So it's already voluntarily cutting its access to gates before other airlines move out (originally the regional gates would have close simultaneously with airlines leaving T5).

jetBlue will be moving to Midfield. Now, in the future, if it maybe wants to make an arrangement with American Airlines to sublease or takeover some of AA's T5 gates, maybe AA will be open to that. But that hasn't happened, so for now, we can only assume it will join all the other T5 airlines in relocating. Or it might make arrangements with United or Alaska or whoever, who knows.

So again, please stop repeating this lie that jetBlue has negotiated to stay in T5 longer. There is no proof and LAX lease agreements, like all airport lease agreements in the United States (except the privately-operated Branson Airport), are public.

You need to apologize to me. You accused me of lying and making things up when I clearly got it from JetBlue's head of route planning. Things could very easily have changed since Scott Laurence made those comments. It wouldn't be the first time in the history.

You have been calling me a liar on this forum without knowing what I looked at to make my points. That's certainly the case here. Does it look like I lied or made it up or repeating something I've read from JetBlue themselves? You tell me.

We will see what comes out of this but I certainly don't think JetBlue's dialog with LAWA or AA has concluded. We will see where JetBlue ends up in the interim or long term. Maybe it will end up in whatever they build over Eagle's nest. But until things are finalized between JetBlue and LAWA, we just don't know where they will be.

The reality is MSC is not big enough by itself to accomodate JetBlue's planned expansions + all the other carriers moving over from T-5.

You made an unsubstantiated claim that JetBlue "persuaded LAWA to give them more gates and stay in T-5." This is factually wrong. That has not happened. You've brought this claim up multiple times and never have been able to show that it is correct. I'm happy to apologize if you can prove that statement, but I've brought it up a few times and you've never been able to prove it. I, on the otherhand, correctly pointed out a that LAX is a public facility and amendments to leases are public knowledge. We wouldn't have to play guessing games - we can simply go to LAWA's website and look up if there have been any lease amendments. I did look it up, and there have not been any.

I will make this 1 last comment on this issue of you calling me a liar. You have been attacking me personally for this issue numerous times here and possibly even on FT. It's completely irresponsible and malicious. I suppose we are at a time when people just cannot admit they are wrong. Now, you have downgraded your accusation to "unsubstantiated claim", because I clearly believe what I say based on comment from someone high up from JetBlue. To me, when someone high up in JetBlue says they expect to stay in T-5, then they are staying in T-5. To me, that substantiates the claim. You may disagree with that and wait for amendment to leases, but my experience has been that JetBlue followed up on their statements. So, what they say publicly is good enough for me.

If you want to say someone made things up. Then, you should say Scott Laurence made things up. You have made a habit of attacking me personally on this forum, it's beyond ridiculous.

The reality is that it doesn't matter how big the MSC is. AA is taking over T5. If airlines "over grow" during COVID utilizing temporary resources, like jetBlue is doing at LAX right now, they do it fully realizing those resources are just that, temporary.

We literally know what the dialogue between airline and airport is because its all public information and you can literally read all of it on the website I linked to you.

There are minimum gate usage rules at LAX that make sure no airline hogs gates they aren't using, though, so a single airline can just hog gate leases and underutilize them, if to comes to that. In the event AA can't meet minimum usage of its gate, others will be allowed to usage of those underutilized resources.

From the link you provided, that's just what LAWA and airlines agreed to. I don't see the hours of negotiation that probably took place for them to get there. From what I can see, JetBlue's negotiation with LAWA hasn't finished. The 2 most recent examples of where JetBlue made announcements about future operation size were with BOS and FLL. In both cases, they made subsequent announcements about capital projects and additional gates at those airports several months to over a year later. Given that the 70 or 75 flight announcement only got announced in mid July, we might need to wait well into next year before we find out what they agreed to.

MSC is not a long term solution to JetBlue, because there is simply not enough gate space there for them to run a 70 to 75 flight operation. There is no reason for them to announce that they can expand to that many flights if they are not promised the gate space for it. I think they will stay in T-5 for a while at least. They may move later, but LAWA will need to find them the gate space that was agreed to.

MAH4546 wrote:

Like all T5 tenants that are not American Airlines, Hawaiian is at T5 on a temporary basis. It will also be leaving T5, absent negotiated terms to stay longer with AA (jetBlue could likewise also negotiate with AA to stay longer).

I'd suppose that this is what B6 would want; of course, LAWA has no obligation to accommodate B6 in T5, especially if AA is shouldering the cost for the T4/5 renovations. MSC will only have around 12-15 gates or so, which would admittedly make things a little tight if B6 have to move there with the other T5 airlines, plus anyone else who gets moved there from TBIT.

Iggy500 wrote:

Anyways, back to the topic at hand.
I believe that B6 will stay in Terminal 5 at LAX for the foreseeable future. I believe that it makes more sense than B6 moving to the Midfield Concourse because they want to stay with HA at T5 (That is, if HA ends up staying, and not moving to the Midfield Concourse.) Even if HA moves to the Midfield Concourse, B6 would still have tons of room in T5 since most of you guys are saying that almost all the other airlines in T5 are moving to the new concourse. I guess we'll have to wait and see what happens with B6 and LAX soon.

