Long Beach Airport Lands New Carrier
JetBlue Airways, an upstart discount carrier, announced Wednesday that it was making Long Beach Airport its second hub, with nonstop flights to New York’s JFK International.
The announcement followed a month of intense secret negotiations between the new New York-based carrier and Long Beach officials who desperately wanted a viable low-fare airline at their underused airport.
It comes at a time when federal, state and regional officials are trying to figure out how Southern California can absorb an expected doubling of airline passengers by 2020. Opposition remains strong to a proposed massive Los Angeles International Airport expansion and construction of an airport at the former El Toro Marine Corps Air Station in Orange County.
At a news conference held beside one of his week-old blue and white jets parked on the Long Beach Airport tarmac, David Neeleman, JetBlue’s chief executive, said the new service will commence Aug. 29 with two flights a day to and from JFK, with fares ranging from $129 to $299 each way.
Over the next two years, the airline expects to eventually schedule 27 daily departures from Long Beach to as many as 15 cities--and create up to 300 new jobs in the region, he said.
The fledgling airline launched its first flights between JFK and Fort Lauderdale, Fla., in February 2000 with a fleet of new Airbus A320 planes, all furnished with leather seats and 24-channel television monitors. The 162-passenger planes are among the quietest in the industry.
That should come as good news to residents who have complained for years about noise at the 88-year-old Art Deco-style airport alongside the San Diego Freeway, just north of Signal Hill and between LAX and John Wayne Airport.
In 1990, a federal judge set a limit of 41 departures per day in response to local efforts to reduce noise. Then, a string of failed efforts to establish a foothold at the Long Beach airport by meagerly funded low-fare airlines had left available 27 unused “slots” with crucial federal takeoff and landing approvals.
In an interview, Neeleman said JetBlue needed control of all of those 27 slots. But the company also wanted to avoid a public war over them with competing airlines.
As a result, he said he demanded secrecy from Mayor Beverly O’Neill, City Council members and airport authorities who became targets of his fast-paced lobbying efforts about a month ago.
“We said, ‘You don’t have to be secretive about this, but if word gets out and other airlines start grabbing up slots, we’re out of here,’ ” Neeleman recalled, “ ‘We’ve got three other cities we can go to.’ ” He declined to identify those other cities.
Under a previous policy, new carriers were required to use their slots within six months of acquiring them. JetBlue aimed to phase them in over two years. In response to the company’s lobbying, the Long Beach City Council on May 15, without discussion and by a 8-1 vote, changed the rule to allow two years.
The new rule makes no mention of an airline by name. The day after it passed, JetBlue applied for the 27 slots. The application was approved Tuesday by Long Beach City Manager Henry Taboada.
“This is an airline that doesn’t like controversy,” Taboada said. “To have the most positive publicity for them and the community they needed that secrecy.”
Besides, he added, “over the past two years, we have begged virtually every airline to come to Long Beach. But we’ve had no takers. When JetBlue stepped up it was like manna from heaven for Long Beach.”
City Councilman Dennis Carroll, whose district is in the path of incoming flights and who cast the sole vote against the change in slotting rules, said the secretive negotiations may have cost JetBlue “an opportunity to win the goodwill of some people in my neighborhood.”
“But on the upside,” he added, “they appear to be a legitimate company, and they have assured me they will be having town halls to address our concerns.”
Airline industry analyst and consultant Mike Boyd of the Boyd Group in Evergreen, Colo., said the new flights will help the airport and Long Beach.
“Long Beach Airport traffic has gone up and down like a yo-yo because the biggest challenge out there: noise restrictions,” he said.
“JetBlue is a very good airline,” he said. “The real loss will be to local home improvement centers because when people see how low fares are to New York they may decide to travel rather than fix the house.”
JetBlue launched operations 15 months ago on a capital infusion of $160 million, raised from powerful investors including George Soros and Chase Capital Partners.
Since then, the carrier has served about 2 1/2 million passengers in the fiercely competitive New York City market with a fleet of 14 Airbus A320 aircraft, company officials said.
JetBlue recorded its first monthly profit in August 2000, and now claims six consecutive months of profitability. The carrier was ranked the No. 2 domestic airline for comfort and service in the 2001 Zagat Airline Survey. According to the Department of Transportation, as of February, JetBlue has had about one complaint per 100,000 passengers flown.
