JetBlue Airways Increases Links to the Dominican Republic

Low-fare carrier JetBlue Airways is to launch a new route between Boston Logan and Santiago de los Caballero in the Dominican Republic in June, adding to its existing flights to the Caribbean country from New York. Subject to government approval, the airline will launch a three-times weekly service on June 17 and will hope to attract VFR and leisure traffic. There is a large Dominican community residing in Boston and its surrounding areas that often travel to visit their families in the Cibao region.

JetBlue is the largest operator at Boston’s Logan Airport and with this latest expansion it will now offer flights to 42 destinations this summer, including four other new routes due to launch in the next couple of months. From February 19 it will commence a weekly service to Providenciales, in the Turks & Caicos Islands; four-times daily flights from to Newark Liberty International will begin on May 4, while a seasonal summer service to Oakland, California and Portland, Oregon will commence later the same month. JetBlue already serves Portland from Long Beach and New York and will confident of attracting a large number of the 150,000 passengers that travel between the two cities every year.

Over the last two years, JetBlue has enjoyed exponential growth in Boston, with a 30% increase in daily departures last summer versus 2009 and an additional 30% growth is expected this year as the airline increases from 75 flights per day to approximately 100. "Our continued growth and commitment to Boston further solidifies our position as the city's leading carrier," said Dave Clark, director of network planning, JetBlue Airways. "We will remain focused on providing more schedule options and more destinations for Bostonians, along with the same great product and service they've come to expect."