Pittsburgh performance?
 

It looks like they are still selling a bunch of $59 fares in the upcoming weeks. They are 2 months into the service and they are coming to the slower part of the travel season. Can anyone shed some light on the status of this route so far?

Looks like US is matching B6 on the days I was currently researching. Not a surprise. US doesn't want to loose market share.

I hope B6 can perform well in PIT but they aren't even doing any advertising here. WN manages to advertise and their flights are always packed out of PIT.

If B6 doesn't let the area know they are here they will not survive.

It looks like the loads are averaging the high 70s to low 80s.

In a highly unscientific survey, representatives of 5 households (3 in metro NY area and 2 from Pittsburgh) were surprised to learn that we had flown JFK-PIT on B6 last month -- 4 of them b/c they didn't know B6 was in the market, and 1 b/c he was surprised I'd give up the AA miles.

My girlfriend has flown to BOS twice since B6 started the PIT-BOS route. Still can't try them because the flight times are wrong. We generally need a PIT-BOS in the evening later than 6pm, not the comparatively useless 2:40pm that's there now. (A morning flight can also be useful, but the midday flight seems pointless except from an aircraft utilization point of view.) The 7:30pm BOS-PIT is good timing. Since US has a 8:xx pm PIT-BOS nonstop and a 7:xx pm BOS-PIT nonstop, they win, sadly.

If the loads are good perhaps B6 will consider adding such a flight. So far that has been the main impediment to trying them.

The fares are one-way, if you like the B6 7:30 pm BOS-PIT, I'd choose that over the freqently delayed/cancelled ERJ that runs the US 7:xx pm BOS-PIT. No first class on either of those aircraft. Book two separate one ways and take the late US plane on the other side of your trip.

Also, radio advertising has been heavy in BOS, including a tagline at the end "PS Fly from Boston non-stop to Pittsburgh on Jetblue"

Too bad there is no advertising going on in PIT. Even WN manages a billboard or 3 in the area.

I saw a whole page ad for JetBlue in the Pittsburgh City Paper (Free Weekly) this week. Other than that I haven't seen any advertising yet in the area.

--Jon

Well that was a grand waste of advertising dollars to place an ad in the SSHHITY PAPER !! :D

I do marketing for a company in New Jersey. For what it's worth, those kinds of papers usually have fairly cheap advertising rates. Besides, does it matter who's buying the tickets if the inexpensive advertisements pay off?

That's a fair point. I actually never checked to see if the US fare would work one-way because of the competition. Just so ingrained to price round-trips. ;)

What happened last Sunday was that the late RJ was cancelled, the earlier US mainline (6:30pm I think) was delayed, and she was put on that flight. The B6 flight was also delayed as I noted when I went to PIT to pick her up. These were weather delays, though, or at least seemingly weather delays (possibly cascading from earlier in the day or the day before).

I think it's going to be a while before next time, but we'll consider that for sure. Taking the last RJ of the day does seem to be a gamble in many cases. Back in May I was flying US PIT-PVD instead. I was scheduled on the last RJ of the night, and the damn thing was delayed at least a couple hours. Storms in LGA delayed our plane, which is a recurring problem for me it seems. (Every time I've left out of LGA, I've been there for several hours because of a storm.) Anyway, that night at PIT after waiting around for a while with little end in sight I told the gate agent I would just go home if she could put me on the next morning's flight (which I had looked up using the handy Wi-Fi in the terminal). She fixed me up complete with boarding pass, and I got sleep instead of trying to figure out transport options arriving at 2am in PVD (rental counters are closed). I think I'll avoid the late RJs if at all possible.