Either way, the situation is inconvenient for B6 since (a) AA will still be able to effectively kick out B6 from T5 if there's a sublease agreement that lets B6 stay there longer, or (b) B6 will once again be placed in a part of the airport where it cannot expand to get the schedule it planned to build out of LAX. I think long-term, going for the jugular with a "jetBlue terminal" is the better alternative if turning LAX into one of its largest stations is a real priority for B6 moving forward because (a) B6 wouldn't be limited to just 70-75 flights a day and (b) B6 can secure crucial real estate in a brutally competitive airport like LAX without needing to constantly move around. This would no doubt take an unprecedented amount of resources and time on B6's end but if being competitive at LAX is the cornerstone to B6's west coast strategy, they're going to really need to burn their ships.

Preliminary schedule cuts came in for February.

MAH4546 wrote:

There are minimum gate usage rules at LAX that make sure no airline hogs gates they aren't using, though, so a single airline can just hog gate leases and underutilize them, if to comes to that. In the event AA can't meet minimum usage of its gate, others will be allowed to usage of those underutilized resources.

Thanks for the statement. Is there a negation missing?

so a single airline CAN'T just hog gate leases and underutilize them

Reading over this I’d go with the LAWA lease agreements that are on public file over anything a route planner from B6 claims. Until a deal is finalized between AA, LAWA and B6, B6 will be a temporary tenant until a deal is reached between B6 leasing gates from AA at T5, or AA releasing gates to LAWA to redistribute to say B6.

If I were B6 I’d go for the MSC. New sparkly terminal, and no alleyway issues. Room for expansion. They aren’t really offering connections as LAX is mostly O&D. If anything being adjacent to TBIT will allow those international connections with their international partners to be much easier.

Does B6 offer Mint between JFK and ORD?

Blerg wrote:

Does B6 offer Mint between JFK and ORD?

No.

Nicknuzzii wrote:

Blerg wrote:

Does B6 offer Mint between JFK and ORD?

No.

Thank you!

Blerg wrote:

Does B6 offer Mint between JFK and ORD?

No, that’s like a 2 hour flight, tops. Doubtful anybody would pay as much as is needed for a lie flat to make it viable. Same story with their JFK/BOS to south Florida at 2.5-3 hours. Routes like that is where they could maybe use a traditional domestic first class though, imo.

Nicknuzzii wrote:

Preliminary schedule cuts came in for February.

Total Carnage.
Looks like Spring Break flights are nuked.

Dieuwer wrote:

Nicknuzzii wrote:

Preliminary schedule cuts came in for February.

Total Carnage.
Looks like Spring Break flights are nuked.

Who travels for Spring Break in February????

JoseSalazar wrote:

Blerg wrote:

Does B6 offer Mint between JFK and ORD?

No, that’s like a 2 hour flight, tops. Doubtful anybody would pay as much as is needed for a lie flat to make it viable. Same story with their JFK/BOS to south Florida at 2.5-3 hours. Routes like that is where they could maybe use a traditional domestic first class though, imo.

Yes but I am looking for flights from Europe and they have an interline agreement with JU. Since B6 doesn't have mint or anything resembling business class you can't book business class on BEG-JFK either.

Dieuwer wrote:

Nicknuzzii wrote:

Preliminary schedule cuts came in for February.

Total Carnage.
Looks like Spring Break flights are nuked.

This guy's not dramatic at all.

Midwestindy wrote:

Dieuwer wrote:

Nicknuzzii wrote:

Preliminary schedule cuts came in for February.

Total Carnage.
Looks like Spring Break flights are nuked.

Who travels for Spring Break in February????

Well not “spring break,” but many schools in the Northeast (and some in Florida) have a weeklong Ski Break in February.

MIflyer12 wrote:

MAH4546 wrote:

There are minimum gate usage rules at LAX that make sure no airline hogs gates they aren't using, though, so a single airline can just hog gate leases and underutilize them, if to comes to that. In the event AA can't meet minimum usage of its gate, others will be allowed to usage of those underutilized resources.

Thanks for the statement. Is there a negation missing?

so a single airline CAN'T just hog gate leases and underutilize them

Yes, thank you.

nine4nine wrote:

Reading over this I’d go with the LAWA lease agreements that are on public file over anything a route planner from B6 claims. Until a deal is finalized between AA, LAWA and B6, B6 will be a temporary tenant until a deal is reached between B6 leasing gates from AA at T5, or AA releasing gates to LAWA to redistribute to say B6.

If I were B6 I’d go for the MSC. New sparkly terminal, and no alleyway issues. Room for expansion. They aren’t really offering connections as LAX is mostly O&D. If anything being adjacent to TBIT will allow those international connections with their international partners to be much easier.

There would be room if the South part of the MSC gets built (without that things would be really tight.) If that happens then B6 could even get the room for 100-110 flights a day which given its network size would probably be more adequate for a competitive LAX operation than 70-75 flights a day (some might disagree with this, but recall B6 is MUCH larger than VX was and desperately needs a large “hub” station outside of Florida or the northeast). But if only the north part is there then even the 70-75 flight target might not happen since that will need B6 to have 8-9 gates and the room wouldn’t be there if LAWA is trying to accommodate all the other T5 tenants. MSC North + South would be up to 23 gates total if the south part is built and would be ample room for B6 to be quite large while still accommodating the other T5 tenants. I think NK only uses 4 or 5 gates and F9/SY/G4 use 2-3 gates between all of them since they’re all pretty small at LAX but someone correct me on that. HA can share a gate in the new facility and there’s still 2-3 gates for other airlines to use. And this is with B6 using 13 gates to give itself capacity for around 110 flights a day. A few things would certainly have to break B6’s way though for that to happen and for B6 to get that many gates. But it’s also true that we don’t yet know what B6 and LAWA will end up agreeing to so for now, it’s a wait-and-see.

