Lack of Chicago presence
 

Any reason why JetBlue has yet to get into O'Hare on more than a few New York/Boston/San Juan flights? As someone who is a resident of the Chicago area, I'm so sick of the crappy flights from American and United. The worst airlines in the world.

I'd bet that a decent portion of the reason has to do with the other competition; NK is the 3rd largest carrier at ORD.

You should probably get out into the world more if you truly believe that.

I've flown a whole bunch of international airlines and United/AA are the worst. Emirates, Virgin, British Airways, and I'll be flying Singapore in the fall 2016 which I'm sure will further solidify my position.

I will second the fact that UA and AA are by far close to the bottom.

There are a few hundred airlines in the world. If these are the worst two you've had experiences on I'm betting the sample size is very, very small.

If you're talking about airlines like Ryanair, that's an apples to oranges comparison.

You called them "The worst airlines in the world." I believe that is untrue and that there are many, many others far worse. Feel free to refine the selection criteria being used, but the silly hyperbole doesn't do anyone much good.

And, FWIW, I'd probably rate Ryanair above UA in terms of consistently delivering exactly what it advertises to passengers.

Well FLIHGH also agreed with me that AA/UA are some of the worst in the world. So clearly it's a sentiment felt by more than 1.

And I addressed that challenge with both of you. You don't have to love them. But claiming them to be the "worst in the world" is baseless hyperbole which serves no real value.

It's not hyperbole as airline rankings are all opinion based. Opinions vary. Clearly you're high on them but there is a reason why they routinely get poor marks.

OP is entitled to have whatever opinions they'd like about [a] certain carrier(s). That said, B6 is largely a Northeast (BOS/JFK), Florida and LGB centric carrier. Granted they've been at ORD going on nine years but I suspect they don't have enough recognition and following to gain a significant share of the Chicago point of sale, and their service profile matches that. The Midwest is fairly new to B6 and it appears the new CLE & DTW service has been successful. Other consideration is the few markets in the Midwest B6 does serve are timed to feed partner flights at BOS/JFK. ORD of course is uniquely suited with full-scale hubs for two carriers and also many international carriers at T5 so there is likely less need to cater to those traffic flows.

Yup, usually based on experiences. Hence my suggestion that if those really are the two worst a traveler has experienced worldwide they should probably fly more airlines.

Not really on the global scale. They're quite average in that context.

I suppose because both UA and AA are well entrenched at ORD, that B6 chose not to make Chicago very important.

While B6 is a BOS-NYC (Northeast US), FLL, LGB and SJU focused carrier, it is a little more in DC as well.

It had some IAD flights (outside of service to the other hubs)and later it purchased DCA slots and keeps a lot of DCA routes now. Atleast with DCA, there are only so many slots held by competitors that B6 will know that US now AA can't drive B6 out by frequency, so there is some strategic benefit in keeping slots at DCA. However, I've seen dirt cheap fares on DCA-MCO and other DCA-Florida pairs, so I wonder though if there really is a lot of money from those flights, as B6 spent millions for those slots.

B6 used to fly ORD-LGB, but it ceased the service. Maybe if it merges with VX, it would inherit the marketshare of ORD-LAX/SFO from VX.

B6 was actually there in ORD before NK and F9 came along. While I don't ever expect B6 have interest in a route like ORD-PHL, it was odd to me that B6 didn't launch ORD-FLL however if not the full set of other Florida cities (MCO, TPA, PBI, RSW). With PHL, BWI, CLE and DTW getting FLL, it'd make sense for ORD and likely DFW to be linked to the FLL hub as well.

If it is all based on experiences, then why does it matter if we consider them to be among the bottom? There are people who say United is the best airline in the world. Do I disagree with them? Yes, absolutely, but I let them have their opinion and move on. Personally, especially when it comes to international service, international carriers are far superior.
WN has added many flights to Florida destinations, driving prices down a bit. Prices from DC-Florida are far higher than they were years ago when JetBlue had IAD-MCO/FLL flights.

Perhaps the deep discounting that I saw this year was done to drive off Frontier that ran a bunch of Florida routes but over from IAD. It appeared to work that Frontier now only has 1x daily of IAD-MCO, as JetBlue and US/AA were fare matching DCA-Florida to Frontier's IAD-Florida even with Frontier charging for a carry-on bag. I'm not sure if JetBlue started the aggressive fare matching or if US/AA did.

WN doesn't get as aggressive fare matching NK or F9, unless AA or B6 is involved.

Trying to bring this back to ORD, but it might be harder for B6 to launch some ORD-Florida routes now given that AA and UA have been fare matching NK and F9 on Florida. It might make it even harder for B6 to figure it's place in such environment.

