- JetBlue Airways became the second US airline to receive the Airbus A220 on Thursday, with the first aircraft flying to New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport.
- The A220 comes as part of a fleet renewal that will see JetBlue retire its smallest jet, the Embraer E190.
- Passengers can expect to fly the jet in 2021 with the first routes planned outside the Boston hub of JetBlue.
- Visit the Business Insider home page for more stories.
Christmas came a little late for an airline, as on Thursday the first Airbus A220 was delivered to JetBlue Airways, just in time for the new year.
Airbus handed the keys to JetBlue for the first of 70 models, marking a new era for the 20-year-old company that will see its smallest aircraft retired and replaced by one of the newest aircraft currently flying.
The new plane, which remains unnamed for the time being, but uses the N3008J register, came painted in the instantly recognizable blue and white JetBlue uniform, but features a new tail design. The pattern is called “jumps”, the term for flights that make up a larger trip, as the curved lines resemble air routes.
Each new type of JetBlue aircraft receives a new tail design, a trend that began with the arrival of the Airbus A321 in 2013. Passengers sitting near the wings of the A220 will also notice that the design is also painted on the aircraft’s wings, known as winglets, for the first time for a JetBlue aircraft.
The aircraft is equipped with two Pratt & Whitney Pratt & Whitney Geared Turbofan engines, offering between 19,000 and 25,000 pounds of thrust while reducing fuel burn by 40% compared to the aircraft to be replaced, according to the airline. Its fuel efficiency is only matched by its silence, as its manufacturer claims that noise levels have been cut in half.
JetBlue has not yet revealed the interior of the aircraft, but customers are unlikely to be disappointed as the airline has constantly improved its product on board, as Business Insider discovered on a flight from New York to Fort Myers, Florida, in a newly -reformed Airbus A320. The new cabin experience will almost definitely include free in-flight WiFi, touch-screen entertainment screens, on-demand movies and television shows and electrical outlets in the seats.
“The interior of the JetBlue A220 will be as impressive as the aircraft’s operational capabilities,” the airline said in a statement. “Customers will also enjoy an elevated onboard experience with wider seats, spacious overhead compartments and oversized windows.”
The A220 is the fifth type of aircraft to join the JetBlue fleet since its inception at the turn of the century. Her arrival arrives at an exciting time for the airline as it presents a new service offering for Mint business class and prepares to travel abroad with service to London in the new year, with a new aircraft scheduled to enter the fleet in 2021, the Airbus A321neoXLR.
JetBlue is the second U.S. airline to fly the aircraft behind Delta Air Lines, which started flying the smallest A220-100 in February 2019 from New York to Boston and Dallas. Delta now operates the aircraft on routes across the country and has just acquired the larger variant of the Dash 300 that JetBlue now flies.
Delta’s order gave former A220 manufacturer Bombardier the position it needed in the U.S., but it also sparked the commercial dispute that resulted in the acquisition of the project by Airbus.
The A220 will also power the new initial airline from JetBlue founder David Neeleman, Breeze Airways. And to the north, Air Canada started flying the largest A220-300 in January.
The first routes for the jet were not announced, but JetBlue’s chief revenue and planning officer Scott Laurence told Business Insider in a previous interview that Boston will see the new jet first. The initial service will be on existing short-haul routes, such as Boston-Washington, so flight crews can familiarize themselves with the new plane.
“We are planning to ensure that the introduction is perfect and we want to give the plane a boost to fly in an initial easy-to-operate network,” said Laurence.
After that, Laurence said the plane would continue to travel further west, flying to cities like Austin and Denver before finally serving the West Coast. The A220 has a cross-country range of 3,350 nautical miles that JetBlue intends to use to the full with eventual transcontinental service from Boston to cities like Sacramento, California and Portland, Oregon during the summer.
“This plane is very flexible for us,” said Laurence, as the aircraft can fly almost all of the routes that JetBlue operates in the United States and most of its current international routes. New York will also see the aircraft on routes to cities like Albuquerque and the A220 will serve to assist JetBlue’s new hybrid route network.
The pandemic saw JetBlue launch new routes to secondary markets like Charleston, South Carolina, Raleigh, North Carolina and Richmond, Virginia to distant cities like Las Vegas and Los Angeles. They are called “long, narrow routes” because demand is usually medium, but the right aircraft can make the route viable. And the A220 has the savings to make them work.
“We are going to stretch the legs of this plane,” Laurence said. “It produces a great cost of seat belts on long routes, and this is something that we could not do with our E190 fleet.”
The A220 will also be deployed at airports that are difficult to access, including Key West, where the runway is just over a kilometer long and only 5,076 feet. JetBlue is launching direct flights to the southernmost city of the Lower 48 in 2021 from New York and Boston with the Embraer E190 and is forced to limit the number of seats it sells to meet airport standards.
But for the A220, it is nothing that the aircraft cannot handle.
“As we begin to integrate the A220 into the network, some of our airports with the most performance challenges will become priorities for the A220,” said Laurence. “Key West is probably one of them.”