JetBlue Airways (B6, New York JFK) has deferred plans to add four leased, second-hand A321-200s, which it announced in January 2020, but still expects to start taking A220-300s later this year, the airline said in its quarterly report.
The carrier said that in order to mitigate the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, it slashed USD1.1 billion in aircraft capital expenditures through 2022 by revising its Airbus order backlog.
"We negotiated a deal with Airbus to rationalize our order book. We appreciate their partnership in supporting a new delivery schedule that helps our efforts to protect JetBlue," Chief Financial Officer Steve Priest said during the quarterly earnings call.
The four ex-Thomas Cook Airlines UK A321-200s, msn 5582, 5606, 6059, and 6126, were due to be dry-leased from Aviation Capital Group.
According to its newly announced delivery schedule, JetBlue expects to take one A220-300 and seven A321-200neo in 2021. As of the end of 2019, it hoped to take one A220-300 and "a maximum of eleven A321neo". The latter type was affected by the manufacturer's delays - contractually Airbus was supposed to deliver up to twenty-one A321neo to JetBlue in 2020, including seven units overdue from 2019.
After the revisions, JetBlue said it expects seven A220-300s and ten A321neo (including five LRs) in 2021 - up by one and down by seven for the respective types in comparison to the December 2019 schedule. In 2022, the airline hopes to take eight A220-300s (no change) and seven A321neo(LR)s (down by eight).
According to the ch-aviation fleets advanced module, JetBlue has a total of seventy A220-300s, fifty-two A321neo, thirteen A321neo(LR)s, and eleven A321neo(XLR)s on firm order from Airbus.
The airline now expects to end 2020 with 267 aircraft (up by five compared to the current fleet): sixty E190s (no change), 130 A320-200s (no change), sixty-three A321-200s (no change), thirteen A321neo (up by four), and one A220-300 (new type).
JetBlue said that it remained "extremely excited" about the replacement of E190s with A220-300s despite the current crisis.
The carrier also said that it will most likely defer the launch of its planned transatlantic services to London beyond 2021, although it would not abandon the plan.
"We know we're going to emerge as a smaller airline. But we still see that opportunity albeit probably shifted back a little bit in terms of time," Chief Executive Robin Hayes said.