I didn't expect the Frontier flights to last too long-- I took many trips under $40 RT from IAD down south ;) The CHS and BDL flights are consistantly the lowest prices JB has from DCA. I find that BOS and SJU are often the highest.

Would kill for a ORD-MCO route. WN isn't bad but would prefer B6.

As far as a VX/B6 merger goes, not sure how I feel about that. Love my VX flights to LAX/SFO.

I could see JetBlue adding flights to FLL, MCO, and TPA from ORD. I could also see MDW-JFK and MDW-BOS flights as well.

B6 doesn't even have that much capacity on ORD-JFK/BOS. It could certainly fill those routes with better frequency before opening a new station at MDW IMO. That would suit business passengers better, where if they miss the 2:00 flight, they get on the 4:00, but not needing to take a cab to MDW to get to that 4:00 flight.

Also with it's codesharing with international carriers like EK, it would probably make sense to stick at the primary international airport ORD and just increase frequency if needed.

I think ORD-FLL has the best chance. After that, I'm not sure if ORD-TPA/MCO would get the customers it wants. Likely a lot of leisure passengers looking for the cheapest fares. I think AA and UA would have the advantage for capturing business travel.

Maybe FLL as it tries to grow that hub. Very unlikely to see TPA. MCO is somewhere in the middle but not a ton of onward connections and yields into MCO are notoriously low.

Roughly zero chance of MDW any time soon, I'd say.

I don't see MDW either. Southwest dominates there with its flights to FL. FLL and MCO out of ORD would be very cool though.

Back around 2006-2007, they had flights between LGB-ORD as well. In my opinion, the service between JFK-ORD was abominable back then as well. My worst ever experience on JetBlue actually happened when I got stranded overnight at ORD in 2007. It took me until 2014 to try the route again even though I fly them everywhere else. Their gate area is much improved now as is the ground service overall. I'm guessing if they add more destinations it would require a 2nd gate at ORD so that's an additional cost consideration. Though I think the market is likely there for FLL, MCO and more Caribbean destinations, even if just seasonal flights. They did just decide to bring back Nashville service so maybe they will add back ORD-LGB at some point too.

I fly to Chicago a few times a year so I would love more options out of here. Last month I had to fly AA out because I needed to attend a meeting in Charlotte before heading back home.

During the Summer/Fall months, they seem to have about 4 non-stop flights between JFK-ORD which I think is pretty decent. Mixture of aircraft too. Starting around the 2nd week of November, they went down to 2 flights a day on the E190 only. My guess was due to seasonality?

My feeling is these NY-Chicago flights are almost exclusively business routes and the NY routes would be better served out of LGA than JFK. Not that it's a better airport but that's where the competition is so passengers are used to it. Most of the AA traffic is from LGA, United and NK as well. I would love to see B6 test a route from LGA-ORD and see how it performs.

LGB-ORD was around as late as 2010-11, I believe. They ended it only a month or so out, too.

Would be nice to see ORD-FLL as I regularly travel that route. AA has always had limited service on this route given their MIA hub and it's gotten worse since the merger with US as they are trying to route people through CLT. ORD-FLL is down to twice daily. UA doesn't offer much more service. WN is just such an undignified experience.

Biggest issue with expansion at ORD will be gate availability. Four LCCs are all crammed into a few gates on the L-concourse with UA and AA gobbling up every gate they can get their hands on to keep competition out of ORD.

That's precisely the reason: JetBlue at ORD is gate-constrained. ORD's terminals 1-3 are a duopoly, with almost all gates controlled by UA or AA. JetBlue could go to Terminal 5's shared-use gates, but knows that they're at a disadvantage (being much further from the 'L' and garages).

UA/AA signed off on the first part of ORD expansion, which increased their fees to build new runways that benefitted their operations. However, UA/AA refuse to sign off on the next phase, which would build a 50-gate new terminal for their competitors.

Why does ORD need UA/AA to sign off on expansion? They're just airlines.

They pay increased fees if the airport has significant expenses. If the airlines balk at that the airport cannot grow.

Why doesn't ORD just say "you pay or you're out." I doubt the airlines would say "okay I guess we're out."

Because airlines do change their operations when such increases come into play. Just ask Denver about that Continental hub operation when the fees were jacked in the transfer out of Stapleton (an extreme example, but I'm sure there are others). Even if they don't wholesale leave it can have a negative impact on total volume and fees collected.

The goal of an airport is to increase destinations, flights and revenues, not piss off the anchor tenants.

Perhaps B6 could open at MKE with a few routes with the gate constraints at ORD. I think B6 at times doesn't mind directly competing against WN when WN is the only direct competitor. BWI-MCO and PVD-MCO/FLL are a couple of examples. Atleast B6's fares will show up on OTAs.

I'm not sure if BOS-MKE traffic however could be split between WN and B6, especially as WN already runs an early morning BOS-MKE flight, unless B6 challenges WN for it.