Midwestindy wrote:

Dieuwer wrote:

Nicknuzzii wrote:

Preliminary schedule cuts came in for February.

Total Carnage.
Looks like Spring Break flights are nuked.

Who travels for Spring Break in February????

February and April vacation. 2 very common weeks tons of
schools up here take off, coinciding with President's Day and Easter

Worth noting that many (if not most) universities aren’t doing Spring Breaks this year. I know for a fact that my school, as well as many of my friends schools, are canceling that break altogether and making random “study days” in the middle of the week on random weeks. This will surely impact some leisure traffic one would expect between February and April

hbernal1 wrote:

nine4nine wrote:

Reading over this I’d go with the LAWA lease agreements that are on public file over anything a route planner from B6 claims. Until a deal is finalized between AA, LAWA and B6, B6 will be a temporary tenant until a deal is reached between B6 leasing gates from AA at T5, or AA releasing gates to LAWA to redistribute to say B6.

If I were B6 I’d go for the MSC. New sparkly terminal, and no alleyway issues. Room for expansion. They aren’t really offering connections as LAX is mostly O&D. If anything being adjacent to TBIT will allow those international connections with their international partners to be much easier.

There would be room if the South part of the MSC gets built (without that things would be really tight.) If that happens then B6 could even get the room for 100-110 flights a day which given its network size would probably be more adequate for a competitive LAX operation than 70-75 flights a day (some might disagree with this, but recall B6 is MUCH larger than VX was and desperately needs a large “hub” station outside of Florida or the northeast). But if only the north part is there then even the 70-75 flight target might not happen since that will need B6 to have 8-9 gates and the room wouldn’t be there if LAWA is trying to accommodate all the other T5 tenants. MSC North + South would be up to 23 gates total if the south part is built and would be ample room for B6 to be quite large while still accommodating the other T5 tenants. I think NK only uses 4 or 5 gates and F9/SY/G4 use 2-3 gates between all of them since they’re all pretty small at LAX but someone correct me on that. HA can share a gate in the new facility and there’s still 2-3 gates for other airlines to use. And this is with B6 using 13 gates to give itself capacity for around 110 flights a day. A few things would certainly have to break B6’s way though for that to happen and for B6 to get that many gates. But it’s also true that we don’t yet know what B6 and LAWA will end up agreeing to so for now, it’s a wait-and-see.

Way too much optimism about how large jetBlue will be able to successful grow at LAX. 50/60 a day will be very successful (and still difficult to successfully and profitably maintain in a healthy environment). LAX is America's most competitive airport and domestic competition is brutal. I mean a place like Omaha has at times had three airlines slugging it out. Omaha!

MAH4546 wrote:

hbernal1 wrote:

nine4nine wrote:

Reading over this I’d go with the LAWA lease agreements that are on public file over anything a route planner from B6 claims. Until a deal is finalized between AA, LAWA and B6, B6 will be a temporary tenant until a deal is reached between B6 leasing gates from AA at T5, or AA releasing gates to LAWA to redistribute to say B6.

If I were B6 I’d go for the MSC. New sparkly terminal, and no alleyway issues. Room for expansion. They aren’t really offering connections as LAX is mostly O&D. If anything being adjacent to TBIT will allow those international connections with their international partners to be much easier.

There would be room if the South part of the MSC gets built (without that things would be really tight.) If that happens then B6 could even get the room for 100-110 flights a day which given its network size would probably be more adequate for a competitive LAX operation than 70-75 flights a day (some might disagree with this, but recall B6 is MUCH larger than VX was and desperately needs a large “hub” station outside of Florida or the northeast). But if only the north part is there then even the 70-75 flight target might not happen since that will need B6 to have 8-9 gates and the room wouldn’t be there if LAWA is trying to accommodate all the other T5 tenants. MSC North + South would be up to 23 gates total if the south part is built and would be ample room for B6 to be quite large while still accommodating the other T5 tenants. I think NK only uses 4 or 5 gates and F9/SY/G4 use 2-3 gates between all of them since they’re all pretty small at LAX but someone correct me on that. HA can share a gate in the new facility and there’s still 2-3 gates for other airlines to use. And this is with B6 using 13 gates to give itself capacity for around 110 flights a day. A few things would certainly have to break B6’s way though for that to happen and for B6 to get that many gates. But it’s also true that we don’t yet know what B6 and LAWA will end up agreeing to so for now, it’s a wait-and-see.

Way too much optimism about how large jetBlue will be able to successful grow at LAX. 50/60 a day will be very successful (and still difficult to successfully and profitably maintain in a healthy environment). LAX is America's most competitive airport and domestic competition is brutal. I mean a place like Omaha has at times had three airlines slugging it out. Omaha!

I did say a number of things would have to break B6's way for this to happen, in fairness (i.e. the MSC South project actually happening AND B6 getting the gates). Until B6 get their gate situation sorted with LAWA, I don't see more than 50-55 a day happening; I probably should've made that clearer when I made that post.

Keep in mind that for B6, like all other major airlines, LAX presence is about their national network. If B6 didn't care about expanding beyond its comfort zone, then it should just concentrate on building up NY, Boston and south florida the next few years. LAX was far and away the most profitable station in their network pre-COVID due to most of the flights being mint. LAX is likely to remain quite profitable until they start adding frequency on those ultra competitive west coast markets. But they are completely missing out on many of the high end corporate accounts and ff until they have more of a LAX network. One would think if other airlines are willing to do it, then slugging out on those loss leading short haul west coast market is worth the long term system wide benefit, especially on marquee routes like JFK/SoFla/BOS-LAX market.

