It's official. After many months of waiting, JetBlue has put on sale JFK to both Heathrow and Gatwick. This means Gatwick will once again be connected to JFK, with the market having 700,000 passengers in 2019 across two airlines. But JetBlue’s entry, as welcome as it is, will still mean a huge gap remains. Will it be filled in the coming years?

Both Heathrow and Gatwick will be served once-daily using low-capacity A321LRs with 141 seats: 24 of the all-new Mint seats and 117 in Core. The schedule to both airports is:

  1. JFK-Heathrow from August 11th: 22:10 - 10:10 (next day); returning 18:10 - 21:43
  2. JFK-Gatwick from September 29th: 19:50 - 07:55 (next day); returning 12:00 - 15:33

All about the point-to-point market

JetBlue will primarily focus on the enormous point-to-point (P2P) demand between London and New York, which totaled almost 2.9 million round-trip passengers in 2019 if JFK and Newark are combined. P2P traffic equated to passengers daily each way (PDEW) of 3,973. A further two million connected over London or New York or both.

However, there is currently no air bridge between the US and UK, and quarantining will be required on arrival into the UK. It is very likely that will change in the coming months.

Given the size of the P2P market and low-capacity aircraft, transfer traffic over JetBlue's large JFK hub to other US destinations and the Caribbean won't be particularly important or required. This is important given such passengers are lower-yielding than P2P and more expensive to carry.

Gatwick and JFK had up to four daily departures in 2019 and almost 700,000 passengers. Source: UK CAA

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Gatwick will again be connected to New York

JetBlue's Gatwick launch means the UK airport will once again be connected to JFK. Gatwick lost JFK in 2020, a year when 114,745 round-trip passengers were carried. British Airways had filed to operate it from this coming October, but it isn't bookable at the time of writing.

In 2019, some 699,766 passengers used the route – PDEW of 959. Norwegian and British Airways collectively had up to four daily departures that year: Norwegian up to three daily, joining one by BA.

Norwegian primarily used 338-seat B787-9s, although it supplemented these between May and October by leased A330-300s from Evelop Airlines. BA, meanwhile, used B777-200ERs.

JetBlue A320
JetBlue puts its Airbus A320 family aircraft to great use. Photo: Vincenzo Pace | Simple Flying

Gatwick-JFK had an 85% seat load factor in 2019

Norwegian, which has ended long-haul services, initiated Gatwick-JFK in July 2014, recording a seat load factor (SLF) of 93% between July and December of that year. Of course, this was influenced by much discounting to stimulate demand, again showing how SLF should be considered in context and how it is but one element of performance.

Norwegian was joined by BA in 2016. Three years later, BA had a one-quarter share of the market, while SLF – for BA and Norwegian combined – was 85%.

Norwegian's many cuts and changes in 2019 resulted in long-haul losses reducing to approximately €159 million, down from €351 million, according to anna.aero. If Norwegian's successor, Norse Atlantic, launches, it is very likely that Gatwick to JFK – which was very much Norwegian's largest long-haul market – will begin. For now, though, JetBlue will be the sole operator to Gatwick.

Both Norwegian and BA operated Gatwick-JFK in 2019. Photo: Vincenzo Pace | Simple Flying.

JetBlue's offering still means a huge gap

While JetBlue will inevitably add more frequencies from JFK to London, perhaps especially to Heathrow if it is able to secure more slots, it will operate once-daily for the rest of this year.

This means it'll have about 64,000 round-trip seats this year, meaning it'll have less than 4% of the London-NYC market. To Gatwick, it'll have fewer than 25,000 seats. JetBlue's London operation isn't particularly risky in the grand scheme of things.

Assuming JetBlue to Gatwick remains once-daily in 2022, seats will total about 101,000, eight times fewer than what the airport had to JFK in 2019. And if Heathrow and Gatwick are combined and frequency remains unchanged, the carrier will have less than one-quarter of what Gatwick had.

Will you be booking JetBlue to London? Let us know in the comments!