JetBlue to Serve NC

[Richhamleigh, DC]

JetBlue will begin service from North Carolina's two largest airports in July.

[DCMetroRaleigh]

Excellent news. I can fly from Dulles to RDU now.

[charlotte_bon_vivant]

I'm happy to see this. I like JetBlue airlines. Probably the best airline I've flown in the U.S. I hope they don't get pushed out the way they were in Atlanta and some other cities. I'd like to see them around longer.

[TravisNC]

Excellent news. I can fly from Dulles to RDU now.

You could fly nonstop from Dulles to RDU on United Express right now. If you wait for jetBlue you'd have to double connect somewhere (ie. Dulles-Boston-JFK-RDU) since jetBlue doesn't fly IAD-JFK or IAD-RDU nonstop. If you meant JFK, you could fly JFK-RDU nonstop on Delta Connection or American Eagle.

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This is definitely good news for CLT. The only other LCC they have is AirTran flying to Atlanta, Chicago, Baltimore, and Orlando. CLT has some of the highest fares in the country, hopefully this will bring them down.

However, RDU's fares are almost too low. There was a story in the N&O about that. Here's the RDU-NYC schedule now (I used 4/23/06 as an example):

RDU-LGA:

American Eagle (11 regional jets)

Delta Connection (4 regional jets)

US Airways Express (6 regional jets)

RDU-EWR:

Continental (2 737's, 5 regional jets)

American Eagle (5 regional jets)

RDU-JFK:

American Eagle (4 regional jets)

Delta Connection (3 regional jets)

That's 40 flights a day not including jetBlue's 4 flights. With all this competition and low fares (less profits for airlines), I'm worried that some of these airlines might scale back their flights or drop routes altogether.

[NcSc74]

I like Jet blue. Although I only flew on it once from JFK to Sea-Tac nonstop. It was one of the cheapest tickets I ever bought 2 days before I had to leave NJ. I still missed my connecting flight to Tokyo because I messed up the time difference but that is another story....

[RDUairport]

This excepted news is wonderful for both CLT and RDU. Jetblue will help out CLT residents with lower fares to NYC. I'm very happy that both of these cities got Jetblue service. I've been waiting a few years... . However, I feel bad for GSO, who may have a difficult time getting Jetblue service now. GSO has seen a large decrease in the number of flights due to CLT and RDU's close distance. GSO is in needs of a good low cost carrier to bring down prices and pax up. Hope the opening of the Fedex hub in a few years may act as a catalyst for commercial service at GSO.