Also, JetBlue can't make their plans based on when MSC south being built. LAX is notoriously hard to get additional gates. Airlines spend billions up front in order to get these leases with LAWA for terminals. If JetBlue has the money, it should prioritize completing its JFK terminal plan and taking over as much of EWR T-1 as possible. The fact that they got LAX to promise enough additional gates to allow them to grow to 70 to 75 flights is a huge bonus. I guess we will find out where that is. MSC might be the temporary solution if AA kicks them. I expect JetBlue to fight against moving out of T-5 until AA actually need that many gates and a permanent solution becoming available. There has been talks of T-0 in the past. No idea if that's a realistic option, but the important part is that LAWA has agreed to provide them the additional gate space. I don't expect them to get additional gates until they get to 70 flights a day and have the money to fund a major capex project.

If JetBlue wants a west coast hub where gates aren't this hard to come by, it needs to look north at SFO. Bay area is the 3rd largest domestic market in PDEW (which doesn't include HI/PR/AK). SFO is 2/3 of the Bay Area market. Given its location and the medium term drop in TPAC demand, SFO will like be an O&D focused airport for a while, which makes things slightly easier for JetBlue to enter. On top of that, SFO also has minimal ULCC competition. Unlike other top 4 markets, it only has 1 of the big 3 hubbing there and WN is quite small in SFO.

AS is the other major player in SFO, but it seems to have shifted focus away from SFO to LAX and other Cali airports. UA seems more focused on rebuilding middle of country hubs first against WN pressure. Basically, I would expect service level at SFO to be down for several years. So far, B6 has added about 6 routes to SFO (which probably won't all stick around). T-1 will have 25 gates by 2021 and the only competition are a few flights from SY/F9/HA along with stagnant presence of AA and WN. No other airlines are likely to move into T-1 until well after 2023. From my outside POV, there seems to be a lot of gates up for grabs. And the best part is, B6 will probably have some time to decided on making a move.

I believe JetBlue is looking for an expanded version of old VX strategy on the west coast of transcon, tech + leisure from LAX and SFO. That strategy with JetBlue product can clearly attract customers. The assumption has also been that JetBlue plans to be larger at LAX than SFO, but we will see if that actually ends up being the case. Do you want to poke at 1 legacy carrier with dominant but not fortress market share or do you want to get involved in a fragmented market that's costly for everyone?

BlueBaller wrote:

Midwestindy wrote:

Dieuwer wrote:

Total Carnage.
Looks like Spring Break flights are nuked.

Who travels for Spring Break in February????

February and April vacation. 2 very common weeks tons of
schools up here take off, coinciding with President's Day and Easter

Presidents Day is not Spring Break......that's its own thing.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spring_br ... d_States_2

Only 5 colleges in the entire United States have Spring Break before March.....
https://www.ststravel.com/college-spring-break-dates

With the mere exception of President's Day(normally 3/4-day weekend) virtually no kids across the country are out of school from mid/late January through the first week of March.

https://str.com/sites/default/files/Sch ... sample.pdf

For their UK service to begin in 2021, when would B6 plausibly need to announce the full details?

Midwestindy wrote:

BlueBaller wrote:

Midwestindy wrote:

Who travels for Spring Break in February????

February and April vacation. 2 very common weeks tons of
schools up here take off, coinciding with President's Day and Easter

Presidents Day is not Spring Break......that's its own thing.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spring_br ... d_States_2

Only 5 colleges in the entire United States have Spring Break before March.....
https://www.ststravel.com/college-spring-break-dates

With the mere exception of President's Day(normally 3/4-day weekend) virtually no kids across the country are out of school from mid/late January through the first week of March.

https://str.com/sites/default/files/Sch ... sample.pdf

Most public schools in New York State (and the greater Northeast, for that matter) have a mid-Winter Break where students get an entire week off (M-F) the week of Presidents Day.

Midwestindy wrote:

BlueBaller wrote:

Midwestindy wrote:

Who travels for Spring Break in February????

February and April vacation. 2 very common weeks tons of
schools up here take off, coinciding with President's Day and Easter

Presidents Day is not Spring Break......that's its own thing.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spring_br ... d_States_2

Only 5 colleges in the entire United States have Spring Break before March.....
https://www.ststravel.com/college-spring-break-dates

With the mere exception of President's Day(normally 3/4-day weekend) virtually no kids across the country are out of school from mid/late January through the first week of March.

https://str.com/sites/default/files/Sch ... sample.pdf

Ok follow me here.

1. At no point in time did I specifically mention colleges, I just said schools.
2. Not sure where your grew up (maybe the midwest) but in the northeast, it's a time honored tradition. 2 unique weeks, one in February (Winter Vacation) that takes advantage of the President's Day holiday, the other starting on Good Friday and lasting thru the week of Easter (April Vacation).

https://www.bostonpublicschools.org/cal ... 1227/month

USAirALB wrote:

Midwestindy wrote:

BlueBaller wrote:

February and April vacation. 2 very common weeks tons of
schools up here take off, coinciding with President's Day and Easter

Presidents Day is not Spring Break......that's its own thing.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spring_br ... d_States_2

Only 5 colleges in the entire United States have Spring Break before March.....
https://www.ststravel.com/college-spring-break-dates

With the mere exception of President's Day(normally 3/4-day weekend) virtually no kids across the country are out of school from mid/late January through the first week of March.

https://str.com/sites/default/files/Sch ... sample.pdf

Most public schools in New York State (and the greater Northeast, for that matter) have a mid-Winter Break where students get an entire week off (M-F) the week of Presidents Day.

