Hope the moderators will allow me to post this off topic message here, as there are a lot of Burgh'ers still on this bulletin board. JetBlue announced service from Pittsburgh to JFK and BOS today, statring on 6/30/06 with the Embraer RJ. As someone who has family in NYC and usually either drives there or flies Southwest to Philly and then drives the rest of the way I am really glad to see another option. I hope they do better than AirTran however on the route!

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/06076/671812.stm
http://www.jetblue.com/learnmore/pressDetail.asp?newsId=412

So the cities have been announced, now is the service between Pitt and JFK lagging that much? I'm sure Jacksonville will greatly benefit from the new service. Southwest seems to do well in Jax, so good luck jetBlue.

As of today, searching by price on the usair website, PIT-BOS lowest price is $354. If you'd like to fly that route on a Friday or Sunday, the lowest fare is currently $414. These "search by price" fares quickly rise to $1246 for a walk up fare. Anyone care to hazard a guess as to the fare come mid-June?? I know it won't sink as low as PIT-PHL but treating customers as if you own them well...... what goes around, comes around. I'll put my sell bid in at $200. Anyone else?

This is huge news for me being based in BOS but family in PIT. I guess at some point I will have to make the decision between First on US or the wonderful entertainment on JetBlue...

Goodbye BOS-PIT BloFare. You will not be missed.

The interesting thing is New York service from Pittsburgh is actually now crowded with USAirways, American, Continental, JetBlue and Delta all offering service.

The interesting thing is New York service from Pittsburgh is actually now crowded with USAirways, American, Continental, JetBlue and Delta all offering service.

Yeah, but only Delta does JFK, and then only what 1-2/day?

And none of them offer anything close to the fare levels that JetBlue does. Plus, for the neophyte or those with more time than money, JFK is the preferred point of entry (taking the Subway instead of the NJT from Newark or the Bus-->Subway tango at LGA).

Since I normally fly to LGA I'm more interestd in AA's PIT-LGA service. Hope it sticks and with pressure from JetBlue is also at a reasonable fare.

as mentioned above, I think only DL does JFK. DL has a decent reason to provide this - connections to some transatlantic flights at JFK.

But Does JetBlue have interline ticketing agreements (I assume few if any)? Now that PIT has no direct transatlantic service, more service connecting through JFK is not a bad thing (esp as compared to PHL). JFK has the plus of many more Europe connections than PHL too (eg if a flight gets cancelled).

If JetBlue doesnt have such agreements, I wonder how many people would fly to JFK to take a separately-ticketed foreign trip.

and.. since US has decent PIT-LGA fares (as do the other majors). Not sure how successful PIT-JFK will be once people realize travel time downtown, etc.

Speaking of the low LGA fares - who lowered them first? US or competitors? I just wonder since it was only a month or so that they lowered them to $200-ish if they caught wind of JetBlue's plans and wanted to take a pre-emptive shot.

^ I'm glad to see JetBlue at PIT. It's the best true "LCC" (US is really just a hybrid). It' great for PIT-BOS as that route was priced ridiculously. As for connecting through JFK; I am not nuts about the idea for domestic connections. The extra air traffic time in and out of the NYC airports is annoying, and then one is backtracking when going west from PIT. Nevertheless, its a great carrier, and hopefully will only help fares and options out of PIT.

Fares PIT-LGA dropped due to AA entering the market.
Per the Pittsburgh/New York shuffle there was an article in the PG about how to do it cheaply:

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/06078/672165.stm

Lots of options. I've done the PIT-PHL and rental car the rest of the way, PIT all the way to New York via car, bus, train or plane (when AirTran used to fly the route).

pitflyer - thanks for the reminder that (no surprise) AA caused the PIT-LGA fare drop.

All this talk about JetBlue to NY has me missing independence air. not just the fact that they caused UA to match their fares (of course US didnt match prices to DCA), but because their service, etc was quite fun and fairly reliable (at least from PIT - I've heard of usual hub horrors in IAD)..

speaking of - where are all of FlyI's planes going? Curious whether JetBlue/etc ended up buying some of them given their timely expansion plans.

JetBlue's entry into Pittsburgh spells more bad news to USAir. According to Lehman Brothers, PIT-NYC is US's third most profitable domestic market--kiss that goodbye. BOS-PIT ranks as their six best domestic route. My guess is that these turn red once B6 starts competing.

NYC to JAX will hit CO much more than US though. EWR-JAX is CO's 13th best route.