JetBlue & Manchester

4 thoughts on “JetBlue & Manchester”

1. Time will tell, but if JetBlue expands at Manchester I think that just is going to further prove that none of the airlines at ORH want to be here and the only reason they are here is to suck up to Massport. Reading in one of the other comments that a Fort Lauderdale flight was only about 60% full is a bit concerning. There’s just too many other and far better options than flying out of ORH. Massport really blew this from the beginning. The facts are that none of American, Delta, or JetBlue want to be at ORH and they are only doing so to appease Massport. In the case of American and Delta it’s pretty clearly evident there’s something going on behind the scenes keeping them at ORH. The other thing is that JFK and LaGuardia aren’t even top 10 domestic destinations from any other nearby airport (Logan, TF Green, Manchester, etc.) so why would they be successful routes from ORH and this is putting aside the fact that the flight times are awful. As far as JetBlue goes, I think they’ve been in Worcester for about 12 years now and they haven’t really improved their service here so why should we think they will in the future.

   As for Breeze, they are rapidly expanding in Connecticut. Breeze may eventually come to ORH, but it will only be because they want to start flying to Europe and would likely consider Logan for that service which means Massport will likely pressure them to start service out of ORH.

   While all the other airports are adding service left and right, the only news coming out of ORH is that they’re putting in solar panels. I’m surprised there wasn’t a huge celebration at the airport so all the politicians could get another photo op like when JetBlue “expanded” at ORH a couple of years ago then 2 days later quietly cancelled service to JFK.

2. Where do you find the airline loads from US airports? I want to say that spirit pulled out of Manchester and JetBlue went in

3. My flight was the one that was 60% full but the thing is I flew out the Monday before MLK and that’s usually a non busy day to travel. That weekend, families who have kids who play in sports usually fly down on wednesday or Thursday but if they fly down to spend extra time, Tuesday is usually the day to go because for families who work remote but still have to go into the office once a week, Monday is the day they go into the office and get what they need for the week so they don’t lose time plus absences add up for kids in school and not everyone wants 5 absences on their kid’s attendance when your allowed 8-14 pending the district. You also have that day as possible back to school for college students as well. The flight to Worcester that day I flew down was just about sold out when I looked at the seat chart for curiosity.

   I’ve flown on that day the last 2 years and both years have been drastically different. One year it was the same at around 60% then last year it was 100% full. Historically anyways, January is a very slow travel month simply because if you look at it from a family’s perspective, you have thanksgiving break in November which is 5 days, Christmas Break in December which is 10+, February/April break which is 9 days each, then half of students have 1-2 weeks in March which is 9-16 days each but January you have MLK weekend which is only 3 days. If you want a quick weekend, then yes MLK is the way to go but if you look at prices for flights you’ll see just which ones are in higher demand because families travel on those weeks (in case you were wondering, non stop for all of those weeks except March is $405 to start and up to $575 for the flight to Fort Lauderdale. March it’s up to $225. The average flight is $110)

   One last thing I wanted to mention, I know it’s a slow month down there because when I went to Seaworld the day after MLK (took the Brightline train from Fort Lauderdale to Orlando and back) the park was at 3% it’s capacity and out of the 3% of capacity there was, 2.5% was international students/families visiting the US and even though it rained that day, many employees told me that the crowd wasn’t going to be different anyways and I saw the same thing 2 years ago. There was only two days in SE Florida that reach above 70° when I was there and I was there from 1/13-1/23 and those two days were the only two where people were on the beach and swimming. Weather this time of year can be very questionable and can be really good or bad which is another reason why many people don’t travel in January. I’ll have to pull up data and get it to show historically load factors for the flights in January compared to other months

4. Here are flight loads from ORH to Fort Lauderdale. October to December is 2023 numbers because data isn’t out yet. September is also a very common drop month and flights to Fort Lauderdale from Bradley, Boston, and Providence all struggled to hit 80% with delta out of Boston only reaching 71%. Don’t let September fool you because the MCO flight had 80% loads for 2024 in September and is historically a more popular flight. Either way this just goes to show you that my flight being 60% full in January is no reason to pull the panic button and again, the 55% in September is very low but nothing to sound the alarm over.

   January: 72%
   February: 83%
   March: 85%
   April: 80%
   May: 74%
   June: 76%
   July: 80%
   August: 74%
   September: 55%
   October (23): 91%
   November (23): 85%
   December (23): 88%

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