JetBlue to add new Long Beach flights; find out where the jets will go

Think of it as a direct coection from the seaside to Silicon Valley.

JetBlue Airways Corp. aounced plans to begin direct flights for the first time from Long Beach Airport to Mineta San Jose Inteational Airport in early January. The airline, which operates more flights from LGB than any other carrier, has also committed to increasing its flights from Long Beach to three other destinations in the weste United States — San Francisco, Las Vegas and Salt Lake City.

Through June, total passenger departures from LGB are up 3 percent. JetBlue’s latest move to increase flights from the airport follows its March aouncement of new flights to Reno-Tahoe Inteational Airport and June’s arrival of Southwest Airlines as LGB’s fourth airline.

American Airlines and Delta Air Lines, Inc. also serve LGB.

New flights

JetBlue plans to begin four daily flights from LGB to San Jose as of July 4, according to a Monday aouncement from the airline.

In addition, JetBlue also plans to increase its flights to San Francisco, Las Vegas and Salt Lake City in November. The aouncement calls for three additional daily flights to Las Vegas and one additional daily flight for both San Francisco and Salt Lake City.

By adding nine flights to its daily schedule, JetBlue will be able to sell tickets for up to 35 departures a day at LGB. That would result in the airline taking advantage of all of the flight “slots” allocated to it under Long Beach’s airport noise ordinance.

Increased competition

Long Beach’s noise law constrains the number of flights allowed at LGB. Former airport director Bryant Francis said in late 2014 that since mode passenger jets are more quiet than their predecessors, the law required LGB officials to give airlines the chance to offer more frequently from LGB.

That resulted in LGB increasing its number of flight slots for the first time since Long Beach officials enacted the noise law in 1995. LGB now has 50 slots for commercial flights, whereas only 41 slots existed before the change.

Increasing slots made it possible for Southwest Airlines to begin selling daily flights from LGB to Oakland in June. Southwest has also aounced plans to temporarily sell tickets for Long Beach to Las Vegas flights from Sept. 18 through year’s end.

Through June, nearly 633,000 passengers have flown out of LGB, up about 3 percent year over year.

(Take Southwest out of the calculation, however, and the year-over-year increase in passengers is a little more than 1 percent.)

Among the three airlines that served LGB last year, JetBlue is the only one to record an increase in its number of passengers boarding its aircraft to fly out of LGB. LGB data shows nearly 530,000 passengers have boarded JetBlue aircraft during the first six months of the year — also good for a 3 percent increase.

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JetBlue executives have sought permission to fly inteationally from LGB. The council voted in January to study the merits of adding the required federal inspections facility to LGB. The council voted 6 to 3 for the report, with council members representing districts below LGB’s flight path casting the “no” votes.