In other words.....not Spring Break.....

Midwestindy wrote:

USAirALB wrote:

Midwestindy wrote:

Presidents Day is not Spring Break......that's its own thing.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spring_br ... d_States_2

Only 5 colleges in the entire United States have Spring Break before March.....
https://www.ststravel.com/college-spring-break-dates

With the mere exception of President's Day(normally 3/4-day weekend) virtually no kids across the country are out of school from mid/late January through the first week of March.

https://str.com/sites/default/files/Sch ... sample.pdf

Most public schools in New York State (and the greater Northeast, for that matter) have a mid-Winter Break where students get an entire week off (M-F) the week of Presidents Day.

In other words.....not Spring Break.....

I never said Spring Break, that was another user. I said February and April vacation and provided context to which I was referring. But thanks for providing the group some convoluted graph that actually helps prove my point.

Midwestindy wrote:

BlueBaller wrote:

Midwestindy wrote:

Who travels for Spring Break in February????

February and April vacation. 2 very common weeks tons of
schools up here take off, coinciding with President's Day and Easter

Presidents Day is not Spring Break......that's its own thing.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spring_br ... d_States_2

Only 5 colleges in the entire United States have Spring Break before March.....
https://www.ststravel.com/college-spring-break-dates

With the mere exception of President's Day(normally 3/4-day weekend) virtually no kids across the country are out of school from mid/late January through the first week of March.

https://str.com/sites/default/files/Sch ... sample.pdf

Look man, the whole state of NY and much of the NE (public schools thru HS) is off for Presidents Week.

They load planes to Florida and the Islands.

Been that way for decades.

No one is making this up.

December: Winter Break

February: Mid Winter Recess

Easter/Passover Week: Spring Break.

What we dont have is a random Spring Break in March. It always coincides with Easter and Passover. If they are split, the vacation is split

jfklganyc wrote:

Midwestindy wrote:

BlueBaller wrote:

February and April vacation. 2 very common weeks tons of
schools up here take off, coinciding with President's Day and Easter

Presidents Day is not Spring Break......that's its own thing.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spring_br ... d_States_2

Only 5 colleges in the entire United States have Spring Break before March.....
https://www.ststravel.com/college-spring-break-dates

With the mere exception of President's Day(normally 3/4-day weekend) virtually no kids across the country are out of school from mid/late January through the first week of March.

https://str.com/sites/default/files/Sch ... sample.pdf

Look man, the whole state of NY and much of the NE (public schools thru HS) is off for Presidents Week. Been that way for decades.

They load planes to Florida and the Islands.

Been that way for decades.

No one is making this up.

December: Winter Break

February: Mid Winter Recess

Easter/Passover Week: Spring Break.

What we dont have is a random Spring Break in March. It always coincides with Easter and Passover. If they are split, the vacation is split

Again, this is what I was responding to, as you agree Spring Break is not February:

Midwestindy wrote:

Dieuwer wrote:

Nicknuzzii wrote:

Preliminary schedule cuts came in for February.

Total Carnage.
Looks like Spring Break flights are nuked.

Who travels for Spring Break in February????

But you guys are arguing over semantics as if a major break doesn’t exist in February.

In actuality, unless Easter falls in March, the New York area doesn’t have any break in March at all.

February is huge for B6

jfklganyc wrote:

But you guys are arguing over semantics as if a major break doesn’t exist in February.

In actuality, unless Easter falls in March, the New York area doesn’t have any break in March at all.

February is huge for B6

No arguing here. I made my point and wrapped this up like a prophylactic. February is a very important month for winter-weary travelers in the Northeast and New England. The 6 weeks between NYD and February vacation has felt like 6 months in years past. Whatever the schedule cuts are, it's indicative of a lot of the same ongoing concerns and resistance to fly south.

jfklganyc wrote:

But you guys are arguing over semantics as if a major break doesn’t exist in February.

In actuality, unless Easter falls in March, the New York area doesn’t have any break in March at all.

February is huge for B6

February is the 3rd slowest month of the year for B6, technically the slowest if you don't account for it having fewer days:

Read their 2019 monthly traffic reports, March/April + Jun/July/August are the biggest travel months by quite a large margin then December/May are next:
http://investor.jetblue.com/investor-re ... eases.aspx

The northeast gets a week on in february because back in the day, maybe WW2, they wanted to save oil. Or just save money. It was something to do with saving on heating schools in the winter. So we get a week in feb.

This is not spring break, that is another week later in the year everyone gets.

I also think it is a high school thing, I went to a NE university and there was no feb break.

tphuang wrote:

Keep in mind that for B6, like all other major airlines, LAX presence is about their national network. If B6 didn't care about expanding beyond its comfort zone, then it should just concentrate on building up NY, Boston and south florida the next few years. LAX was far and away the most profitable station in their network pre-COVID due to most of the flights being mint. LAX is likely to remain quite profitable until they start adding frequency on those ultra competitive west coast markets. But they are completely missing out on many of the high end corporate accounts and ff until they have more of a LAX network. One would think if other airlines are willing to do it, then slugging out on those loss leading short haul west coast market is worth the long term system wide benefit, especially on marquee routes like JFK/SoFla/BOS-LAX market.

