No Rest for the Weary: Virgin America Announces Florida Flights and JetBlue Follows

Yesterday, Virgin America announced new flights from Los Angeles (LAX) and San Francisco (SFO) to Fort Lauderdale (FLL) to begin on November 18th. Virgin's press release was officially dropped this morning.

Not to be outdone, today JetBlue announced new nonstop service from, guess where, SFO to FLL. (As an aside, JetBlue already offers FLL nonstops from Long Beach, just down The 405 from LAX) And just to make it fun, JetBlue will start the route one day sooner, on November 17th.

The dogfight continues...............

$14 Transcon Flights? Really? Yes.

JetBlue launched a sale of sales today on the JFK-SFO and SFO-Long Beach (LGB) routes with a fare of $14. Not misprint, not a fare error but an actual $14 transcon flight!

Don't get too excited as it is valid only on very very limited dates in early April but it is certainly a amazing deal.

But, is JetBlue taking a page out of the RyanAir playbook? We don't think so.

RyanAir is obviously famous for very low (like 1 Euro or even 1 cent) fares but RyanAir is also equally famous for loading up fees after the booking for everything from using a credit card to buy your ticket, checking in with an agent, checking a bag etc. JetBlue is quite the opposite - there are still free drinks and snacks, free Live TV and, as appears to be the point of this promotion, the first bag is still free. In fact, the major airlines are all charging more for the first bag than the airfare in this case - therein lies the point of this promotion.

JetBlue will undoubtedly generate huge buzz - a veritable public relations bonanza - while calling attention to their lack of checked baggage fees. All for a few plane loads of $14 fares.

We'll go ahead and call it a brilliant marketing move - finally a US airline is using actual fares as an integral part of the marketing message. Bravo JetBlue!