Long Beach may soon start penalizing JetBlue for not complying with a new rule requiring the carrier to use more of its flight slots at the city’s airport, according to a Wednesday, April 3, memo that City Manager Pat West sent to the City Council.
Update: JetBlue relinquishes 29 percent of its flight slots at Long Beach Airport
Exactly what that crackdown may look like, or when they’d begin, is unclear, but West wrote that penalties could include disqualifying JetBlue from receiving extra flight slots or reducing the slots available to the airline. The final decision would be up to the airport’s director.
Claudia Lewis is the airport’s interim director, as a national search is underway to fill the post permanently following former director Jess Romo’s retirement in January.
A representative for the airport did not respond to a request for comment on which path seemed the most likely.
JetBlue, for its part, provided an unsigned email statement regarding the new rule.
“We are a proud member of the Long Beach community and will continue to offer Long Beach residents access to the best onboard experience of any airline that flies here, just as we have for more than 17 years,” the statement read. “While we believe this rule change is unnecessary as evidenced by the numerous unused slots already available, we remain committed to providing a level of flying in Long Beach that the market will support.”
Representatives for JetBlue did not respond to further questions, including whether the airline has plans to come into compliance with Long Beach’s new usage standard.
The new enforcement comes after the City Council voted in November to raise the bar for how often airlines operating at the Long Beach Airport must use their slots. The regulations include minimum usage rates for any calendar month, quarter or year. Prior to the vote, airlines had to maintain a 57% usage rate over any given 180-day period. Now, they must use 70% of their slots in any calendar quarter and 85% in any calendar year.
Long Beach officials said the change was to make the airport’s operations more fair to all airlines. But Robert Land, JetBlue’s senior vice president of government affairs, said at the time that the new rule appeared “specifically designed to harm JetBlue.”
That’s because JetBlue had the lowest usage rate of all of the airport’s seven carriers. At the time the City Council voted, American, Delta, Hawaiian and Southwest were all using 100% of their slots. FedEx and UPS were both using 71% of theirs — while JetBlue was using 66.1%.
A representative for the airport did not immediately respond to a request on Monday, April 8, for the most recent available data. But in West’s memo to the council, he wrote that JetBlue is “currently not on pace to meet the minimum use requirement of 70% for the first calendar quarter of 2019.”
If new permanent flight slots become available, West wrote, Hawaiian Airlines is first on the waiting list, followed by Delta Airlines.
Tensions have been building between the city and JetBlue for more than two years. Last April, the airline announced it would curb its flight service at the airport, and pinned the blame on the council’s decision in 2017 not to allow international flights. In the meantime, the two sides fought a public battle over fines JetBlue faced for late landings, although they came to an agreement on that squabble in June.
