Jul. 29—San Antonio travelers are losing nonstop air service to Boston, a key destination for the city's growing biotechnology industry.
JetBlue Airways will cut the daily flight at San Antonio International Airport in October, leaving city officials scrambling to find a carrier to take up a nonstop flight to Boston.
The New York-based airline has been slashing service across the country as it struggles to return to the black. It lost $716 million in the first three months of this year and hasn't been profitable since 2019.
A company spokesperson said Monday the airline is leaving San Antonio due to "under-performance and lack of customer demand."
As early as 2013, local leaders identified Boston as business travelers' top destination without nonstop service at the San Antonio airport. Airport officials and area chambers of commerce tried to woo JetBlue at the time, but the carrier didn't launch service from San Antonio — to Boston and New York — until October 2021.
Travelers will still be able to fly nonstop to New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport on Delta Air Lines, but JetBlue was the only carrier flying San Antonians nonstop to Boston Logan International Airport.
Airport Director Jesus Saenz said his team was "a little surprised" by JetBlue's decision. The daily Boston flights were mostly full, he said, with incoming and outgoing planes reaching 80% capacity or more throughout 2023.
Saenz said the airport is aiming to have another airline operating a nonstop route to Boston before JetBlue pulls out Oct. 26.
"Boston is very critical to us," Saenz said. "We're already leaning in and having conversations with other carriers about obtaining that service. Or if at some point JetBlue wants to resume service, then we would be excited for that as well."
San Antonio is one of seven cities that JetBlue is ditching in October. The others are Burbank and Palm Springs, Calif.; Charlotte, N.Ca.; Minneapolis, Minn.; Tallahassee, Fla.; and Pointe-à-Pitre, Guadeloupe, in the Caribbean.
"These decisions are never easy; however, these markets have recently fallen short of our expectations," JetBlue said in an announcement outlining the changes.
"These moves will allow us to redeploy our fleet to increase frequencies on well-performing routes and serve a new city in New England — Manchester, New Hampshire — while continuing to increase crucial ground time for our aircraft, reducing the chance of delays for our customers," the company said.
JetBlue is also struggling with mandatory engine inspections that have grounded part of its fleet of jets. Last year, the Federal Aviation Administration ordered inspections of Pratt & Whitney engines on some Airbus passenger jets — of which JetBlue is a buyer — because of a manufacturing problem that could cause parts to wear out sooner than expected.
The round of cuts in October is the second JetBlue has announced in recent weeks.
In June, the airline said it was dropping Kansas City, Mo.; Bogota, Colombia; Quito, Ecuador; and Lima, Peru. It also jettisoned several destinations from Los Angeles, including Seattle and San Francisco, and ended flights between Fort Lauderdale, Fla., and several cities, including Austin.
JetBlue will continue to operate routes in Austin, Dallas/Fort Worth and Houston. Customers with flights into or out of San Antonio beyond Oct. 26 will get automatic refunds to their original form of payment, a JetBlue spokesperson said.
Four carriers fly nonstop from Austin-Bergstrom International Airport to Boston Logan: JetBlue, Delta, American Airlines and Southwest Airlines.
"We are not excited about them leaving because we know that is a destination that is heavily sought after from our San Antonio market share and region," Saenz said. "But we feel pretty confident that we should be able to have another carrier pick up that service, hopefully sooner rather than later."
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