At least several hundred people are expected to be on hand at Daytona Beach International Airport shortly before noon Thursday to greet the arrival of JetBlue’s inaugural New York-Daytona Beach flight.
The scene is expected to be festive, complete with a water-cannon salute on the airport tarmac, a ribbon-cutting ceremony, speeches, and of course, free cake.
It’s a celebration that’s been 16 years in the making.
Steve Cooke, who retired at the end of August after 17 years as the airport’s director of business development, recalls taking part in the initial pitch to JetBlue in 2000.
He and three other local leaders — the late Dennis McGee; the airport’s then-director; George Mirabal, then-CEO of the Daytona Regional Chamber of Commerce; and chamber member Kevin Bowler, owner/president of Daytona Beverages — visited the newly formed airline’s then-headquarters in Connecticut.
“As soon as they became an airline we started to pursue them,” Cooke said. “We got to talk to the scheduling people.”
While the meeting seemed to go well, the airline wasn’t ready to make a commitment.
Cooke, as the airport’s lead airline recruiter, continued to keep in touch with JetBlue over the years, including nearly two dozen face-to-face meetings and hundreds of phone calls and emails.
Efforts to land JetBlue, which were dialed back during the Great Recession, ramped up after Rick Karl became airport director six years ago, Cooke said.
EMBRY-RIDDLE CONNECTION
The big break that led to renewed talks with JetBlue came in early 2012 when Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University hosted a gathering of top airline industry executives, including JetBlue’s then-CEO Dave Barger, to check out the university’s new Florida NextGen Test Bed facility at the airport, Cooke said.
Embry-Riddle’s then-president, John Johnson, helped arrange an hourlong private meeting between airport officials and Barger.
“We went through everything,” Cooke said of the case he and Karl made to Barger for adding service to Daytona Beach.
“I think we made a good impression,” Cooke said, adding that the airport’s connection with Embry-Riddle, its next-door neighbor, “was very important.”
Barger told The News-Journal in an interview that year that 350 of JetBlue’s pilots had learned to fly at Embry-Riddle.
The following year, Barger sent a team of schedulers to visit the airport to learn more about the area.
Cooke said he thought for sure this meant JetBlue would be coming here, but the airline continued to hold off on making a commitment.
He suspects JetBlue may have had airports in other parts of the country ahead of Daytona Beach on its list of destinations to add. The airline also may have needed further assurances that if it began daily service here it would be able to fill those flights.
“They don’t like to go into a market and then pull out,” Cooke said of JetBlue, noting that isn’t the case with all airlines.
Fortunately, the airport’s case continued to strengthen, Cooke said, thanks to its steadily improving passenger traffic numbers, as well as the flurry of new commercial developments here including the $400 million Daytona Rising renovation of the Speedway, the new Trader Joe’s distribution center, and developers’ announced plans to build a Hard Rock Hotel here.
SUCCESS AT LAST
What finally tipped the scales, according to Cooke, were the pledges collected by the Daytona Regional Chamber by several area businesses to fly JetBlue if it were to offer nonstop service to New York, as well as the offer of economic incentives from the county and CEO Business Alliance.
When airlines consider adding routes to destinations like Daytona Beach “they want to see that they’re wanted and that the business community is going to support them,” he said.
Cooke plans to attend both the welcome celebration for JetBlue as well as the dedication ceremony immediately following it in the airport’s Volusia Room meeting space, which is being renamed the Dennis McGee Room.
“It’s been a long and winding road,” Cooke said of efforts to land JetBlue. “It wasn’t just one guy. It was everybody working together.”
The Daytona Beach News Journal
jetBlue starts service to Daytona
