JetBlue Announces Major Expansion in Boston

Travel downturn? What travel downturn? JetBlue announced it will be expanding service from Boston by 30 percent before next summer. Among the highlights are:

• Two additional daily flights to Chicago/O’Hare (for a total of three)
• One additional daily flight to Baltimore/Washington (for a total of five)
• One additional daily flight to San Francisco (for a total of two)
• One additional daily flight to Denver (for a total of two)
• Four additional weekly flights to Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic (for a total of one daily)

Notably, those first four are all routes where JetBlue finds itself battling either Southwest or Virgin America, both of which launched Boston service this year. Southwest has rapidly expanded since arriving in August, adding Denver (included above) as well as St. Louis to its initial offering of Chicago and Baltimore. Virgin America, which currently flies only two nonstop routes from Boston (San Francisco and Los Angeles) arrived in February.

The Santo Domingo route is interesting, but not surprising. JetBlue has long been focusing energy on expanding in the Caribbean (service to St. Lucia from JFK began this week). This Boston expansion also includes a new weekly flight to Montego Bay, Jamaica.

Fares and schedules will be available November 4.