Passengers looking to fly on JetBlue‘s new A220 now have a date and destination. The carrier announced that the aircraft will initially operate between Boston and Tampa beginning on 26 April for one round trip each day.
The first flight will be B6 1391, departing Boston at 4:32pm, arriving in Tampa at 7:56pm. The plane will return to Boston that night as B6 392, arriving just before midnight. The same daily turn will repeat for the rest of the week.
These flights come prior to the company’s previously announced plans to operate between Boston and Fort Lauderdale in June.
JetBlue initially ordered 60 of the planes in 2018, with deliveries planned to start in 2020. The company later added ten more to the order book while taking the initial delivery just before the year ended. The company anticipates seven more deliveries this year and eight in 2022, allowing for expansion of routes served. The growth of the A220 fleet will also align with the company beginning to retire its Embraer E190 fleet from service.
Updated cabin for the JetBlue A220
The JetBlue A220 cabin features 140 seats in a 2-3 layout, first reported by PaxEx.Aero nearly 2 years ago. This includes six rows (30 seats) in the Even More Space configuration at 35″ pitch, four rows at the front of the aircraft and two at the over wing exits. The other 110 seats feature 32″ pitch.
Compared to other airline layouts and given the number of rows planned this should be possible with at least a 34-36″ pitch for EMS and 32″ for the regular economy seats.
JetBlue chose the Collins Aerospace Meridian seats and, while there is now a middle seat in the 3-2 layout on board, the seats are the widest in the fleet at 18.6″.
JetBlue also chose the Ultraleather seat covering for its A220 fleet. The material, produced by Ultrafabrics and finished for the aerospace market by Tapis Corporation, offers a mix of comfort, softness, flexibility, and safety unmatched in the market.
Upgraded IFE on the JetBlue A220
JetBlue will continue to offer in-seat entertainment at every seat. The Thales AVANT system on board features 10.1″ 1080p HD screens to screen 30 channels of live television plus hundreds of hours of on-demand content. The live TV includes DVR-like pause and rewind functionality for each passenger as well. The total channel selection is reduced from the older aircraft because the company transitioned to IP TV streams rather than a second satellite antenna on board pulling the DirecTV content straight from the satellite.
The IFE also includes picture-in-picture functionality and personal handheld device pairing to use as a remote or a gaming controller.
Each seat also includes three power ports. Attached to the screen is a USB-A port while beneath the seat passengers can access a 110V port or a 15 Watt USB-C outlet.
An “enhanced, 3D flight map” is also part of the new offering.
FlyFi Flies on the JetBlue A220
The JetBlue A220 will also include the latest version of the FlyFi in-flight wifi solution from Viasat. The newest Viasat hardware offers satellite connectivity nearly everywhere in the JetBlue network and that will only improve when the first ViaSat-3 satellite launches and enters service in the coming year or so.
While the AVANT system was installed as part of the seating work at the Airbus factory in Mobile the Viasat system is not available as a line-fit option for the A220. As a result the plane was delivered without the kit on board. The hardware is now ready for service, however, having been installed at the company’s JFK maintenance facility.
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Really looking forward to flying JetBlue A220s in the future. Hope they place a bunch on routes out of the D.C. area
DCA is an interesting challenge. With limited slots some airlines go after as many seats as they can get while others keep smaller planes and focus on higher yields. JetBlue doesn’t have the perimeter-exemption slots so range isn’t an issue and the 140/162 seat spread isn’t that high. Maybe we’ll see them on the BOS-DCA route early on, appealing to business travelers. Assuming business travel returns.
We flew JetBlue DCA-BOS for July 4th in 2019, so an A220 on that route would be peaches.
As someone frequently flying out of BOS and with family in the DCA area I certainly wouldn’t complain about that. 🙂
Booked on the flight, just waiting on B6 to load the A220’s into their system LOL.
Yeah, the fact that they’re not loaded yet is amusing. I’m guessing still pending the final test flights that are running so they don’t tempt fate with regulators. But they did put out the release…