US carrier JetBlue Airways is to go head-to-head with US major Delta Air Lines in the Orlando – Salt Lake City market when it inaugurates a new daily link between the two cities from November 12, 2014. The Utah capital will be JetBlue's 24th nonstop destination from its focus city at Orlando International Airport and alongside point-to-point demand will open up numerous connections across the Caribbean and Latin America.
JetBlue already serves Salt Lake City and both New York and Long Beach, California, but has seen increasing interest in adding the link to its Florida hub to serve the world-class attractions of Central Florida. Delta Air Lines currently serves the market with up to two rotations per day using a mix of Boeing 737 and 757 equipment.
"Salt Lake City is home to JetBlue's 2,000+ reservations crewmembers, the friendly voices behind 1-800-JETBLUE who are always getting asked by customers for a flight to Orlando," said Frankie Littleford, vice president of customer support, JetBlue Airways. "We are thrilled to add this much-requested new service and connect Utah with one of America's most popular destinations for business and leisure travel."
JetBlue has been serving Salt Lake City for more than ten years and alongside the Long Beach and New York flights which remain today also offered links to Burbank, Las Vegas, San Diego and San Francisco in the late 2000s. It also competes directly with Delta Air Lines in the Salt Lake City – New York and Salt Lake City – Long Beach markets and held an 18.5 per cent and 62.1 per cent share of the bi-directional O&D demand on these route pairs in 2013, respectively.
Although JetBlue and Delta offer similar average one way fares on the Long Beach route in 2013 ($112 for JetBlue versus $118 for Delta), there is a big difference when you compare the Salt Lake City – New York route last year, where JetBlue was charging an average of $260 and $263 in each direction versus $387 and $383 by Delta. The latter is currently the only carrier offering non-stop flights between Salt Lake City and Orlando International and last year was charging average fares of $349 and $360 in each direction.
In our analysis below we look at the O&D flows between Salt Lake City and Orlando International over the past ten years. Although JetBlue sees a sizeable point-to-point demand is also expects Utah residents to connect via the Florida airport to other destinations across its network such as the Bahamas, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Mexico and Puerto Rico.
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