JetBlue secures permanent London Heathrow slots
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JetBlue has finally managed to obtain some permanent slots for its Heathrow flights.
The new slots will come into play with the transition into the Winter schedule on the 29th October this year, and will be used for the New York flights. Here are the timings:
- B620 will depart Heathrow at 10:45am and land in New York at 2:05pm
- B6007 will depart New York JFK at 9:05pm and land in Heathrow at 9:30am the following morning
These slots offer much better timings for JetBlue, with a slightly later departure from Heathrow which means you don’t need to be up at the crack of dawn. The return flight will also get you into London slightly earlier.
It is not clear where the slots are coming from. It could be that JetBlue has managed to get its hands on some of the slots held by Aeroflot, which were effectively confiscated earlier this year. It could also have quietly purchased them from another carrier.
The press release credits the support of the US Department of Transport and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, plus the ‘entire team at the US Embassy in London’ so perhaps the deal required a little political clout as well …..
The airline is also adding an additional daily flight between Gatwick and New York JFK, which means there will be three daily flights between London and New York. The new flight offers a later departure in both directions:
- B604 departs Gatwick at 2pm and arrives in New York JFK at 5pm
- B603 departs New York JFK at 10pm and arrives in London at 10:22am the following morning
Don’t forget that JetBlue is also on the cusp of launching Boston flights. Gatwick will launch early August whilst Heathrow will follow in September. We are hoping to be on one of these to take a look at what JetBlue has to offer!
As JetBlue is a Qatar Airways partner, and as Qatar Airways has now adopted Avios as its loyalty programme, it should be possible to earn Avios on JetBlue flights. You would credit them to a Qatar Privilege Club account and then move them across to British Airways Executive Club. We are still waiting for a reader to try this in practice.
All flights are now bookable on the JetBlue website here.
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