Jetblue Airways announced in a press release today that effective May 3, 2007, it would inaugurate service to San Francisco International Airport, complimenting its service to Oakland and San Jose. Jetblue offers service from San Jose to Boston and New York City and from Oakland to Boston, New York City, Long Beach, Washington-Dulles, and Ft. Lauderdale. The airline will be offering four nonstop flights daily to JFK and one to Boston.
We can’t help but wonder how this relates to Virgin America, Richard Branson’s attempt to take the Virgin name domestically to the U.S. Virgin America has been unable to get DOT approval to fly, but planned to base itself at San Francisco and inaugurate service to JFK as its first route. The likelihood is that, seeing the demand for service to SFO, and recognizing Virgin America will not be filling the low-cost gap any time soon, was induced by the airport to inaugurate service.
It will compete on this route with United and American, who it also went on the offensive with when it announced O’Hare service. The other carriers, however, offer business and first class, which are not available on Jetblue. It may, however, induce the carriers to adjust their service to more effectively cater to these travelers, and using that for its profit base while Jetblue will attract passengers from all walks of life for its quality single class service. Either way, we cannot complain when a legacy carrier is given a proverbial kick in the pants to innovate and upgrade its product.