JetBlue slashing MCO flights

[kylenne]

Seems like in addition to the well publicized cuts to their western routes, B6 is slashing routes at MCO in the fall. I was shocked when I got a recent email that our September return flight to JFK was changed from 8pm to 2pm. Seems they are only going to 2 flights a day! Discussed it with a local on Reddit and it seems they are downsizing flights across the board at MCO. Crazy that it’s even happening on very popular routes like MCO-JFK. Especially considering their heavy Orlando presence between C and their training campus.

I ended up switching our flights to Delta. Fewer Skymiles to book than the TB points I originally paid (in part bc of the Amex benefit), and I upgraded to First Class for a song. I’ve been a loyal B6 customer for years, because even with the cutbacks I still think they have the best domestic Economy product. But they are making it hard to stick with them.

 

[_19disnA]

Sounds like an effort to save money/cut costs. Many of these 'shoe-string' airlines expand too rapidly and they all have huge fixed costs associated with airplanes and their maintenance. Then they find themselves short of cash. The article is from some travel site behind a paywall, but you can find similar articles on various sites. Many also start out and expand too rapidly with overly optimistic projections of how many customers they will have. Their effort to merge with Spirit didn't happen.

 

[NYCgrrl]

I just booked a spur of the moment flight on JetBlue, LGA to MCO, r/t.
The price of the Spirit fare was almost 1/2 the cost but after all the horror stories I’ve heard of them decided this was neither the time or place to go crazy (in all senses of the word).

Sorry, to hear JB is having problems. Was one of the few domestic carriers I’d any faith in .

 

[Chirple]

This has already happened at EWR. JetBlue used to offer many nonstops EWR-MCO, but the last several years it's down to 3 per day, either early in the morning or late in the day with no midday flights. We did use points for a one-way back from Orlando last December (EWR-MCO was on United with points). We also noticed that their pricing has been much higher than United's so now we rarely fly JetBlue when it was our carrier of choice for years.

 

[The Mayor]

JB has been screwing around with their schedules constantly the last couple years. We use them out of Boston to MCO and San Francisco and our lat trip to WDW in October of 2022 they changed our flight times 6 times and eventually cancelling our 11:45 flight and moving it to 2:10. We were flying with our children and grandchildren (10 of us) so changing flights and seats six times was a royal pain in the ***. I’ve seen a lot of this from JB lately.

We fly solely on points (JB credit card points) so I deal with it but if it keeps up may be looking at other airline CC for points.

 

[kylenne]

JB has been screwing around with their schedules constantly the last couple years. We use them out of Boston to MCO and San Francisco and our lat trip to WDW in October of 2022 they changed our flight times 6 times and eventually cancelling our 11:45 flight and moving it to 2:10. We were flying with our children and grandchildren (10 of us) so changing flights and seats six times was a royal pain in the ***. I’ve seen a lot of this from JB lately.

We fly solely on points (JB credit card points) so I deal with it but if it keeps up may be looking at other airline CC for points.

Our flights are always booked on points, since I have the JBP card. I do a lot of short hop flights on Delta and ended up with a nice targeted offer for their CC so picked one up earlier this year. At this rate I may slowly shift over if B6 continues these cuts. It’s not like I live in a small city with no options.

 

[focusondisney]

And I’m moving back to JB from SW. Those aw our only nonstop options, usually only 1 or 2 nonstops each a day. I have the SW CC so usually fly them. But they’ve been really annoying & unreliable lately, with a lot of changes & delays. I had SW booked for Labor Day week, my flights were changed last week. I’m not happy with the new flight times, so changed to JB. The times & prices are great. The blue basic is $69, Blue $98 nonstop from Buffalo. We don’t have the CC so we’ll pay for 1 checked shared bag & each take a carry on. Waiting for a higher points offer then my husband will get the card so we can avoid the fee in the future.

Bonus for me, I found out anyone can book an extra seat, no explanation needed, for the same price as your seat costs. I am so tired of being squeezed in the middle seat & we still have some Covid anxiety. I had been booking Business Select on SW to get a better seat, so paying $98 each way to book an extra seat & avoid being squished next to a stranger was not much more & well worth it to me.

 

[kylenne]

Sounds like an effort to save money/cut costs. Many of these 'shoe-string' airlines expand too rapidly and they all have huge fixed costs associated with airplanes and their maintenance. Then they find themselves short of cash. The article is from some travel site behind a paywall, but you can find similar articles on various sites. Many also start out and expand too rapidly with overly optimistic projections of how many customers they will have. Their effort to merge with Spirit didn't happen.

View attachment 865187

The majority of those routes they cut previously were unprofitable and not a surprise. JFK-DCA for example really made no sense given the business travelers it was aimed at are more likely to take the Acela.

JFK-MCO is an entirely different kettle of fish, that’s an incredibly profitable and very heavily trafficked route between the closest thing to 2 hubs they have.

