As the recovery churns along, JetBlue has scheduled a total of 27,756 flights in December 2021. Compared to December 2019, the airline's total flights are down 12%, while seat count is down just 7.8%. Here is a look at the airline's top routes for December.

Top routes by flight operations

One of the biggest responsibilities for an airline's network planning team is determining how much service a route requires. Some routes do better with multiple daily frequencies to cater to high demand or business travelers who need more flexibility in choosing when they fly. Others do better on fewer services with a focus on peak-day travel.

Using data from Cirium, here are the airline's top 15 routes by scheduled flight operations in December:

1. Boston (BOS) To Washington D.C. (DCA) with 361 roundtrip flights
2. New York (JFK) to Orlando (MCO) with 249 roundtrip flights
3. New York (JFK) to Fort Lauderdale (FLL) with 241 roundtrip flights
4. New York (JFK) to Los Angeles (LAX) with 230 roundtrip flights
5. Boston (BOS) to New York (LGA) with 228 roundtrip flights
6. Boston (BOS) to New York (JFK) with 227 roundtrip flights
7. New York (JFK) to Santiago (STI) with 205 roundtrip flights
8. New York (JFK) to Santo Domingo (SDQ) with 190 roundtrip flights
9. New York (JFK) to San Juan (SJU) with 174 roundtrip flights
10. Boston (BOS) to Orlando (MCO) with 170 roundtrip flights
11. Boston (BOS) to Fort Lauderdale (FLL) with 156 roundtrip flights
12. Fort Lauderdale (FLL) to New York (LGA) with 155 roundtrip flights
13. New York (JFK) to Miami (MIA) with 152 roundtrip flights
14. Orlando (MCO) to San Juan (SJU) with 141 roundtrip flights
15. New York (JFK) to West Palm Beach (PBI) with 141 roundtrip flights

The top routes show the mix of leisure and business routes JetBlue does well on. Boston and New York, two of the largest gateways for JetBlue, have a large amount of origination traffic in both types of travelers. The heavy schedules between Boston and Washington D.C. and New York and Boston are key business routes. Meanwhile, flights to the Dominican Republic and Orlando are more leisure-oriented routes.

While some of these routes will typically see more consistent services per day, this is not the case for all routes. Some more leisure-oriented routes are bulked up around the weekends, namely Fridays through Sundays, while business routes are bulked up on the weekdays.

Due to the winter holiday period, there are some adjustments, including Christmas and the New Year's holiday. This typically sees JetBlue bulk up its operations on the days before and after while operating smaller schedules on the holidays themselves.

Seat count shows different routes on top

JetBlue has a relatively streamlined fleet with the Airbus A220, A320, and Embraer E190 families. However, the airline schedules different aircraft on each route, leading to different top performers based on seat count. Here are the routes with the greatest number of seats planned per data from Cirium:

1. New York (JFK) to Orlando (MCO) with 43,896 seats
2. Orlando (MCO) to New York (JFK) with 43,510 seats
3. New York (JFK) to Fort Lauderdale (FLL) with 42,026 seats
4. Fort Lauderdale (FLL) to New York (JFK) with 41,902 seats scheduled
5. New York (JFK) to Santiago (STI) with 38,454 seats scheduled
6. Santiago (STI) to New York (JFK) with 38,254 seats scheduled
7. Los Angles (LAX) to New York (JFK) with 36,842 seats
8. New York (JFK) to Los Angeles (LAX) with 36,524 seats scheduled
9. Washington D.C. (DCA) to Boston (BOS) with 36,100 seats scheduled
10. Santo Domingo (SDQ) to New York (JFK) with 36,034 seats scheduled
11. Boston (BOS) to Washington D.C. (DCA) with 36,000 seats
12. New York (JFK) to Santo Domingo (SDQ) with 35,872 seats scheduled
13. San Juan (SJU) to New York (JFK) with 32,392 seats scheduled
14. New York (JFK) to San Juan (SJU) with 32,080 seats
15. Orlando (MCO) to Boston (BOS) with 30,696 seats scheduled

Schedule variations can lead to different seat counts. This includes variations based on pure flight schedules that depart before or after midnight, pushing a flight scheduled in December into January, altering the numbers slightly. Generally speaking, JetBlue's schedule is relatively consistent in terms of planned seats per direction.

Noticeably, it is clear that some of the key business routes (New York to Boston and Boston to Washington D.C., for example) do not appear high up on this list. This is because JetBlue is using smaller aircraft, namely Embraer regional jets, on these routes.

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What about international operations?

JetBlue's international schedule has 3,290 departures scheduled from the United States in December, equivalent to roughly 540,000 seats. The top two international routes from JetBlue also appear on the airline's list of top routes by scheduled flights. Below are the top 15 routes by flight operations:

1. New York (JFK) to Santiago (STI) with 205 roundtrip flights
2. New York (JFK) to Santo Domingo (SDQ) with 190 roundtrip flights
3. New York (JFK) to Kingston (KIN) with 92 roundtrip flights
4. New York (JFK) to Cancun (CUN) with 89 roundtrip flights
5. New York (JFK) to Aruba (AUA) with 88 roundtrip flights
6. Fort Lauderdale (FLL) to Kingston (KIN) with 82 roundtrip flights
7. San Juan (SJU) to Santo Domingo (SDQ) with 78 roundtrip flights
8. Boston (BOS) to Aruba (AUA) with 69 roundtrip flights
9. Fort Lauderdale (FLL) to Nassau (NAS) with 68 roundtrip flights
10. Fort Lauderdale (FLL) to Cancun (CUN) with 62 roundtrip flights
11. Fort Lauderdale (FLL) to Port-au-Prince (PAP) with 62 roundtrip flights
12. New York (JFK) to Montego Bay (MBJ) with 62 roundtrip flights
13. New York (JFK) to Punta Cana (PUJ) with 62 roundtrip flights
14. New York (JFK) to Port-au-Prince (PAP) with 61 roundtrip flights
15. Fort Lauderdale (FLL) to Montego Bay (MBJ) with 57 roundtrip flights

JetBlue's London operations do not show up on the list because they are split between Gatwick and Heathrow. Combined, JetBlue has 62 roundtrip flights scheduled between New York and London in December.

JetBlue's international departures have recovered faster than domestic operations. In fact, the airline's December departures to international destinations from the US are up 3.9% from pure flight operations and up 11.9% by seat count compared to the same month in 2019. Part of this comes from the addition of new routes, like the launch of flights to London, while JetBlue has also added several new international routes to its network, including out of Newark (EWR), which has seen plenty of growth from JetBlue, including internationally.