Also, JetBlue can't make their plans based on when MSC south being built. LAX is notoriously hard to get additional gates. Airlines spend billions up front in order to get these leases with LAWA for terminals. If JetBlue has the money, it should prioritize completing its JFK terminal plan and taking over as much of EWR T-1 as possible. The fact that they got LAX to promise enough additional gates to allow them to grow to 70 to 75 flights is a huge bonus. I guess we will find out where that is. MSC might be the temporary solution if AA kicks them. I expect JetBlue to fight against moving out of T-5 until AA actually need that many gates and a permanent solution becoming available. There has been talks of T-0 in the past. No idea if that's a realistic option, but the important part is that LAWA has agreed to provide them the additional gate space. I don't expect them to get additional gates until they get to 70 flights a day and have the money to fund a major capex project.

If JetBlue wants a west coast hub where gates aren't this hard to come by, it needs to look north at SFO. Bay area is the 3rd largest domestic market in PDEW (which doesn't include HI/PR/AK). SFO is 2/3 of the Bay Area market. Given its location and the medium term drop in TPAC demand, SFO will like be an O&D focused airport for a while, which makes things slightly easier for JetBlue to enter. On top of that, SFO also has minimal ULCC competition. Unlike other top 4 markets, it only has 1 of the big 3 hubbing there and WN is quite small in SFO.

AS is the other major player in SFO, but it seems to have shifted focus away from SFO to LAX and other Cali airports. UA seems more focused on rebuilding middle of country hubs first against WN pressure. Basically, I would expect service level at SFO to be down for several years. So far, B6 has added about 6 routes to SFO (which probably won't all stick around). T-1 will have 25 gates by 2021 and the only competition are a few flights from SY/F9/HA along with stagnant presence of AA and WN. No other airlines are likely to move into T-1 until well after 2023. From my outside POV, there seems to be a lot of gates up for grabs. And the best part is, B6 will probably have some time to decided on making a move.

I believe JetBlue is looking for an expanded version of old VX strategy on the west coast of transcon, tech + leisure from LAX and SFO. That strategy with JetBlue product can clearly attract customers. The assumption has also been that JetBlue plans to be larger at LAX than SFO, but we will see if that actually ends up being the case. Do you want to poke at 1 legacy carrier with dominant but not fortress market share or do you want to get involved in a fragmented market that's costly for everyone?

I made two maps: one with B6 at 75ish daily flights and another in the (currently unlikely and overly optimistic) hypothetical scenario where jetBlue can put up the money to get its own terminal at LAX and get to around 110 flights.

This is the 75-flight layout: http://www.gcmap.com/mapui?P=LAX-JFK%2C ... S=bm&DU=mi

This is the hypothetical 110-flight "jetBlue terminal" layout:
http://www.gcmap.com/mapui?P=LAX-JFK%2C ... S=bm&DU=mi

I'd say LAX traffic is comprised of a few main segments: (1) leisure, (2) business, (3) Mexico/Central America VFR, (4) domestic VFR, and (5) TPAC travel. B6 won't have the aircraft for TPAC travel so we'll cross that out. With 75 flights, I figure that B6 will sacrifice Mexico/Central America VFR in favor of leisure so that could be: 4x LAS, 2x CUN, 1x HNL, 1x OGG, 1x PVR, 1x SJD, 1x SJO, 1x RNO, 1x MCO and 2x/w LIR plus some other seasonal flying to places like ANC/BZN/MTJ that B6 can try. Moving on to business: I'd split this between routes to tech hubs, major corporate hubs, and government employment clusters. 75 flight schedule would mean flying to JFK/BOS would be about similar levels as pre-pandemic and 5x EWR (there's also a lot of VFR traffic on these, to be sure), plus 6x SFO, 2x AUS, 2x ORD, 2x SEA, 2x SMF, 1x PHL and 1x SJC. Domestic VFR would be the broadest category, since it includes some short-haul but also plenty of long-and-thin routes: 8x FLL/MIA/PBI, 3x PHX, 2x SLC, 1x BDL, 1x PDX, 1x RDU, 1x JAX, 4x/w BUF, 3x/w CHS, and 3x/w RIC. It wouldn't be bad but I think B6 would be leaving some routes on the table that it could do well on.

The overly optimistic 110 flight scenario would allow for more leisure: 6x LAS, 2x CUN, 2x HNL, 2x RNO, 1x MCO, 1x OGG, 1x SJD, 1x SJO, and 2x/w LIR with seasonal flights to ANC/BZN/JAC/MTJ. And that could let B6 try 2x GDL, 2x MEX, 1x GUA, and 1x SAL to capture some pax in key Mexico/Central America VFR markets. Also more presence on business/tech: 8x SFO, 4x ORD, 4x SEA, 3x AUS, 3x IAD, 3x SMF, 2x PHL and 2x SJC. Not to mention each of JFK and EWR would get an extra flight, as would BOS. Domestic VFR would also improve with more long-and-thin that jetBlue could capitalize on: 10x FLL/MIA/PBI, 4x PHX, 3x DEN, 3x PDX, 3x SLC, 2x TUS, 1x ABQ, 1x CLE, 1x JAX, 1x PIT, 4x/w BUF, 4x/w CHS, 4x/w PVD, and 4x/w RIC. Again, and I will reiterate, that this would be an absolute best case scenario for B6 well into the future; maybe things go in the opposite direction and B6 regrets even having a West Coast focus city in the first place. But this would be a much stronger network/schedule with which B6 could aggressively target new frequent flyers in the LA area and some business/tech travelers with lots of money who might prefer Mint over what AA/DL/UA might have to offer.

