Southwest will have 34 Long Beach flights

 Southwest will take all of JetBlue’s Long Beach Airport slots

Southwest Airlines will takeover all of JetBlue’s slots at the Long Beach Airport. Southwest will go from 17 flights to 34 flights. The new destinations will be announced at a later date.

Southwest is JetBlue’s biggest competitor. 

For year’s JetBlue had successfully kept out major competition out of Long Beach Airport by acquiring a majority of flight slots. 

 JetBlue utilized all of its flight slots for only a short time.  It however would not give up those slots to other airlines using a tactic it called “slot rotation” .  Hurting the bottom line of the airport, critics called the tactic “slot squatting

 With a near monopoly at the airport, JetBlue pushed for upgrades and a new terminals. Without the upgrade JetBlue threatened to leave Long Beach. The size of the new terminal  became a point of contention between JetBlue and the impacted neighborhoods. The drawn-out fight resulted in a compromise size between what JetBlue wanted and the airport impacted neighborhoods wanted. 

After obtaining a new terminal at what amounted to an almost private JetBue airport, JetBlue began to push for Long Beach becoming an international airport.  

Again JetBlue faced major push back from the impacted neighborhoods. Neighborhood leaders from the Fourth, Fifth and Eighth council districts that had already formed a strong coalition fighting the terminal expansion quickly mobilized to stop the new international terminal.   In the end, JetBlue had overplayed its hand and lost the fight for the international terminal.

 Part of JetBlue’s failure was based on its “focus city” business model compared to the traditional “hub city” model.  JetBlue’s transcontinental flights violated the Long Beach Airport Noise Ordnance just about nightly racking up huge fines. In the middle of the international terminal flight, those fines reached $1,000,000 and that was without the airline flying all of its slots.

Shortly after the international terminal fight, 4^th District Councilman Daryl Supernaw  sought to strengthen the Long Beach Noise Ordnance.  With the help of top notch airport attorney’s hired by the city,  several changes were implemented. Those included ending slot squatting /rotating and increasing late arrival fines.

 JetBlue’s quest for an airport without competition failed. The irony is  that now its biggest competitor Southwest will basically end up with the monopoly that JetBlue once had.