US airline JetBlue on Wednesday announced two new transatlantic flights. The airline will fly from New York to Paris in Summer 2023 and “later” from Boston. JetBlue will assign its Airbus A321LRs to these routes, which have 2 Mint Studios, 22 lie-flat Mint Suites, 24 economy seats with 35″ legroom and 90 seats with 32″ legroom.
Unfortunately, we don’t know the exact starting date and flight times as of now. We will update the post once the seats go on sale.
The airline debuted in Europe in 2021 with flights to London. They have recently increased their offerings from the two London airports signalling success. In its press release, JetBlue says that they chose Paris as their second destination since it’s the largest European market that they don’t serve. They also mentioned following sports events such as the 2023 Rugby World Cup and the 2024 Olympics and Paralympics.
Unfortunately, we don’t know the flight times or the start dates yet. While there are rumours about acquired slots, even when they are true, slots can change hands frequently.
A Narrowbody?
Some people may feel conflicted about flying transatlantic on a narrowbody. To compensate for the smaller plane, JetBlue topped up the hard product by installing 22 Mint Suites, with row 1 being extra spacious Mint Studios. But economy passengers shouldn’t feel forgotten either: there are 24 seats with an extra, 35″ legroom and 90 with a more-than-average 32″.
They were the first airline to launch Airbus’ AirSpace cabin which makes the flying experience more pleasant and increases the overhead bin capacity. Although the legroom isn’t that much of a difference compared to American’s, Delta’s or United’s 31″ and especially not to Air France’s 32″ on most Boeing 777s. (We used the Legroom for Google Flights tool for the comparison.)
Where JetBlue overshadows its competition is the service and entertainment. The airline offers free “high-speed” Wi-Fi to all passengers. They also offer seat back entertainment at all seats with live television. To see how these worked in reality, you can check our colleague Peer’s review on the London flight:
Here are some pictures of JetBlue’s A321LR’:’s Mint class:
This is what the service was like on Peer’s flight. You can check out the pictures and the funny story of desserts in the review:
Economy class looks like this:
This is what they promote as economy food options:
Cover Picture: JetBlue