Mere hours after Spirit Airlines shut down last weekend, JetBlue Airways announced more than two dozen new flights out of Spirit’s home airport.
JetBlue’s speed in filling the void was not surprising. The airline is trying to turn itself around after years of losing money. JetBlue wants to make Spirit’s base — Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport, near Miami — the next pillar of its business, and seized the opportunity to attract thousands of travelers suddenly left in the lurch.
Once celebrated as a hip, disruptive upstart, JetBlue has fallen on hard times. The company has shrunk somewhat in recent years to under 5 percent of domestic air travel, making it about one-fourth as big as the country’s largest airlines.
As a result, it is not big enough to compete head to head with American, Delta, United or Southwest. And its costs are too high to pursue the low-fare approach popularized by Spirit and others. That leaves JetBlue in a difficult situation: It needs to grow, but it has few easy or good options.
“It is the most uncomfortable place in the world,” said John Grant, chief analyst at OAG, an aviation data provider. “You don’t know where you’re going and how you can compete.”
From 2019 to 2025, JetBlue’s operating costs rose almost 29 percent as it matched industrywide raises handed out to pilots and other employees and paid more in airport fees. But its revenue climbed just 13 percent. The airline has lost money every year since 2019 and has about $8.5 billion in debt.
JetBlue, which is based in New York, declined to make its chief executive available for an interview for this article.
The airline has tried various strategies to put itself on a more sustainable footing, but few have worked out.
In 2020, it formed a partnership with American Airlines that would have given JetBlue access to more airports and customers. Two years later, JetBlue announced plans to acquire Spirit.
The Biden administration’s Justice Department successfully challenged both in court by arguing they would reduce competition, hurting travelers. It is also not clear, analysts said, that a merger with Spirit would have helped JetBlue.
And while the airline was pursuing those deals, larger carriers like Delta Air Lines and United Airlines expanded their dominance by increasingly catering to affluent travelers with premium seats, airport lounges and branded credit cards, a strategy that helped them rack up big profits. JetBlue has recently started trying to copy that playbook.
JetBlue was also hamstrung in other ways. A problem with some Pratt & Whitney jet engines hit JetBlue particularly hard, forcing it to ground planes for inspections and maintenance over the last several years. More recently, the war in Iran has sharply increased the cost of fuel.
Its troubles have made JetBlue the subject of extensive speculation in recent weeks.
Some analysts have mused that United may be interested in acquiring JetBlue after being rebuffed by American Airlines on a merger proposal. But the chief executive of United, Scott Kirby, said in an interview with The New York Times that he had reservations about buying a smaller airline because it might not be worth the effort.
United and JetBlue already have a partnership to sell seats on each other’s flights and link their loyalty programs. As part of that deal, United will also use JetBlue technology to sell travel packages and JetBlue will let United use some of its takeoff and landing slots at Kennedy International Airport.
That deal highlights some of JetBlue’s most valuable assets — in particular, its presence at big airports in New York and Boston, which are so busy that adding more flights is difficult. That gives JetBlue an edge and makes it an attractive acquisition target.
But securing a merger or acquisition will not be easy because of JetBlue’s debt. In addition, a lot of the airlines that may be interested in buying JetBlue, with the possible exception of United, are not in a great position to strike a deal, analysts said.
Spirit’s demise has also stirred up worries that other indebted airlines, like JetBlue, could run into financial trouble if jet fuel prices stay high. David Neeleman, an airline entrepreneur who founded JetBlue, recently said JetBlue could have to seek bankruptcy protection.
His comments, in a private meeting of which a video was leaked online, forced JetBlue’s chief executive, Joanna Geraghty, to tell employees in a memo that bankruptcy was “not something we’re considering.”
Analysts say JetBlue is in a much stronger position than Spirit was, and could eventually become profitable again. The airline also has billions of dollars in assets that it has not borrowed against, giving it the ability to raise more money or survive an economic downturn.
The airline’s turnaround plan, which it calls JetForward, rests on four initiatives: improving service, making better use of its planes and routes, attracting more affluent customers and improving its finances.
The airline said last month that it was cutting less profitable flights in the second half of the year, reducing capacity by at least 2 percent. It has also delayed about $3 billion in new aircraft purchases.
JetBlue has introduced a premium credit card that comes with benefits that appeal to travelers who spend a lot of money. It also plans to start selling first-class seats on domestic flights and open lounges at Kennedy Airport and Boston Logan International Airport — the airports where it has the most flights.
Analysts said the company’s strategy made sense and should help, but they worry that JetBlue will still struggle because it faces stiff competition at Kennedy and Logan, chiefly from Delta, the most profitable U.S. airline.
“The product’s great, they have a very loyal customer base, they’re in some really major markets,” said Tom Fitzgerald, an airline industry analyst for the investment bank TD Cowen. “But there’s no obvious growth areas.”
That’s why the airline is so focused on expanding in Fort Lauderdale, which it hopes to use to attract wealthy customers in South Florida. In an internal memo on the day Spirit shutdown, Ms. Geraghty said that the airline’s demise was “really tough news,” but that JetBlue was ready to seize the opening.
“This development presents a once-in-a-generation opportunity for us to cement our position as the leading player” at the Fort Lauderdale airport, she said. Ms. Geraghty announced that JetBlue was adding 27 daily flights from the airport, including some on new routes.
JetBlue had been expanding at the airport in recent years while Spirit reduced its presence there as it endured two bankruptcies in two years.
Typically, when an airline adds a lot of flights at an airport, it takes time to attract customers. Many new flights are not very full. But JetBlue has reported that it has already seen revenues rise from its expansion at Fort Lauderdale over the last 12 months.
With Spirit out of the picture, JetBlue is now the largest airline at the airport, with more than twice as many flights scheduled this month as the next-biggest carrier, Delta, according to Cirium, an aviation data firm.
“It is full steam ahead in Fort Lauderdale,” Ms. Geraghty told analysts on a conference call last month, “and we look forward to continuing to bring the great stuff with product and service there.”
Niraj Chokshi is a Times reporter who writes about aviation, rail and other transportation industries.
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