JetBlue Airways has been informed that its bid for 12 slot pairs at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport (DCA) has been provisionally accepted.
Once approved by DOJ, JetBlue expects to add 12 new roundtrip flights at Washington's popular, close-in airport. The airline plans to introduce nonstop service to cities it does not currently serve from DCA, expanding the benefits of its award-winning service to more communities, as well as add more flights on some existing routes.
JetBlue first entered the Reagan National market in 2010 and today offers 18 daily roundtrip flights to Boston, Fort Lauderdale/Hollywood, Orlando, Tampa, as well as the airport's only nonstop service to San Juan, Puerto Rico. With its new slots, JetBlue will operate up to 30 roundtrips per day at DCA.
"For more than a decade, JetBlue worked tirelessly to gain access to DCA, a high-fare market perfectly made for our everyday low fare business model," said Rob Land, JetBlue's Senior Vice President of Government Affairs and Associate General Counsel. "The JetBlue Experience is about serving the under-served with affordable, award-winning and nonstop service, to places people want to visit, not through spokes in a wheel. JetBlue has already had a major impact at Reagan National in just a few short years with its everyday low fares, such as in the key business market to Boston, where since our entry in 2010, average fares have been reduced 31% and traffic has nearly doubled, soaring 93%.