Maybe MKE-FLL has a better chance with both carriers co-existing since Southern Florida is a leisure market that can be stimulated, and B6 can sell onward flights past FLL. AA doesn't fly MKE-MIA. But it's also rare to see B6 open a domestic station with just FLL and not BOS or JFK.

Maybe B6 should try MDW instead of expanding ORD then. I don't know of many people who MKE as an alternative to ORD or MDW.

MDW is dominated by WN. ORD is really competitive with two legacy hubs plus the ULCCs. If you're B6, why focus at all in Chicago? You won't beat the legacies on frequency since you don't have enough gates or equipment to do it (especially not at the relatively competitive price points), while WN + the ULCCs will compete with you on the leisure routes. On top of that, it can't be cheap to operate there, since without even looking it up I'm sure the Chicago bureaucracy doesn't make it cheap on the fees. And it's winter for 6 months of the year, so add in the costs of winter maintenance and IRROPS.

There really isn't any underserved segment of the market in Chicago, so I doubt it makes financial sense to focus or hub there.

Many, many people despise the garbage product that American/United serve up. WN is fine for MDW but nice to have some other options at ORD since I absolutely will not fly AA/UN unless forced at gunpoint.

I always fly Blue to JFK/BOS/SJU and always fly VX to LAX/SFO. I know many, many people who feel the same way as I do.

The vast majority are quite carrier-agnostic, though. People shop fares, not airlines. That's why the legacies can pack you in with 31" pitch and LCC/ULCC airlines like Spirit, Allegiant and Frontier are growing quite well. On the business travel side, it's going to come down to corporate contracts and schedule, with any discretion that an individual might have going to schedule and loyalty (where, let's be honest, B6's program is not nearly as good as AA, UA or even DL).

B6 used to have a free bag and a ton of legroom. Now they charge for bags and will tighten up the legroom (albeit still better than the legacy competition). They're doing that because it's going to positively impact the bottom line. People would rather have a cheaper fare than pay a little more in the base fare for added service, comfort and convenience.

Sure but there are other airlines there. B6 and WN co-exist at other airports just fine. It may be more cost effective to expand at MDW than at ORD if the legacies are driving the price at the latter.

I've known my share of folks who've either lived in or commuted to Chicago over the years. I can't think of one person who has been carrier agnostic.

Do you mean a split Chicago operation?

Something like:
ORD-BOS/JFK/SJU
MDW-MCO/FLL. The latter would likely target leisure travelers, but I guess it isn't different than B6 covering DCA/BWI-MCO. Maybe it'd work.

I don't think splitting BOS between ORD and MDW is a good idea however. It'd make more sense just increasing BOS-ORD frequency to attract more business passengers that would fly on a better schedule.

It'd be interesting if B6 also offered a seasonal DCA-ORD (or MDW) flight during May-November or so at 2x daily, if it could, but it'd have to displace something like a Florida market like TPA because of the slot issues at DCA, unless it seasonally moved that flight to BWI. It's probably not B6's style to offer seasonality like that as it's more conservative not to create disruption, but the DC-Chicago market expands in the warmer months and I'm sure there is a specific profile that fit's B6's profile, between DC and Chicago. It's similar that B6 realizes over at SFO, it has a customerbase and covers SFO-LAS which would otherwise not make sense given the limited frequency relative to the various number of flights from competitors covering the route.

I cannot imagine a split across Chicago working well for the company in the near future. Just not worth the added expense/hassle to add a couple flights.

When B6 gets more aircraft for more routes, I think solidifying BOS with all the popular routes makes most sense and opening ATL.

BOS-ATL, ATL-FLL.
BOS-MSP

MKE is a smaller market, but I wonder if B6 be able to take WN on BOS-MKE? I have felt that B6 should have commenced the route before WN converted it from AirTran, and had a chance to build a WN base on the route.

a. WN's advantage might be it can send some pax beyond MKE through connections. But how many BOS pax are connecting through MKE, when BOS has many nonstops to the west coast.

b. B6's advantage might be it has a bigger BOS base and able to get point of sale (from BOS) better than WN. The early morning BOS-MKE (from WN) flight likely depends on BOS point of sale more than MKE. It can fly an E190 which might be better suited for the market.

It could open BOS-MKE and maybe MKE-FLL, the latter being attractive for MKE based pax, and some ORD based pax.

While MKE isn't for Chicago proper, there are those that live halfway and reasonable distance between MKE and ORD to have benefit of more B6 service if B6 served both.

All of these routes are already operated by DL, WN and NK. I don't think that B6 would do well with all the competiton.

DL also flies MKE-BOS tailored to MKE-originating pax

I think B6 could tread water on BOS-ATL (3 E-190's) but FLL-ATL would be tough though.