The Community News Service is a program in which University of Vermont students work with professional editors to provide content for local news outlets at no cost.
Vermonters got word last October that JetBlue Airways would leave Patrick Leahy Burlington International Airport, a significant blow considering the airline’s lone route to New York’s John F. Kennedy International carried about 10% of all traffic coming in and out of the field.
The airline, in a statement to local media at the time, cited air traffic controller shortages in the greater New York City area as the primary driver behind its decision. Those labor challenges appear to have hit other airlines in Burlington too: Delta Air Lines revealed around the same time that it would reduce service on its own route to New York’s Kennedy airport.
But more was going on behind the scenes at JetBlue. Interviews with former congressional and airport staff — and airline schedule data analyzed by the Community News Service — show the New York-based airline was mulling a break with the Burlington airport almost five years earlier and had been struggling with revenue there for years.
During the busy congressional season on the Hill in 2018, a visitor appeared at then-U.S. Sen. Patrick Leahy’s Washington office on Constitution Avenue: a senior executive from JetBlue. The sitdown came as the airline was considering pulling out completely from Burlington International that year, according to a former senior staffer for the Democratic senator with direct knowledge of the meetings, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Former and current higher-ups at the airport say the same.
“JetBlue was one of the airlines that was the least likely to stay in Burlington,” said Gene Richards, who at the time was airport director at Burlington International. “We had to work really hard to (keep them here) … It was a constant battle.”
Richards, who left in 2021 amid workplace hostility claims, told CNS that the airport went as far to reduce fees and be creative about how to keep prices low in an effort to keep JetBlue around. Ultimately, Richards said, he asked Vermont’s entire congressional delegation in 2018 to step in and, effectively, mediate between the two sides.
Eventually, JetBlue announced several service cuts in October 2018 — none that included Burlington’s coveted route to Kennedy International. Around the same time, the company trimmed service at Portland International Jetport in Maine, a similarly sized market. But the airline’s departure wasn’t far on the horizon — and for those with an eye on key data trends for the company, it likely wasn’t surprising.
Data from Cirium Aviation Analytics, an industry standard for airline schedule data, shows how this theme has made its way to Vermont, too. The Cirium data was available to a CNS reporter through his employment with The Air Current, an aviation analysis publication. In the years preceding the 2018 meetings, JetBlue had seen a steady decline in onboards at Burlington International, or the number of revenue-paying passengers boarding its airplanes.
In 2012, that number sat at just over 33,000 — the highest of any airlines at Burlington International flying this route at the time, according to the data. By the third quarter of 2018, the data shows, that number had dropped to just under 22,000 revenue-paying passengers, a decline of about 34%. Over that same span, both United Airlines and Delta Air Lines saw gains or at least returns to their 2012 levels, though variability in the number of flights each airline offers makes the comparison inexact.
“(Leahy and JetBlue) were able to have some conversations to really help justify the data (in 2018),” said Nic Longo, the current airport director at Burlington International, which has since been renamed for the former senator. “That’s what airlines make these decisions on. It’s the data, the profitability and the sustainability of offering these routes and destinations.”
To whatever avail Leahy may have been able to convince the airline to stay, the data shows the downward trend continued to get worse. Following the onslaught of challenges facing the airline industry brought on by the Covid-19 pandemic, JetBlue’s recovery at the Burlington airport was by some metrics lower than those of United and Delta flying on the New York route. Quarterly revenue figures from Cirium show that, emerging from the pandemic, JetBlue struggled to match the ticket sales of its competition. By the third quarter of 2023, the airline’s revenue on the New York route was 34% less than that of Delta, the highest performing operator on the route at the time.
But Longo said that when the airline came back to the table to discuss its eventual departure, revenue wasn’t a large part of the conversation. As public statements show, the airline was struggling to retain service amid air traffic controller shortages that resulted in a program instituted by the Federal Aviation Administration to limit flights in and out of New York City across the board.
JetBlue’s corporate communications office did not respond to an email seeking comment on whether revenue had affected its decision to leave in 2023.
Much has changed at JetBlue since it began operating out of Burlington, one of its original destinations when it started flying in 2000. Since then, JetBlue has gone through what some industry observers see as an identity crisis — going from a crowd favorite budget airline for transcontinental routes to a more premium option by charging for bags and offering fully reclining seats on flights to Europe.
Most recently, the company had begun planning to merge with ultra-low-cost carrier Spirit Airlines, an effort which was blocked by a Massachusetts federal court in January on antitrust grounds. The companies appealed that decision but ultimately decided in March to terminate the agreement, forcing JetBlue to pay a $69 million fee to Spirit.
What remains appears to be an operator in flux. Earlier this year, CNBC reported the airline had sent an internal memo announcing further cuts to service in an effort to regain profitability — something it hasn’t done since the beginning of 2024, according to the latest earnings reports. Around the same time that memo was sent, JetBlue cut service completely from Portland, Maine, after reducing down to seasonal service in 2018. Most recently, the company cut a significant amount of service on the West Coast, routes once considered its bread-and-butter market share.
“It was all profit driven,” said Richards of the airline’s operation in Burlington during his tenure. “Flying out of New York City to another destination with a larger population, they can make more money per seat. That’s really what it came down to.”
Although the airline is gone from Burlington for now, JetBlue’s CEO told TV station WCAX it was “committed” to restarting the route at some point in the future after further talks with the state’s congressional leaders. That return could be reliant on the FAA’s hiring efforts for air traffic controllers — an effort somewhat affected by agency funding delayed by congressional debates. In the meantime, Delta has pulled an about-face and begun to rebuild its service to the New York area from Burlington, having in January restored two daily flights to Kennedy International and three to LaGuardia Airport — something Longo said was, and still is, a high priority for the airport.
Despite the departure, it’s been an otherwise roaring time for Burlington International. The airport is expanding its terminal, among other capital improvement projects, and recently broke a record for passengers not seen since October 2008 — representing more funds it can collect to lure in more airlines for travelers to choose from.
Most recently, that has attracted Breeze Airways, started by JetBlue founder David Neeleman. The company is flying direct service to both Tampa and Orlando out of Burlington.