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JetBlue secures permanent London Heathrow slots

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JetBlue has finally managed to obtain some permanent slots for its Heathrow flights.

The new slots will come into play with the transition into the Winter schedule on the 29th October this year, and will be used for the New York flights. Here are the timings:

  • B620 will depart Heathrow at 10:45am and land in New York at 2:05pm
  • B6007 will depart New York JFK at 9:05pm and land in Heathrow at 9:30am the following morning
JetBlue tailfin

These slots offer much better timings for JetBlue, with a slightly later departure from Heathrow which means you don’t need to be up at the crack of dawn. The return flight will also get you into London slightly earlier.

It is not clear where the slots are coming from. It could be that JetBlue has managed to get its hands on some of the slots held by Aeroflot, which were effectively confiscated earlier this year. It could also have quietly purchased them from another carrier.

The press release credits the support of the US Department of Transport and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, plus the ‘entire team at the US Embassy in London’ so perhaps the deal required a little political clout as well …..

The airline is also adding an additional daily flight between Gatwick and New York JFK, which means there will be three daily flights between London and New York. The new flight offers a later departure in both directions:

  • B604 departs Gatwick at 2pm and arrives in New York JFK at 5pm
  • B603 departs New York JFK at 10pm and arrives in London at 10:22am the following morning

Don’t forget that JetBlue is also on the cusp of launching Boston flights. Gatwick will launch early August whilst Heathrow will follow in September. We are hoping to be on one of these to take a look at what JetBlue has to offer!

As JetBlue is a Qatar Airways partner, and as Qatar Airways has now adopted Avios as its loyalty programme, it should be possible to earn Avios on JetBlue flights. You would credit them to a Qatar Airways Privilege Club account and then move them across to British Airways Executive Club. We are still waiting for a reader to try this in practice.

All flights are now bookable on the JetBlue website here. What’s JetBlue like in its premium Mint and Mint Suite seats? You can read our review of JetBlue’s Mint Suite here. Our review of the front-row Mint Studio is here.

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Comments (27)

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

  • John says:
    21 Jun21 June 05:58

    On AC YYZ-LON flights I’ve taken, they often do announcements in Hindi or maybe another Indian language), presumably for people connecting to Air India.

    • Charles Martel says:
      21 Jun21 June 06:57

      So English, French and Hindi? Thats one long interruption to your film!

      • Michael Jennings says:
        21 Jun21 June 09:17

        Punjabi is the most commonly spoken Indian language in Canada, but I have no idea if that’s the one in the announcements.

  • PeterK says:
    21 Jun21 June 06:34

    1:15 turnaround for B6 at LHR, good luck with that!

    • Richie says:
      21 Jun21 June 08:17

      Yes, sounds far too short at LHR.

    • Rhys says:
      21 Jun21 June 08:35

      It is ‘only’ an A321 remember. There are only 138 seats.

      • Chrisasaurus says:
        22 Jun22 June 20:42

        BA flight out from LHR this week had ketchup on my wife’s tray table and a half full bottle of water in the seat back of mine

        BA flight back had an empty miniature in the pocket in front of me.

        Whatever they’re doing in the turnaround it sure ain’t cleaning…

    • marcw says:
      21 Jun21 June 09:08

      Plane likely to land ahead of time anyway.

  • Paul says:
    21 Jun21 June 07:19

    Marriott Venice deal is fabulous if only you didn’t have to watch Peter Grimes. That may be why there are no bids. The Italians do opera very well!

    A bit of Puccini, Motzart or Verdi would have made all the difference

    • WaynedP says:
      21 Jun21 June 08:32

      +1

      Piqued my interest as an opera lover, but you’d have to pay me at least 150,000 MB points to sit through Peter Grimes.

    • NorthernLass says:
      21 Jun21 June 08:37

      Indeed, I was initially disappointed that it’s not better dates, but I prefer my opera pre-1900.

      • Bagoly says:
        21 Jun21 June 14:01

        I suggest 1926, unless you dislike Puccini’s works!

        • NorthernLass says:
          21 Jun21 June 20:34

          Actually, I’m not his greatest fan. My tastes lie mainly with Mozart and the earlier compsers – Handel, Haydn, Vivaldi etc, though arguably these weren’t writing opera as we know it (except Mozart, of course, whose sublime operatic works have never been surpassed).

    • Mr(s) Entitled says:
      21 Jun21 June 10:49

      Great – Sell the tickets on and the package becomes and even better deal!

    • Brian says:
      21 Jun21 June 14:28

      You should have seen the Covent Garden production a few months back. It might have converted you – absolutely wonderful.

      • WaynedP says:
        21 Jun21 June 22:54

        All great music has an element of innovation, and I have tried to appreciate the extreme innovation of Benjamin Britten, but never succeeded.

        His work “Ballad of Green Broom” was the only song that our regional youth choir gave up on performing despite weeks of practice.

        I just can’t seem to bridge the gulf between him and my favourite genre, Baroque.

        I’m not sure that seeing a visually spectacular production would convert me when the phonic experience will always dominate.

        • Brian says:
          22 Jun22 June 09:28

          It wasn’t so much the visual spectacle as the actual direction of the chorus and singers that I liked. But then I’m a Britten fan and can’t really find much appeal in Baroque, so horses for courses, I guess. 🙂

  • Nick says:
    21 Jun21 June 09:15

    Aeroflot slots are grandfathered and will be made available again if/when they want to fly back to London (it’s true that other airlines can use them in the meantime, however). The idea of a fully open slot market is a myth, there are all sorts of slots that are political. Iranair is another, their slot was fully protected even when they couldn’t fly here.

    • Rhys says:
      21 Jun21 June 10:31

      Do you know where the slots are from Nick?

      • ChrisC says:
        21 Jun21 June 11:24

        There is a section on the ACL website (the slot controller) that lists all slot swaps but this winters aren’t listed there at the moment,

        The summer slots seem to have come from QR

    • memesweeper says:
      21 Jun21 June 12:22

      It would make sense that when the Aeroflot slots are returned to use, direct flights over Russia would likely resume around the same time.

  • Concerto says:
    21 Jun21 June 09:28

    Peter Grimes is really a great piece, not an easy story though

  • Bagoly says:
    21 Jun21 June 14:01

    B620 outbound and B6007 inbound.
    Is there some story that Rhys the avgeek can explain?
    Or maybe it’s a typo?

    • Rhys says:
      21 Jun21 June 16:34

      I did wonder why the numbers were like that!

    • Dubious says:
      22 Jun22 June 18:21

      JetBlue seem to use the same flight number in their schedules as they do in their callsigns (this is not the case with all airlines).

      I suspect there the sizable difference in flight numbers outbound from inbound is partly to mitigate ‘callsign confusion’ that could otherwise arise from other, existing similarly numbered callsigns operating around that time.

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

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