Airline Fanatic

We’ve all been wondering when JetBlue would finally get around to flying to our great neighbor to the North – Canada.  Well with this post I’m happy to announce that – we all have to wait a bit longer to find out.  Canada’s Globe And Mail however, has a fairly detailed piece about Big Blue’s attitudes and plans for Canada.  The paper gets a little bit more this time than the usual “Yes we are interested in that destination” and “no we have no firm plans at this time” from JetBlue’s PR man Sebastian White.  Instead he says JetBlue will start charter service to Canada in the spring, but is waiting on starting discussions on regularly scheduled service until it gets “regulatory clearance.”

This news isn’t too surprising, as JetBlue’s founder and recently ex-CEO David Neeleman used to run a little airline up in Canada called WestJet, and so has a lot of experience to lend in the area (although he has lots of experience to lend in every area of the airline industry).  The biggest stumbling block seems to be cost though, as Toronto’s Pearson airport has the highest landing fees in the whole wide world, something that you might consider radioactive in the low cost market.  JetBlue frequently gets airports to lower landing fees in exchange for new service, so I highly doubt they would jump into Toronto without a big reduction in landing fees, or compensation from the airport in some other area.

That doesn’t mean they won’t start service to Canada at all though, since there are a few other cities in the great white north.  I could definitely see JFK-Vancouver flights and Oakland-Vancouver flights, perhaps with a little bit of Calgary and Winnipeg thrown in.  With JetBlue’s big Ft. Lauderdale expansion coming up this winter, they could also add some leisure routes to Florida from Canada.  Leisure routes are JetBlue’s bread and butter, so it would make sense to see them go after this, especially in the high demand winter months.

Finally lets face it, flying to Canada is a great way to make money.  Current round-trips between Toronto and New York can run over $1200!  JetBlue typically can lop off up to 50% of the cost of existing airfare, but that still leaves the cost at around $600, which is a nice little cash cow for such a short route.  Though I sometimes like to think of JetBlue as egalitarian and providing service to everyone for great prices, they are still in this thing to make money after all.  Only time will tell exactly how long it is before they make an announcement for public service, but I suspect it is still several months, if not a full year away.