JetBlue secures slots at two London gateways

JetBlue Airways (B6, New York JFK) is on track to launch transatlantic services next year, after it secured slots at London Gatwick and London Stansted airports for the upcoming Summer 2021 season. According to Airport Coordination Ltd., the American carrier obtained seven weekly slot pairs to operate from New York JFK to London Gatwick, half of what it applied for. At Stansted, the airline was granted 14 weekly slot pairs for services out of Boston. According to the ch-aviation schedules module, JetBlue will directly compete with both Norwegian UK and British Airways on the Gatwick-JFK route. Currently, due to COVID-related cuts, Gatwick has no scheduled flights to New York with both services tentatively due to resume on March 28, 2021. There are currently no scheduled transatlantic services from Stansted for the Summer 2021 season. British Airways and Virgin Atlantic (VS, London Heathrow) currently operate between Boston and Heathrow alongside Delta Air Lines and American Airlines while Norwegian’s flights from Gatwick to the Bay State capital are scheduled to resume in late March 2021. JetBlue plans to use A321-200NX(LR)s on its first transatlantic services. Its first unit of the type recently started test flights at Hamburg Finkenwerder airport and is expected to deliver in early 2021. The carrier also applied for 21 weekly slot pairs at London Heathrow but failed to secure them. In fact, out of all the carriers that applied for a total of 697 weekly slot pairs at Heathrow, ACL only allocated two new slot pairs to Shenzhen Airlines (ZH, Shenzhen) and denied all other requests. Among the carriers which sought to secure access to the main London gateway were IndiGo Airlines, WestJet, Widerøe, and easyJet Europe.