Truth be told, the LAX buildup is still in its very early stages. It's impossible to tell what LAX will look like for B6 10 years from now. It's still very possible that it ends up being a bust and only Mint and some of the short haul + CUN survive, or that in the future, B6 strikes another deal with LAWA to expand further. The Olympics are coming and LAX in its current form is not equipped to handle all that traffic - there are also several proposals that have been talked about for building new 12+ gate terminals/concourses that B6 could pounce on, as could other airlines. But that'll be a more relevant question in 2-3 years when we can better gauge whether more expansion will be worthwhile. In the meantime, I would agree that EWR should be where B6 puts forward its energy and resources, while deciding whether a focus city or large station at SFO is worthwhile since the gates could open (literally) for a significant expansion there. If B6 chooses to go for a focus city, then I'd predict that LAX would take a back seat and SFO plans would be bigger than the 40-45 flights a day at SFO that has often been discussed.

CF did a nice tally of February cuts here https://crankyflier.com/2020/12/28/jetb ... etaliates/
So far down 40% in Feb vs down 48% in Jan. Robin Hayes had said they plan to be down 45% in Jan. Might be a difference in measuring seat offered vs ASM. The routes they cut for February don't look surprising. In fact, I'm not sure if PBI-ORD/PIT or FLL-PSP or RIC-LAS will ever operate again.

Also, I'm also not concerned about LAX cuts for February since that's just where the demand is at the moment. They probably added a couple of these routes sooner than they wanted to in order to show LAWA that they are building things up and need the gate space.

DL had a couple of retaliatory actions for RDU, but nothing too concerning. Long term, I don't think DL's decision for RDU will revolve around what B6 might do.


Anyway, a little more food for thought for 2021 given what has happened in the past 9 months. Taking a look at domestic PDEW (only continental USA) on some of the larger to medium sized markets for 2019Q3. Now, a lot of this could change post-COVID, but we won't know for a while the exact change.
NYC - 94k
LA - 84k
SF - 65k
Chicago - 61k
DC area - 55k
Denver - 48k
Dallas - 45k
Boston area - 45k
Atlanta - 41k
Las Vegas - 41k
Seattle - 39k
MIA/FLL - 36.5k
Orlando - 36.4k
Houston - 29.2k
Phoenix - 29k
San Diego - 26.1k
Philly - 22.8k
SLC - 16.8k
Austin - 16.8k
Nashville - 16.5k
CLT - 16k
RDU - 14k

First, I'm surprised that SF is the 3rd largest market even without factoring in all the international and HI flights. Despite being slightly larger market than Chicago, it's only supporting 1 major hub in SFO and 2 focus cities with WN in OAK/SJC. Both UA and WN have more flights in Chicago than Bay Area. With TPAC service down for a few years, UA's operation at SFO will likely be quite O&D focused. While demand has dropped almost as much as NYC, it should still recover to a top 5 market. It's also an extremely important business market for Northeastern companies. JetBlue has already added 6 routes out of SFO this year. I expect them to add more next year. I think they can get more gates here than in LAX.

I'm also surprised that DC/Baltimore area has almost as much traffic as Chicago domestically. If we account for international and longer ranged transcon, DC could account for higher revenue than Chicago. I think leaving IAD was a mistake and they should go back there in the next few years.

Boston area has higher O&D than I thought. It's around the same size as DEN/Dallas/Atlanta, which all manage to have a large legacy and a WN hub. It's also twice as large as Philly. It made sense for them to go all-in here pre-COVID. Obviously, it would be good for JetBlue if they end up being the only hub carrier here. But it's market that could also support 2 hubs. With other focus cities getting more attention, how long does it take them to reach the goal of 200 flights?

South Florida is already a large market with just domestic service from MIA/FLL. If we consider that 1/2 of MIA and 1/4 of FLL passengers are international and include PBI service, it's total market size is probably as large as Boston/Denver/Dallas. It's also a market that should continue to expand as more people migrate into the area. Long term, South Florida market could be almost as large as DC and Chicago. So I think the recent move into MIA along with the continued goal of building FLL to 130 flights a day is correct one. NY area should be their main focus for the next year or two, but South Florida demand is recovering a lot quicker than NY/Boston. It's entirely possible they will be at 150 flights a day out of FLL/PBI/MIA before they reach that number out of Boston. Long term, do they get to 200 flights a day between the 3 airports? I think it's possible. They should aim to be a solid #2 long term in South Florida. That's a position they can be quite profitable.

San Diego is actually a pretty large market that is constrained by single runway with the largest airline not being dominant. It's transcon market is quite under-served and something B6 can continue to tap into.

I previously thought of Philly as comparable to Boston and DC in market size, but it's much smaller. While PHL would naturally be the next place for Jetblue to expand after EWR as a play for the South NJ/Eastern PA market, I don't see them needing to add more than maybe RDU.

CLT's local market is shockingly small. It's only slightly more than RDU. If RDU had more service at lower fares than CLT, that gap probably will be even smaller. If CLT can be turned into the mega-SE hub and BNA is on it's own way to a 150+ flight SE hub, why can't JetBlue turn RDU into it's own SE station at a much smaller scale? Obviously, it will take time and getting more gate access to even reach 50 to 60 flight. While JetBlue will never be connection oriented, they could connect more than they do now to win over greater market share.

