JetBlue Airways conveyed to its staff on Tuesday its decision to trim a range of routes, marking its latest maneuver to curtail expenses following the failed bid to acquire Spirit Airlines and grappling with a Pratt & Whitney engine snag that grounded some Airbus planes.
The airline will slash its daily departures from Los Angeles International Airport from approximately 34 to 24, concentrating on lucrative transcontinental routes featuring its Mint business class cabin, as disclosed in a memo to staff obtained by CNBC.
Among the cuts are services from Los Angeles to San Francisco, Seattle, Miami, Las Vegas, Reno, Nevada, and Puerto Vallarta, Mexico.
JetBlue is also discontinuing flights to Bogota, Colombia; Quito, Ecuador; Lima, Peru; and Kansas City, Missouri, come June, along with flights between Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and Austin, Atlanta, Nashville, and Salt Lake City, as well as those between New York and Detroit.
Dave Jehn, vice president of network planning and airline partnerships, emphasized in the memo, “With less aircraft time available and the need to improve our financial performance, more than ever, every route has to earn its right to stay in the network.”
In addition to transcontinental routes, JetBlue aims to prioritize “bread and butter” routes along the East Coast and those catering to Caribbean vacation spots.
CEO Joanna Geraghty, in her first month at the helm, faces mounting pressure to slash expenses and steer the airline back to profitability, especially after activist investor Carl Icahn revealed a nearly 10% stake in the carrier last month and secured two board seats.
Even before Icahn’s intervention, JetBlue had initiated a cost-cutting drive, projecting a $200 million reduction in expenses by year-end, as announced in January. The carrier had already axed some routes earlier in the year, according to CNBC reports.
The changes disclosed on Tuesday do not alter JetBlue’s planned capacity for the year, anticipated to decrease by low single digits from 2023, as per the memo.
JetBlue is charting its course as a standalone airline following a judge’s ruling that thwarted its bid to acquire Spirit Airlines in January. JetBlue entirely abandoned the deal earlier this month.
Moreover, last year, a separate judge nullified its partnership with American Airlines in the Northeast.
