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
Family kicked off jetBlue flight
A New York family of nine on its way to vacation in Punta Cana claims they were unfairly kicked off a JetBlue flight before it departed Tuesday, accusing a flight attendant of being short-tempered and calling them “animals” on the loudspeaker as they left the plane.
The family planned to take another JetBlue flight to Punta Cana on Wednesday. When contacted by Yahoo Travel, a JetBlue spokesperson said the flight attendant in question would not be punished. The airline doesn’t discuss specifics of passenger complaints but it did give the following statement:
“We love welcoming families on JetBlue, and we do so for thousands of families every day without incident. The decision to remove someone from a flight is never taken lightly and happens only if it is clear that the customer poses a risk to the safe and comfortable operation of the flight.”
A witness on the flight who asked not to be identified for this story said she filed a complaint to JetBlue about the flight attendant’s behavior. She told Yahoo Travel that the flight attendant was rude and “kept pushing” the family but did not recall hearing the “animal” comment.
Tal Kimchy of Palisades, N.Y., was boarding a JetBlue flight in New York’s JFK airport along with his wife, mother, brother, sister-in-law, and four children. He told Yahoo Travel that as they put their bags in the overhead compartment, a flight attendant asked Kimchy’s brother to step inside the aisle so others could pass.
Kimchy said his brother responded that he would step aside as soon as he could let his pregnant wife take her seat. She asked him if he was saying no.
“He said, ‘I’m not saying no, just give me a minute,’ Kimchy said of his brother. “At that time she said, ‘It’s my plane, and if you don’t like it, I can make sure you get off of it right now.’ He said, ‘Why, what did I do?’ She said, ‘You’re being a hostile passenger.”
Kimchy said the situation seemed to settle down and the family took their seats, when the flight attendant aggressively re-approached and asked his brother if he was “going to be good now.”
“He looked at her and said ‘I’m OK,’” Kimchy said. “She said, ‘Are you good?’ He said, ‘Isn’t OK and good the same thing?’ She said, ‘I need to know if I need to throw you off the plane.’”
Another flight attendant then approached to defuse the situation, and Kimchy began recording the interaction with his phone. The first flight attendant then went to discuss what happened with the pilot, and soon after, Kimchy’s brother was told he had to leave the plane and catch a later flight.
The rest of the family was going to continue the journey when after more discussion by JetBlue officials and airport police, Kimchy said, they were told they had to leave the plane as well because they were a security risk.
As the family left the plane, Kimchy said, “One of the flight attendants went on the loudspeaker and said, ‘Now that the animals have left, we can continue the flight.”
No one outside the family has repeated that claim.
The flight attendant involved in the dispute also left the plane and stayed behind when the flight took off. A JetBlue spokesperson said this was to keep the plane from being further delayed while the flight attendant gave a police report. No charges were filed.
Regarding the family, including his brother, being allowed to fly the next day on JetBlue, Kimchy said, “I don’t understand how he’s a danger today but he’s not tomorrow.”
Yahoo Travel
Bombardier and jetBlue in talks over CSeries
Bombardier Inc., struggling to find established airlines as buyers for its new CSeries airliner, is in talks about a possible order with JetBlue Airways Corp., two people familiar with the matter said.
The discussions are continuing, and no decision has been reached, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the deliberations are private. They gave no details on the size of any potential sale to JetBlue, whose fleet now consists of Airbus Group SE and Embraer SA aircraft.
Signing up JetBlue would let Bombardier make good on a pledge to add well-known carriers to a roster of CSeries buyers now dominated by lessors and small airlines. The only North American airline with a firm order is Republic Airways Holdings Inc., which said last year there was “no place” in its business model for the CSeries.
The CSeries is Bombardier’s biggest-ever jet, a step up in size from the company’s signature regional models. Now running more than two years late, the aircraft hasn’t won a firm sale since September 2014 and has drained cash as development costs ballooned $2 billion to $5.4 billion.
“We do not have any comment specific to Bombardier’s CSeries, but it is routine for us to meet with aircraft manufacturers,” said Doug McGraw, a spokesman for New York-based JetBlue.
Air Canada
Bombardier is also in talks with Air Canada regarding the CSeries, said one of the people familiar with the company’s plans. A CSeries test aircraft was recently on display at Toronto’s Lester B. Pearson International Airport, Air Canada’s main international hub. Air Canada decided in 2014 to keep some of its Embraer planes after considering the CSeries as an alternative.
Isabelle Arthur, an Air Canada spokeswoman, didn’t immediately return a call seeking comment. Isabelle Gauthier, a spokeswoman for Montreal-based Bombardier, declined to discuss talks with potential customers.
JetBlue operates 60 Embraer E190s with 100 all-coach seats and has about 150 larger, single-aisle Airbus planes, most of them the top-selling A320 model. In 2013, the airline pushed back an order for 24 additional Embraers to as late as 2022 amid a focus on larger, more fuel-efficient planes.
While JetBlue has expressed openness to the idea of moving just to Airbus planes from the A320 family, it also has said the smaller E190 is best suited for short-haul, high-frequency routes it flies out of Boston.
The Bombardier jets also could serve that role, but it’s unclear whether JetBlue would want to work through any early issues with the planes after being the initial airline to fly the E190 a decade ago, said Robert Mann, an aviation consultant based in Port Washington, New York.
“With the CSeries you potentially benefit from some very attractive new technology and economics,” Mann said. “But you also absorb the slings and arrows of being one of the first big operators. You work out all the kinks.”
Bloomberg Business
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