Other thing to look at are midwest markets than JetBlue might want to enter. The largest markets in middle of the country that they don't serve are STL, MCI, IND, CMH, CVG and MKE (maybe SAT also?). If we cross off STL and MCI due to WN dominance, that leaves us the next 4.
Cleveland - 10.9k
Pit - 10k
IND - 9.5k
CMH - 8.9k
CVG - 8.9k
MKE - 7.5k
IND/CMH/CVG have all similar sized markets to NYC/Boston. All 3 have quite a bit ULCC presence. Out of the 3, IND is the highest fared market to NY/Boston, so would seem to be the most ready for additional competition. CVG may have a vacuum as Delta reduces it from a focus city. However, Delta is unlikely to leave markets that B6 would add initially. AA partnership is also likely to help B6 more in IND and CMH than CVG.

MKE probably will be a later adds, since it has smaller market to NYC/Boston.

B6's February cuts are not insignificant, with capacity down roughly 40% from where it was a year ago, but that's a tough and unfair comparison given that the pandemic was not yet fully impacting air travel in February 2020. Still these cuts:

BOS-BDA, MSP, PHL, ROC, SYR
FLL-PSP (this should surprise no one)
HPN-LAS
LAS-RIC
EWR-SRQ (it is increasingly evident the B6 expansion at EWR isn't quite working out without causing a major cash bleed)
JFK-GEO, MJT, BNA, RNO, SEA
LGA-RSW and TPA (WOW)
MCO-MBJ, SFO
PBI-ORD, PHL, PIT

But the real story here are the LAX cuts involving the LGB shifts, which don't appear to be working too well, along with LAX-LIR and LAX-BUF.

We'll see what happens. Some of these cuts are not surprising (FLL-PSP, for instance) but others, notably in BOS, LGA, and LAX, are telling.

As for B6's aspirations in SFO, I'm not so sure.....between UA and AS essentially owning the corporate travel space, once it comes back meaningfully, though likely not to pre-pandemic levels, there isn't room for a third player here. Leisure just isn't going to cut it,

tphuang wrote:

If CLT can be turned into the mega-SE hub and BNA is on it's own way to a 150+ flight SE hub, why can't JetBlue turn RDU into it's own SE station at a much smaller scale?

Because...competition. The ATL and CLT hubs already have the non-stop destination counts and frequencies. BNA is very substantially an O&D airport - the way LAS is an O&D airports. B6 can't build RDU to achieve ATL/CLT economies of scale and n/s premiums. No carrier could. Too many hubs in proximity inhibits growth of them all - see CHI and WAS. Eighty flight hublets can't compete with 700+ flight/day hubs.

Cointrin330 wrote:

B6's February cuts are not insignificant, with capacity down roughly 40% from where it was a year ago, but that's a tough and unfair comparison given that the pandemic was not yet fully impacting air travel in February 2020. Still these cuts:

BOS-BDA, MSP, PHL, ROC, SYR
FLL-PSP (this should surprise no one)
HPN-LAS
LAS-RIC
EWR-SRQ (it is increasingly evident the B6 expansion at EWR isn't quite working out without causing a major cash bleed)
JFK-GEO, MJT, BNA, RNO, SEA
LGA-RSW and TPA (WOW)
MCO-MBJ, SFO
PBI-ORD, PHL, PIT

But the real story here are the LAX cuts involving the LGB shifts, which don't appear to be working too well, along with LAX-LIR and LAX-BUF.

We'll see what happens. Some of these cuts are not surprising (FLL-PSP, for instance) but others, notably in BOS, LGA, and LAX, are telling.

As for B6's aspirations in SFO, I'm not so sure.....between UA and AS essentially owning the corporate travel space, once it comes back meaningfully, though likely not to pre-pandemic levels, there isn't room for a third player here. Leisure just isn't going to cut it,

Do you want to go by fact or hyperbole? Do you want to compare how much B6 cut vs AA out of Northeast/LAX?

Peak day in second half of Feb out of EWR show 45 departures out of around 70 originally scheduled. So they cut roughly 1/3 of the schedule. And most of that cuts are to Caribbean nations that still have travel restrictions and to BOS (because business demand is 0). Keep in mind that JetBlue has added a lot of scheduled flights, so the actual cuts system wide from scheduled flights is a lot higher than 40%. So EWR is vastly outperforming rest of the system in cuts as a percentage of scheduled flights.

I would bet that's what you will find if you actually looked at their cuts out of BOS/JFK/LGA. EWR is performing above expectations. EWR bookings have recovered much faster than LGA/JFK. It's hard to imagine how much trouble they'd be in now if they weren't getting these EWR bookings.

What is actually your proof EWR is not working out? Their capacity is way up YoY and it has only seen 1 route cut vs at least 5 routes from BOS/JFK.

For LGA, they've only been operating 1 flight a day to MCO and FLL for the past few months. Those cuts are not surprising at all. LGA bookings are terrible.

For LAX, they are adding routes probably earlier than they wanted to. As I said, gates are at a premium at LAX. They need to show LAWA that they need those additional gates. The focus of 2021 will be east coast and real resources for LAX won't come until EWR is more fully built.

As for SFO, they got time to add things slowly. Gates are more available than they have been for a long time. Demand in Bay area is way down. UA is not in a great rush to add things back. AS has shifted its focus to other Cali airports. More importantly, the type of network they are likely to build out of SFO will not compete that much with AS. Look at the 6 routes they've added so far out of SFO. Is there even 1 route that faces strong AS competition?