And I’m moving back to JB from SW. Those aw our only nonstop options, usually only 1 or 2 nonstops each a day. I have the SW CC so usually fly them. But they’ve been really annoying & unreliable lately, with a lot of changes & delays. I had SW booked for Labor Day week, my flights were changed last week. I’m not happy with the new flight times, so changed to JB. The times & prices are great. The blue basic is $69, Blue $98 nonstop from Buffalo. We don’t have the CC so we’ll pay for 1 checked shared bag & each take a carry on. Waiting for a higher points offer then my husband will get the card so we can avoid the fee in the future.

Bonus for me, I found out anyone can book an extra seat, no explanation needed, for the same price as your seat costs. I am so tired of being squeezed in the middle seat & we still have some Covid anxiety. I had been booking Business Select on SW to get a better seat, so paying $98 each way to book an extra seat & avoid being squished next to a stranger was not much more & well worth it to me.

I know they have a lot of fans here, but I flew SW exactly once for work ages and ages ago (not by choice) and learned it was just not for me. Too chaotic.

B6 is great, when they’re on point…the problem is that’s getting to be more of a crapshoot, even in their “focus cities” (the closest thing to hubs they have). I have noticed a steady decline since covid. Not enough to make me dump my points, but enough to make me diversify a bit more. Cutting their west coast routes was a huge blow given I fly to LAS frequently to visit family.

I am hoping the JFK-MCO cuts are temporary measures; I can’t imagine they’re not given how much they’ve invested into T5 and their Orlando campus specifically. Even before the cuts, I’ve noticed prices creeping up. I was genuinely shocked at how many points it cost to book those Sept flights vs our May flights last year. That Delta is coming in cheaper is insane to me. One of the reasons I could justify my AP was cheap point flights on B6 and the JBP card giving me more than I know what to do with. One word of advice if you do end up getting one, make sure to keep an eye on your TB statement after you complete an award flight, they are not always good about refunding the points and once in a while I have to follow up with them. One thing I like better about the Delta card, they take the 15% off right when you book an award flight.

 

[0FF TO NEVERLAND]

Our flights are always booked on points, since I have the JBP card. I do a lot of short hop flights on Delta and ended up with a nice targeted offer for their CC so picked one up earlier this year. At this rate I may slowly shift over if B6 continues these cuts. It’s not like I live in a small city with no options.

The bag perk alone is the main reason I always use JB in the end with the card. Even if Delta is cheaper, I always save a hell of a lot with the free bags for me and 3 others RT

 

[kylenne]

The bag perk alone is the main reason I always use JB in the end with the card. Even if Delta is cheaper, I always save a hell of a lot with the free bags for me and 3 others RT

I have cards with both airlines so that’s even for me. Bag perks pay for them both, I agree it’s very nice to have.

 

[focusondisney]

I am hoping the JFK-MCO cuts are temporary measures; I can’t imagine they’re not given how much they’ve invested into T5 and their Orlando campus specifically. Even before the cuts, I’ve noticed prices creeping up. I was genuinely shocked at how many points it cost to book those Sept flights vs our May flights last year. That Delta is coming in cheaper is insane to me. One of the reasons I could justify my AP was cheap point flights on B6 and the JBP card giving me more than I know what to do with. One word of advice if you do end up getting one, make sure to keep an eye on your TB statement after you complete an award flight, they are not always good about refunding the points and once in a while I have to follow up with them. One thing I like better about the Delta card, they take the 15% off right when you book an award flight.

JB used to have a few daily nonstops to Orlando from Buffalo but cut back to 1 a day several years ago, well before the pandemic. In slower times of the year, they’ve only run nonstops on weekends. United & Delta fly from here, but no nonstops, so I won’t even consider them. Frontier has nonstops, but I’ve never had a good feeling about them. Thats why it’s either SW or JB for me. Thanks for the tips on the CC!

 

[Djm_in_buffalo]

And I’m moving back to JB from SW. Those aw our only nonstop options, usually only 1 or 2 nonstops each a day. I have the SW CC so usually fly them. But they’ve been really annoying & unreliable lately, with a lot of changes & delays. I had SW booked for Labor Day week, my flights were changed last week. I’m not happy with the new flight times, so changed to JB. The times & prices are great. The blue basic is $69, Blue $98 nonstop from Buffalo. We don’t have the CC so we’ll pay for 1 checked shared bag & each take a carry on. Waiting for a higher points offer then my husband will get the card so we can avoid the fee in the future.

Bonus for me, I found out anyone can book an extra seat, no explanation needed, for the same price as your seat costs. I am so tired of being squeezed in the middle seat & we still have some Covid anxiety. I had been booking Business Select on SW to get a better seat, so paying $98 each way to book an extra seat & avoid being squished next to a stranger was not much more & well worth it to me.

The flight times for directs to/from Buffalo - MCO seem to be getting less and less ideal, for both SW and JB. Historically, I preferred SW, earlier this year really liked JBs times, now….seems it’s time to hit the drawing board again. Good to know on the extra seat - I hadn’t realized this.

 

[focusondisney]

The flight times for directs to/from Buffalo - MCO seem to be getting less and less ideal, for both SW and JB. Historically, I preferred SW, earlier this year really liked JBs times, now….seems it’s time to hit the drawing board again. Good to know on the extra seat - I hadn’t realized this.

I never did either, just saw it in the last month or 2. If you search extra seat on the website, you can find info.

 

[Newsies]

This has already happened at EWR. JetBlue used to offer many nonstops EWR-MCO, but the last several years it's down to 3 per day, either early in the morning or late in the day with no midday flights. We did use points for a one-way back from Orlando last December (EWR-MCO was on United with points). We also noticed that their pricing has been much higher than United's so now we rarely fly JetBlue when it was our carrier of choice for years.

Tell me about it! The reason I became so loyal to JetBlue was because for many years, it was the best airline for traveling between EWR-MCO. So many options, such reasonable prices. Last year, I tried to fly to WDW for the first time in two years and was shocked at the prices and the fact that they only had three inbound flights on Labor Day.

I still booked JetBlue for my September trip, but the price was more than I was hoping to pay and they've already changed my flight time twice -- getting very nervous for these flights. I'm probably going to have to go back to American next time I fly, but I'm really unhappy about it.

 

[Chirple]

Tell me about it! The reason I became so loyal to JetBlue was because for many years, it was the best airline for traveling between EWR-MCO. So many options, such reasonable prices. Last year, I tried to fly to WDW for the first time in two years and was shocked at the prices and the fact that they only had three inbound flights on Labor Day.

I still booked JetBlue for my September trip, but the price was more than I was hoping to pay and they've already changed my flight time twice -- getting very nervous for these flights. I'm probably going to have to go back to American next time I fly, but I'm really unhappy about it.

One of the reasons why we booked one-way MCO-EWR is because I wanted to use the points we get from the credit card, which we pretty much only use for a handful of automatic bill payments. Flying United EWR-MCO gave us more nonstop departure times. We've gotten in the habit of booking two one-way domestic flights vs roundtrip.

 

[Newsies]

We've gotten in the habit of booking two one-way domestic flights vs roundtrip.

You know, I've never thought to do this before, but I think I'm going to look into it. Have you ever run into any issues re: scheduling, keeping track of different airlines, etc. that you wouldn't have run into if you booked roundtrip?

 

[Chirple]

You know, I've never thought to do this before, but I think I'm going to look into it. Have you ever run into any issues re: scheduling, keeping track of different airlines, etc. that you wouldn't have run into if you booked roundtrip?

No. Each flight is in its respective airline app. If it's the same airline, each flight is displayed separately. It gives you some flexibility to mix and match between airlines for your preferred schedule.

Once used, the boarding passes for the flight automatically go into the expired pass section of my Apple wallet.

It is really easy once you start doing it. We do have a very short trip coming up later in the summer, and I did book r/t instead of two one-ways.

 

[scard192]

JB has been screwing around with their schedules constantly the last couple years. We use them out of Boston to MCO and San Francisco and our lat trip to WDW in October of 2022 they changed our flight times 6 times and eventually cancelling our 11:45 flight and moving it to 2:10. We were flying with our children and grandchildren (10 of us) so changing flights and seats six times was a royal pain in the ***. I’ve seen a lot of this from JB lately.

We fly solely on points (JB credit card points) so I deal with it but if it keeps up may be looking at other airline CC for points.

We travel April school vacation week. 2022 - there were 9 flights per day non stop between BOS-MCO. April 2024, there were 4 I think. moved our trip to leave Thursday instead of Sat/Sun and prices were outrageous

 

[kylenne]

You know, I've never thought to do this before, but I think I'm going to look into it. Have you ever run into any issues re: scheduling, keeping track of different airlines, etc. that you wouldn't have run into if you booked roundtrip?

JetBlue even recommends you book award flights as 2 one way tickets vs a round trip just because it’s easier if you need to make changes. I always book award fares as one ways.

 

[Newsies]

No. Each flight is in its respective airline app. If it's the same airline, each flight is displayed separately. It gives you some flexibility to mix and match between airlines for your preferred schedule.

Once used, the boarding passes for the flight automatically go into the expired pass section of my Apple wallet.

It is really easy once you start doing it. We do have a very short trip coming up later in the summer, and I did book r/t instead of two one-ways.

Thank you so much for your insight!!!

JetBlue even recommends you book award flights as 2 one way tickets vs a round trip just because it’s easier if you need to make changes. I always book award fares as one ways.

This makes a lot of sense, thank you!